So...having many political friends, it's inevitable I have a lot of Hillary supporting friends. Not everyone is going to see politics exactly my way or have my ideology, and peoples' levels of tolerance of Hillary's BS is different, whatever.
But I see a lot of these people engage in extremely nasty attacks on Stein. In light of recent comments about the media and her science positions on her last Reddit AMA, some people are even saying she's worse than Trump.
Okay. I admit. I don't like everything Stein says, or does. Heck, the only reason I am supporting her is because of the 4 candidates on the ballot she's the only one I remotely like. Trump is a moron, Hillary is crooked (and a centrist), and Johnson has horrible views on economics. Stein is, unfortunately, with Bernie gone, the closest representation of my politics, and that's the only reason I support her. She says and does a lot of stupid things, I admit that. But at the same time, a lot of these criticisms are widely exaggerated, and these latest attacks I've been hearing saying she's worse than Trump are ridiculous.
These attacks have been made in two respects. First, criticism of the media. John oliver recently ran a fairly comical hit piece on her, and she basically said something that the media is "oppressive" toward her. Okay, honestly....you're gonna get criticized by the media if you're running for president. Everyone is. Even our lord and savior and next emperor in chief, Hillary Clinton ('member the nonstop coverage of Benghazi against her? 'member?) gets attacked by the media. On the other hand, yes, there are a lot of media hit pieces that are inaccurate, and third parties generally get crapped on. Stein really gets it bad because she's often summarily written off as being anti science and a kook who believes in healing crystals or something.
But let's compare her statements, which involve merely criticizing the media's portrayal of her and answering accusations, to Trump. Trump wants to sue people who disagree with him and make certain accusations against him. Not only does Trump blast the media for the portrayal of him, he threatens to take legal action against them, being so thin skinned. He reminds me of John Adams trying to muzzle his media critics via the Alien and Sedition Acts back in the day. Scary. No. Jill Stein isn't even close to being worse than Donald Trump.
And let's move onto Stein's positions on science. She tends to get flak for wanting to investigate whether wifi hurts kids. It should be noted it's not really her position that wifi does hurt kids, just that there are questions about it. Now, I don't endorse this position, I think she's wrong on the issue. But still, not as bad as you would think. She also gets flak for her nuclear energy position, which I also largely disagree with. I mean, I don't think it's a huge issue, her being against nuclear energy, but she's likely wrong on it. And of course, she got flak for being "anti vax" in the past, although she debunked this one outright.
Generally speaking, most of Stein's "anti science" positions seem to be positions of skepticism toward the status quo. In a lot of cases, she beleives that profit making entities taint the scientific method with their profit motives, similar to how there was once a conspiracy by the fossil fuel industry to squash the fact that leaded gasoline was harmful to people, or how smoking causes cancer, and believes that on some issues, we need investigation to prove they're safe. You can agree or disagree with her positions all you want. I do myself, actually. I don't agree with Stein on everything. I actually disagree with her on quite a lot in this respect. However, I can at least understand where she's coming from.
Trump, on the other hand, believes that global warming is a Chinese hoax. He actually does appear to believe that vaccines cause autism, a criticism leveled at Stein but are untrue in her case. But here's Trump peddling that myth, plain as day. Then you have Mike Pence who pushes for the harmful practice of "gay conversion therapy." And honestly, let's not forget that the GOP has been peddling a lot of harmful myths related to the Christian religion for decades now. Being against recognizing global warming. Advocating for creation science, gay conversion therapy, etc.
Look, Jill Stein is far from perfect. I'd even go so far to say on a lot of science issues, she's pretty darned dumb. She's not a great candidate in this respect. But honestly, to even equate her with the republican party and Donald Trump is outrageous. No. She's not worse than Trump. Not even freaking close. Please note that I haven't even discussed the full extent of every bad thing Trump has done all election. I ain't even gonna do that, it would take too long. The guy puts his foot in the mouth and says and does dumb things DAILY. Really, there's no comparison between Trump and Stein. Trump is worse in every possible way. By all rights the guy should not be running for president. Arguably Stein isn't a really a good candidate either due to her inexperience and naivete, but at least she has some brain cells to work with, and seems willing to learn. It's ridiculous to even compare the two, really. Stein's flaws are very very minor compared to Trump's. Stein's flaws can even be overlooked, in my opinion, considering the state of the democratic party, and the Clinton campaign, which gets exposed as being more and more corrupt on a daily basis (now Donna Brazile, the interim head of the DNC after DWS resigned, is under fire for leaking questions to Clinton). I mean, really. This whole election is one big cluster**** and I just want it to end already. With Bernie gone there is no ideal candidate here, and you're gonna be stuck with some fundamental flaws no matter who you vote for.
There was also the attack on Stein over having a mutual fund, which is almost comical in how biased media outlets are against her, especially considering that Clinton has a much bigger fund, and even I didn't care about it on the Clinton end of things. Granted, it is a little bit hypocritical that she didn't pursue a socially responsible one, but it's not especially unusual for a couple of career physicians to accumulate that kind of money over the course of 25 years.
ReplyDeleteStein is regrettably quite politically inexperienced and naive, which is unfortunate, as I think just about any idea she has outside of the pseudoscience pandering ones have a lot of potential. Hopefully she can pass on ideas to next generation progressive candidates (preferably, less radicalism, and more policy wonkery).