Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launches unlikely presidential bid as a Democrat

so why are people like Debbie Wasserman Schultz among other Dems calling him anti-Asian and anti-semitic for stating what scientific evidence points to, which is covid affects those groups less

yeah you live in a fantasy bubble

https://www.kennedy24.com/?locale=en

his views on things like gun safety and climate actually piss of many conservatives. literally the current nu-left has been programmed to hate him because of his vaccine stance, specifically with covid

 

no it would not handicap our country. the corrupt fed isn't the answer.

he has a reason for distrusting the feds after what they've done to his family too. people act like RFK Jr just came out of nowhere, without a track record for all the things he fought for in the past. kinda amazing honestly. 10 years ago people on the left would not be looking at him like this and he's held the same stances

 

It is worth considering the economics of war.

If a government can just poof money into existence, the war machine has a much longer leash.

If you couple that with a very government-embedded private industry that financially benefits from war, you can see where this goes.

This is the foundational principle of the military industrial complex.

War has and always will be around forever, but wars of 'choice' seem to be a lot easier to get going whenever you have unsound money financing it. I don't think wars like Afghanistan would have dragged on for 20+ years if we had to pay for it as we went, etc.

Under a sound money standard, investment in the military would have to be more prudent, so you could argue that the tools and systems of war may not be as super-duper cutting edge as they are, but I don't think it would put us in a position where we're not able to defend ourselves.

If a country is being attacked, it will marshal every resource under its control to defend itself, because the alternative is extinction. War bonds will be issued, loans will be taken out from friendly countries, etc.

 

Lol…. RFK is exactly the type of person to twist something into a conspiracy or an opportunist.

Conviction in fringe theories and using actual science to twist into conspiracy theories isn’t impressive but sad.

Lol. What does man made even mean? Like completely man made from the bottom up or just tweaked a bit?

….. just because something is possible doesn’t mean it’s what is happening……

Covid didn’t exactly propel China ahead of the US….

These types of theories appeal to a certain type or people and I don’t mean it in a positive way.

 

Some distrust of government is healthy, and people from all political heritages engage in skepticism of government in different ways. And sire he has some family history. Even if the government was not involved in the assassinations in his family, the response and the investigations got political in a way that was not helpful to the family. But that's not the sort of distrust I mean. One of the hallmarks of an American Democrat is the belief that government can organize a collective effort to tackle the nation's problems that will be more effective than whatever outcome you'd get if you simply left people to make their individual choices. Vaccination is a good example of that. By making vaccines simply available you might get a majority to partake, but by making a government program that makes it more or less compulsory you can get herd immunity and even eradicate diseases. RFK instead seems to adhere to the rugged individualist philosophy we've seen from Republicans, believing if you give people the freedom to choose then the invisible hand will drive us toward the best outcome and that even if the best outcome isn't achieved at least we'll have been free. Without opining on which philosophy is better (though you can probably guess what I think), I think it's obvious which camp RFK falls into. Vaccination choice is perhaps the low-hanging fruit, but his thing about fiat money, or his criticism of NATO expansion can be seen in that same framework.

I don't really think he's all that crazy or a bad guy or anything. He's had a good career where's he's done some good things. I just don't see him really square in a Democratic box (nor really on target in a Republican box either), and I really don't think he's the sort of guy I want to be president, and certainly not as a Democratic president.

Sure, given our financing system, we are more capable of engaging in imprudent and even evil wars. We have done many of those from Vietnam to Iraq. But I don't think the solution is to shift to a more primitive financing regimen in order to starve the beast of its ability to fight. There has been the occasional war (of choice, because the US hasn't really ever faced an existential threat except possibly the nuclear stare-down with the USSR) that turned out well, and plenty of other non-war initiatives (Marshall Plan, for example) that relied on sophisticated financing on fiat money to achieve American objectives. To me, suggesting we return to a hard currency is like a person who thinks he shouldn't go to college unless he can pay cash upfront for it. If you're smart, you finance the investments today that make sense, and it'll eventually pay for itself.

We do still have the problem of bad, elective wars. Well more than half of the wars we've waged were mistakes in hindsight. I'd like to address that so we make better decisions on such consequential stuff. But, I'd like to address it in leadership, not with financing.

 

Yawn….. he’s just grifting on the anti government and anti institutions populism….

Most of human history is without a federal reserve so we have a pretty good idea of how things are on the gold standard or hard currency…..

 

Again….. we have plenty of history to show war is pretty normal under a hard currency system. We had two consecutive wars under hard currency. Is there any actual evidence that there are more “wars of choice” now? Is Russia’s invasion because of fiat money?

It should be obvious that every type of money system has pros and cons. So while the US can just poof money into existence for its military/ war machine…. It can also do it for its infrastructure, climate change mitigation, Medicaid, Medicare, SSN, etc.

 

Again….. we have plenty of history to show war is pretty normal under a hard currency system. We had two consecutive wars under hard currency. Is there any actual evidence that there are more “wars of choice” now? Russia invasion due to fiat currency?

It should be obvious that every type of money system has pros and cons. So while the US can just poof money into existence for its military/ war machine…. It can also do it for its infrastructure, climate change mitigation, Medicaid, Medicare, SSN, etc.

 

That's interesting. I would love to get some insight as to what is so different about the districts here in Texas that my social and familial circle is in, and "normal" red voting districts.

Here are the "fantasy bubbles" that I socialize and live in:

-North Texas Tarrant & Denton County
-North Houston - Montgomery County, Spring/Woodlands
-South Houston - Pearland/Friendswood/Clear Lake
-Central Texas - Fayette County - LaGrange to Shiner to Columbus area

I'd love for you to share with me why these districts in Texas are such an abnormal voting block where there's obviously a large intersection of priorities politically that animate voters to see RFK Jr. as a likeminded figurehead in politics?

There's alot on his website to debate over for sure, but let me make this simple comparison from the recent past. Tulsi Gabbards 2020 campaign webpage was almost a carbon copy of Bernie Sanders' agenda. Universal Healthcare was a central focus....

... Yet months later, she was soooo incredibly aligned with the Democratic party that FoxNews was letting her guest host for Tucker Carlson.

The Campaign Webpage and what the candidate is actually talking about on the campaign trail, and in the media are two different things. Yes a candidate SHOULD be sticking to what's on their website, but history shows that's not always the case.

The fact is the things he does talk about frequently, and the things that animate him the most (anti-vax, "cancel culture", etc.) directly speak to the heart of what MAGA voters I know in 2023 are animated by. The MAGA voters I know.... when it comes down to policy issues.... actually do side with Democrats on policy. THAT IS WHY REPUBLICANS RUN ON CULTURE WARS. They know their policies of tax breaks for rich people, pollution promotion, for profit healthcare only, etc. etc. are unpopular policy positions.

RFK Jr. is popular with MAGA folks because Culture trumps (pardon the reference) policy.

 

it's not the entire voting block, but the people you choose to interact with.

show examples with RFK differing from his website then, similar to what you said happened with Tulsi.

 

Like I said, war will always be here. Resources are finite so conflict is inevitable. Hard money doesn't fix that nor does it aim or purport to.

Looks like it to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_armed_conflicts_involving_the_United_States

There's no amount of good we can do on fiat that we cannot do as good or better with hard currency.

 

Gold is primitive. Something like BTC is very much not.

Also, I reject your framing. It's not starving it of its ability, its starving it of its desire.

I don't doubt this is true but I'd appreciate some examples. In any case, I cannot see it as justification for an inferior monetary system.

As I said to dmoney, there is no amount of good we can accomplish with fiat that we cannot accomplish as good or better with sound money.

Bad analogy, IMO. Soft money is the line of credit, not the expense itself. Credit still exists in a hard money world, fyi, it's just more prudent and not limitless therefore encouraging negative outcomes.

People don't change systems, systems change people. If you want to stop the wreckless behavior, you have to change the rules and incentives that produce/demand/create it. Waiting for Superman to show up is a fool's game.

 

And yet you said it was worth looking into…..it was clear to me you were just looking at a reason to hate on fiat.

A list without context or comparisons between the Roman Empire, Spanish Empire, French Empire, and British Empire …..

Lol….. amazing

Yawn…. You are so biased that you can’t see any good….

 

And yet you said it was worth looking into…..it was clear to me you were just looking at a reason to hate on fiat.

A list without context or comparisons between the Roman Empire, Spanish Empire, French Empire, and British Empire …..

Yawn…. You are so biased that you can’t see any good….

 

What? Are you suggesting that in order for an alternative monetary standard to be worthwhile it has to promise world peace...?

Start at 1950 and work your way forward. Whether these things were net 'good' or 'voluntary' is always debatable but IMO it's an obvious trend.

Re-read what I said.

You can accomplish good with fiat, but the problem is A) it's much more prone to accomplishing the notsogood since the incentive structure doesn't encourage prudence and B) whatever good can be accomplished with fiat could also be accomplished without it, so the argument is moot from the word go.

 

Ummm... you don't choose your family. Also ask BigTexx, Astrodome, or any of the other right wingers here if you think that I would CHOOSE to be around MAGA voters all day every day. I live in Texas. If I chose to only be around lefties all day every day I would have like 30% of the friends we have no, would have to force my daughter to not be friends with her friends so I didn't have to hang around with their parents, and would have disown my family that I love.

He doesn't have to differ from his platform points if he's not talking about 90% of them. Tulsi never talked about Universal Healthcare because she spent 99% of her time talking about how Hillary & the "Establishment" are war mongers. Therefore MAGA voters thought she was awesome. It's the same with RFK Jr. They don't care that he wants to clean up toxic waste for an environmental policy.

What animates them is hatred of vaccine mandates, and conspiracy theories about the secret society using vaccines for their evil plots. That is an animating Right Wing position right now, and if you take that position, you will never have a substantive debate with the voters on things like environmental policy or what not. You are in the same fantasyland of crazy.

I don't know how I can be more clear here, and feel like I'm talking to a wall of denial. RFK JR. (IF HE'S THIRD PARTY), pulls more likely Trump voters than Democratic voters. If he's truly running as a Democrat... good luck in the primary. It's a Democracy so anyone and everyone should run as either a Republican or Democrat, and the best candidate should get the nomination. I don't really care about RFK running as a Democrat. If he wins the nomination great... I'll likely vote for him over Trump. As a third party spoiler though, it's a completely different situation. If you run as a liberal with popular liberal ideas (see Ralph Nader... or maybe Cornell West this cycle)... you'll likely pull away Democratic voters, and help the Republican. If you are a third party candidate running on anti-vax conspiracy theories.... guess what..... you'll HELP the Democratic candidate and pull likely Trump voters away from Trump.

This isn't that complicated of a situation. RFK... is popular among Republicans.




Need I say more than this picture already shows???

 

Sounds like we'd need to take the issues of war out of the conversation and just talk about the merits of hard vs fiat money. But that idea makes me feel suddenly very tired. Not sure I'd really bother unpacking that question all over again just for RFK's sideshow presidential run.

 

It's pretty damn complicated and the rabbit hole is deep. But yeah, money determines how the world goes round (and the bullets fly), so it's worth spending time on.

The cool thing is it's never wasted energy thinking about it, because it affects just about everything.

 

Lol. You are the one who said it was worth looking into…

Again…. Without actually comparing how the dominant great power of the era acted… How can one say the US is more war like, much less it is due to fiat money….

How so? A feature of hard currency is that you can’t just go poof and make money appear to deal with an issue. I can also argue that hard currency held back a lot of progress.

Things were far more boom and bust.

 

A sickening image.

RFK Junior's own sister (and this is an example of what you and most Democrats/progressive Texans have to deal with when the subject of politics comes up with conservative relatives or old friends who happen to be Republicans, and I include myself as a Democrat) has said she loves her brother, he's her brother, and then denounced what he says about numerous issues. This is from The Hill:

RFK Jr.’s sister condemns ‘deplorable and untruthful’ remarks about COVID, ethnic targeting
BY OLAFIMIHAN OSHIN - 07/17/23 3:28 PM ET

Kerry Kennedy, the sister of Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has publicly condemned her brother’s recent remarks on COVID-19 and ethnic targeting.

“I strongly condemn my brother’s deplorable and untruthful remarks last week about Covid being engineered for ethnic targeting,” Kennedy said in a statement Monday through her family’s nonprofit organization, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights.

Kerry Kennedy, the president of the nonprofit organization named after her late father, added that her brother’s remarks don’t align with what the group advocates for.

“His statements do not represent what I believe or what Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights stand for, with our 50+ - year track record of protecting rights and standing against racism and all forms of discrimination.”

RFK Jr. is facing mounting criticism from Democratic leaders after the New York Post reported that Kennedy made repeated, unsubstantiated and offensive conspiracy theories about COVID-19.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campai...ruthful-remarks-about-covid-ethnic-targeting/