Fluoridation fails in Portland by 20-point margin: "For any avid readers who have read our coverage of the fluoride wars, we now have results on the latest battle: Portland has rejected fluoridated water by a 20-point margin, with 60 percent of voters against and 40 percent in favor.
This was, according to the Oregonian, the fourth time the city has voted against fluoridation since 1956. The vote makes Portland one of the largest American cities not to fluoridate its water supply, second only to San Jose. Over-under on when we’ll have a Portlandia episode on the subject? I’m guessing next season."
'via Blog this'
So much for the left being pro-science. There are reasons a person could reject fluoridation other than the fact that its a chemical. But that's not what I observed in this campaign. Or in the left's resistance to vaccines.
5 comments:
A quick scorecard of where groups are in disagreement with mainstream science:
Conservatives
- global warming
- evolution/creationism in the classroom
Liberals
- vaccinations
- gmos (including a general distrust of all things "unnatural")
Are these just manifestations of pro/anti business ideals?
I guess you could explain global warming as just pro-business philosophy vs. anti-business philosophy, but I don't see how that explains the intelligent design debate.
I do think that most political arguments are rooted in philosophical debates. We talk about these issues like we are debating facts, when really we are just cobbling facts around our prior philosophical position.
It's hard for me to put my finger on the underlying root philosophy that drives these debates. I think its something deeper (or other) than pro v. anti-business that drives that dichotomy.
It's been postulated that the left thinks humans are basically good/loving, and the right thinks they are basically evil/self-interested. Or to put it the was Thomas Sowell does in his book, the left believes humans are "unconstrained" whereas the right believes they are "constrained." I think that's a good starting place, but I'm not sure that's exactly right, either.
Individualism v. collectivism is a another way the philosophical debate is phrased. I think that's partially right, but I don't think it's entirely accurate, either. that's a description of attitudes towards government, but not about life generally, I don't think.
I've also wondered if the real division has something to do with belief in God. But of course, most of the left professes belief in God, so that's not a great help unless their professed belief is either disingenuous or a belief that is different in some qualitative way.
I could see opposition to vaccinations and gmos being conflated with opposition to big business as well. But yes, intelligent design doesn't seem to fit.
Maybe republican and democratic political stances are more piecemeal than a completely consistent application of a philosophy/belief system. A certain powerful group has a dog in the fight and eventually the party toes the line. Certainly there are common threads of thought to many of party's stances, but I wonder how often that is not the case.
I definitely agree that there is a lot of what I would call "tribalism" in politics i.e., elevating loyalty above principle. For example, there used to be pro-life democrats, but almost all were eventually cowed into following the party line. There are probably similar examples in the Republican party.
Still, I think one of the reasons we divide along these lines is because beliefs about certain political issues clump together. Like once I know a person's position on 2 or 3 issues, I can usually accurately predict their positions on a host of other issues without asking.
Having said that, one of the things that I like about libertarianism is it provides a framework that provides internally consistent answers to political issues. (not that other political philosophies necessarily don't . . .)
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