OK,
now we have some specific examples, and then a general dislike of the Republican party and what you perceive that it stands for - I'll stick with the specifics and data. On the issue of climate change and pollution, and which nations are the major contributors, here's what I found. According to the International Energy Agency, these are the top 20 highest emitters of cumulative carbon dioxide in 2016:
1 China 9056.8MT
2 United States 4833.1MT
3 India 2076.8MT
4 Russian Federation 1438.6MT
5 Japan 1147.1MT
6 Germany 731.6MT
7 South Korea 589.2MT
8 Islamic Republic of Iran 563.4MT
9 Canada 540.8MT
10 Saudi Arabia 527.2MT
11 Indonesia 454.9MT
12 Mexico 445.5MT
13 Brazil 416.7MT
14 South Africa 414.4MT
15 Australia 392.4MT
16 United Kingdom 371.1MT
17 Turkey 338.8MT
18 Italy 325.7MT
19 Poland 293.1MT
20 France 292.9MT
Not exactly a collection of right wing governments, I'd say.
What about plastic pollution? According to a report from the
Ocean Conservancy and the McKinsey Center for Business and Environment, between 10 and 30 billion pounds of plastic is floating around in the world’s oceans, and more than half of it comes from just five countries: China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Again, not exactly far right, or even right leaning governments.
Now, all of that is NOT to shoot down your dislike and/or anger at what's being done, or not done, by Republican politicians in the U.S. as far as climate change is concerned. But it is to point out that while
"right wing governments around the world refuse to accept the consensus" may be true, they are not the greatest contributors to the issue. Most of what I see on both lists are centrist, or actually left wing/socialist/communist governments.
As for the anti-vaxxers, I wasn't aware that those people are necessarily Republican or even right wing. In fact, some in the left wing Hollywood crowd jumped on board that "movement" years ago, as they bought into various conspiracy theories. But I don't know much about those folks. While you can say that they are an example of backwardness, I'm really not aware that most Americans pay much attention to them.
Look, these are apparently
specific issues that legitimately bother you, and no one said that you were wrong in being bothered by them. But what I did say (in my initial post) was that Americans are more concerned and focused on issues relating to their
immediate needs. Here's a
dynamic chart which you may find interesting. But to sum it up:
- Thirty percent of Americans say the economy is the most important issue when determining how they’ll vote for president in 2020. Other key considerations include immigration (19 percent), health care (18 percent) and national security (18 percent).
- A slim majority of respondents believe Biden (46 percent) would do a better job handling the economy than Trump (44 percent). It was essentially a toss-up for the two politicians when factoring in the survey’s 3 percent margin of error. Biden was more favored to handle other key issues, especially health care and immigration.
- Respondents 55 and older were more likely to say health care was the most important issue when choosing a president in 2020. And they tended to think Biden would do a better job of handling the issue compared with President Trump.
- Women said Biden would better handle key political issues, including the economy (54 percent), health care (63 percent), national security (58 percent), immigration (57 percent) and issues that affect your personal financial situation (56 percent). Men generally favored Trump to handle those issues.
So, it's the economy that matters more... and that's how it's been throughout my lifetime.
That issue is what gets people to pull this or that lever more than any other issue, most of the time. Other polls may show other topics further down the line (the environment fell into "something else" here), but the top ones will remain roughly the same.
These groups are trying to drag us into a new dark age, one with serious, life or death consequences that we as a species could be dealing with for a very long time. It cannot be allowed to happen, but it is happening, and what I wanted to talk about, before you came in here to tell me I'm ridiculous, is how do we stop this regression, without a war, and without oppressing large groups of the population, when there are people who absolutely refuse to accept any sort of reality that conflicts with their own, no matter how stark and clear?
If they can't be coerced, and we don't want to force them, what other options are there? That's what I wanted to talk about.
OK, I was admittedly a bit pointed in how I expressed my initial objections, and that led to some unpleasantness. So I'll apologize. I'm not here to "play the dozens" these days. But in short, while you may feel that you, or someone, needs to do something about these situations that bother you (without war, oppression or coercion), I just see no evidence that there are enough people who feel the way that you do, at least not with the same level of "passion", to worry about any sort of violent conflict. That's not me being mean to you, but it is what it is... or isn't. County by county, we're dealing with a Second Amendment Sanctuary movement in my state right now. Some Democrat lawmaker has made comments about the governor having the power to call in the National Guard. :eek: Now
that could turn into a nasty dustup if people don't calm their tempers before something silly happens.
Both sides need to cool their tits.
P.S. I voted for Obama twice. The first time was an anti Palin vote, plus I thought that he was a centrist who could lead us out of that horrible economic downturn (BC and I had a long running dogfight about that, BTW). The second time was an anti Romney vote because in a "previous life", I've known (and hated) private equity vultures. I still believe that had Mitch McConnell and the Repubs worked with him early on in the first term, the nation would have been MUCH better off MUCH faster, and he *may* not have made that pandering dive to the left in his second term. Or, maybe that's who he really was. With politicians, you can never be sure.
Anyway... :hatsoff: