I have never voted for my representative, Collin Peterson.
Peterson is a co-founder of the Blue Dog Coalition, the caucus of moderate House Democrats, and is known for his conservatism. He’s anti-abortion, opposed to embryonic stem cell research, against same-sex marriage and supports the death penalty. He is also avidly anti-gun control.
I can’t stand the guy. Look at that list: he opposes everything I favor. So every time I’ve had to go into the voting booth, I look at his name, and his opponent (who is always something worse), and I just leave it blank. I’m not voting for him or a Republican.
But I might have to change my habits, hold my nose, and punch that ballot in the future. Not only is Peterson endorsing Bernie Sanders, but the Republicans are getting increasingly vile.
Chad Hartman: I would say this sir, I think you are genuine in what you want [but] I don’t think a lot of these people want the help you are offering. I would say this you have talked about the issue of sexuality and have caused plenty of criticism. I just want to ask you if you still stand by what you said a few years ago that homosexuality is unhealthy sexual addiction. Do you still stand by that?
Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen:Yes I do, and I know — I have friends who are homosexual, and I have friends who are former homosexuals, okay? So it is uh — you know the CDC — the Centers for Disease Control — which is not a right-wing organization, I think we can all agree on that — recently came out with the report that we have between 65 and 100 million Americans that have an STD. 65 to 100 million. We’re approaching one third of our population has an STD.
Hartman: Many heterosexuals obviously…
Gruenhagen:This whole concept of promiscuity outside the bond of marriage is not working out real well, and people say, “Well, that’s a social issue.” Do you understand the billions and billions of dollars in health care costs those diseases brings?
Hartman: You are telling the millions of people in this country who are homosexual — and the rest of their lives are no different than me or yours — but that the reason they have described themselves as homosexual is because they have an unhealthy sexual addiction?
Gruenhagen:Yeah you can go on the internet and there’s treatment for sexual addictions right here in Minnesota, whether it’s pornography or unhealthy sexual behavior. You can receive treatment for that and be free from those compulsions.
OMG. The Republicans are making Collin Peterson look liberal! And compelling me to <choke> compromise!
You can’t vote write-in?
Well, if he’s that concerned about “promiscuity outside the bond of marriage”, then surely he views marriage equality as a positive step towards combating it, right?
Many states don’t allow write-ins, mine included, so this doesn’t surprise me.
Hmmm, which should I vote for, bad, worse or horrible?
Not a one of the above, even if I have to write someone in.
For eventually, we compromise ourselves into extinction and that is something I shall never, ever do.
Amazing. So the CDC is reporting that sexual diseases are transmitted only by active promiscuous homosexuals? And that the number of cases and the size of the cost for health care has transformed this from a social problem into an “addiction” problem that can only be solved by eliminating homosexuality? And he knows this can be done because he has searched on the internet and found people who are willing to sell treatment to turn homosexuals into former homosexuals? And Mr. Gruenhagen knows that this works because he has friends who tell him every detail about their sex lives, desires, compulsions, and fantasies?
It’s nice to know that Mr. Gruenhagen is fighting his internet addiction by having such deeply intimate conversations with his friends; but Mr. “Blue Dog” Peterson is anti-abortion, opposed to embryonic stem cell research, against same-sex marriage and supports the death penalty. And the reasoning that brought Mr. Peterson to these positions is better than that of Mr. Gruenhagen.. How?
But isn’t Sanders an America-hating socialist who wants to take all your guns away so that he can force you all to have taxpayer-funded homosexual abortions at gunpoint?
@Rich, why is it that I can actually expect to hear those words uttered in a serious vein by some people on the far right?
Nevermind, small minds are easy to predict. ;)
Seriously, this is a case of “Vote for me, I’m slightly less bad”, as if bad is desirable.
In reality, one is accepting one form of stage four cancer over another, while both are equally harmful.
Weird that a Blue Dog would endorse Sanders, but I guess he wanted to be on the winning (in Minnesota) side.
I don’t know where he got those numbers. I just went to the CDC STD site, and I didn’t see a total for all STDs, but I did see these numbers for the year 2014:
Chlamydia; 1,441,789
Gonorrhea: 350,062
Syphilis (primary and secondary): 19,999
Syphilis (congenital): 458
TOTAL 1,812,308
Assuming this rate holds steady, it would take 35.9 YEARS to add up to 65 million, let alone 100 million. Does nobody ever get cured? Or, could it be possible a Republican politician is lying out his ass?
One good reason to compromise is that we need Democrats holding more of the down-ballot offices if we are going to make any headway when it comes to things like adjusting the Republican gerrymandered voting districts, voting for Supreme Court nominees, raising the minimum wage, taking action on global warming, passing immigration reform, protecting the voting rights of all citizens, etc.
I’ve seen some nasty political candidates in my time. I follow Dan Savage’s advice:
Can I just say I will vote for Blue Dog Democrats if I have to and consider it less evil, and a step (baby step) in the right direction.
You should do what was famously suggested here in France some years ago, when Jean-Marie Le Pen, indisputably a facist (and who, not coincidentally, has recently “endorsed” teh trum-prat) defeated the Socialist candidate (Lionel Jospin) in the first round. The second round — the winner of which would become the President of France — was then between the rightwing Jacques Chirac and the extreme rightwing nutjob, Le Pen. Since it was obvious that to keep Le Pen out, you had to vote Chirac, the suggestion was to literally wear a clothespin on your nose when you voted.
That — wearing a clothespin — might apply when voting “for” Peterson, not because you approve of his policies in any way, but to try and keep out a far worse option, Gruenhagen(or whoever).
Voting “for” someone you don’t support to reduce the possibility of an even more horrible candidate winning is called tactical voting. Tactical voting while wearing a clothespin on yer nose symbolically & sarcastically makes clear what it is going on.
I feel the clothespin-on-nose tactical voting should be done if the Presidental general election is Clinton vs trum-prat(or crud). You have to keep both trum-prat and crud out (indeed, any of the probable thugs), so the only realistic possibility is to vote “for” whoever the dummies candidate is, even if it is the warmongering Wall Street tool Clinton. Clinton is a physically-wear-a-clothespin candidate, awful, but — if she is the dummies’s candidate — the only possible choice to prevent a total meltdown.
As it so happens, the New Yorker has a recent article on the Chirac clothespin voting, The Clothespin Campaign: A French History Lesson For Anti-Trump Republicans: “When Jean-Marie Le Pen reached the final round of the French Presidential election, in 2002, against the right-centrist Jacques Chirac, Socialists joined respectable conservatives in a ‘republican front’ to insure Le Pen’s defeat.”
Unfortunately, you don’t get to vote on whether or not you have cancer. Reality is depressing like that sometimes … most of the time.
Voting for the lesser evil means you get less evil. Unless you’re evil, that is what you want. It’s not “ideal,” like basically anything else in the world, but that doesn’t mean it’s not “desirable.” If you’re thirsty, a small cup of lukewarm water is better than nothing (or better than shit being flung into your mouth by a conservative asshat, to stretch the analogy a little). That’s desirable, even if it’s not ideal or not as desirable as a big container of ice water with some fancy equipment and servants for dispensing it to you in the most convenient and pleasant way you can imagine. And if instead of that you’d rather have a nice cold glass of lemonade … well, sometimes we’re just out of lemonade. So what are you going to do, when you simply don’t have choices like that? It won’t help to wish some lemonade into existence. What then?
One can still write in one’s vote, with a robust write-in ballot campaign, one may avoid evil altogether.
For, in reality, one is getting a choice between urine and excrement in a glass, while one is dying of thirst and neither will rehydrate.
But Democrats like this asshole won’t be especially helpful in that regard, if we’re being completely honest and transparent about it. We’d like people who are actually fairly progressive holding those offices and making those decisions, not simply people with a “D” next to their names. But if he would make ever-so-slightly better decisions than the others he’s running against (don’t know much about him or whoever his opponents would be, maybe that’s not true), then the “less evil” strategy is still working as intended. It’s not a great reason, but it is enough of a reason. And as usual, that’s better than doing stuff for no coherent reason at all.
The chances of that happening are so tiny that it’s not worth mentioning. On the other hand, the chances that a candidate is in one way or another slightly better than their competitors is very high. You could do something which takes minimal effort to get the better one into office, or you could do whatever random crap that comes into your head which has no reasonable chance of being effective. You can complain about your choices if that makes you feel better, but there’s just no reasonable case to be made here.
Then in reality, your choices all result in you being dehydrated. Maybe you’ll die of thirst. That can happen. If you want to write-in “Clean Cold Water,” you’re free to do so, but it’s not actually going to appear out of nowhere.
Interesting defeatism, as we elected our state representative via write-in. Twice. Then the state and county parties started to cooperate.
I guess we should’ve settled for the tea party alternative.
Yikes!! I couldn’t vote for Petersen. Just cannot vote for someone who is that Rightwing even if he’s a Democrat. I’d just sit out that election.
P.S. I wish the Democratic Party would not have candidates who are anti-marriage equality, anti-choice and anti sensible gun control reform. I understand that we are the “big tent” party, but our party doesn’t have to include those who restrict rights (sexual, reproductive, etc.).
As I see it, the main concern in this case is which party controls the House? If there’s a chance that the Democrats will wina majority, and therefore will control the committees, the speakership, and the agenda (and I’ve seen indications that that may happen if Trump wins the nomination), then I’d say vote for the Bluedog. Otherwise? Meh….
Why? You had an alternative that worked.
As you said previously, the alternative was ROBUST. Hugely important qualifier that.
Assuming Clinton is the dummie candidate, a write-in campaign for, say, Sanders, would presumably split the dummie and anti-thug vote. That might block the thug, but unless there is a clear-cut 538(?) votes in the electoral college, it doesn’t mean the thug, or Clinton, won’t win. In the general electon, this hypothetical robust write-in needs to ensure 538+ electoral college votes.
And suppose Sanders is not nominated but endorses Clinton? Or is her choice for VP? Or endorses Clinton, and/or says “Please do not write me in!”?
Wear a clothespin if necessary, but be absolutely certain the thug doesn’t win the general, and cannot win the electoral college.
That isn’t what the blog was speaking of, or is Peterson a candidate for POTUS?
A write-in for POTUS, that’d not be robust, it’d require insane dedication on the part of nearly every man and woman in the land.
For POTUS, there is sticking with the candidate that you want, polls be damned.
One of my favorite POTUS election photos:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/28/Deweytruman12.jpg
HPV is an STD that affects the majority of sexually active people at some point in their life — or at least did until the vaccine came out. That would make the asshat’s numbers add up.
I presume the asshat is not in favour of universal HPV vaccination.
Quite interesting, 79 million adults are infected with HPV currently and estimates are 14 million newly infected each year.
When did those numbers equal 320 million?
http://www.cdc.gov/std/hpv/stdfact-hpv.htm
But, it’s nice to know that he doesn’t care about 11 million women a year contracting cervical cancer. I guess he wants the number to rise to 110 million or something, rather than immunize against communicable disease.
I’m willing to bet $1000 of Larry Flynt’s money that Rep. Gruenhagen currently has a mistress.
Many very nasty diseases are transmitted by shaking hands. That is a clear sign that handshaking is an abomination unto The Lord. Nowhere in the Bible does it say “Go unto him and give him a firm, hearty handshake.” And so HSTDs are God’s punishment for promiscuous handshaking.
And you know who the most promiscuous handshakers are? Politicians, of course.
Fight the scourge of HSTDs! Just say no to handshaking!
Indeed, under a very similar principle, I refuse to shake a politician’s hand.
Their shit might rub off on me.
What a Maroon,
As someone vehemently opposed to having to shake hands with people, I endorse this. And I am stealing it, and telling everyone who thrusts a hand out at me from now on that handshaking is an abomination before their lord. It is so. I read it on the Internet.
I’ve shaken the hand of my state senator (his wife was running for alderman in my district, and the incumbent alderman was/is long overdue for retirement), who happen to share a desk with another state senator in Springfield. That state senator later became POTUS. (2 degrees of separation.)
roachiesmom,
While your at it, remind them to make a donation to the Church of the Perpetual Fist Bump.
Um, you’re.
@9 moarscienceplz
Like a couple of others on this thread have said, HPV infection rates are quite high. Also, herpes is staggeringly common nowadays if you include oral herpes. So if anything, his estimate is quite significantly lower than the true number (not that this makes his argument any more rational).
As for the general point of “blue dog” Democrats, pragmatically speaking, as long as there are few enough of them that they don’t significantly impact Democratic policy, and assuming they behave in a partisan way, not “voting their conscience,” I see no big issue voting for them. Even if their GOP opponent is more liberal than they are, I would go with the “blue dog,” because a liberal Republican holds about as much power to move the party left as a “blue dog” has to move the Democrats right (maybe even less). Right now, the USA lacks a true, mainstream leftist party, and both main parties have every interest of keeping the status q
@9 moarscienceplz
Like a couple of others on this thread have said, HPV infection rates are quite high. Also, herpes is staggeringly common nowadays if you include oral herpes. So if anything, his estimate is quite significantly lower than the true number (not that this makes his argument any more rational).
As for the general point of “blue dog” Democrats, pragmatically speaking, as long as there are few enough of them that they don’t significantly impact Democratic policy, and assuming they behave in a partisan way, not “voting their conscience,” I see no big issue voting for them. Even if their GOP opponent is more liberal than they are, I would go with the “blue dog,” because a liberal Republican holds about as much power to move the party left as a “blue dog” has to move the Democrats right (maybe even less).
Right now, it really sucks that the USA lacks a true, mainstream leftist party, and both main parties have every interest of maintaining the status quo. But I could stomach the situation more if the Democrats were less interested in compromise, and more willing to be socialists. I mean, the GOPeople will accuse them of being socialists either way, so why not live up to their expectations! I really hope that Bernie Sanders will have a lasting impact on his party, that others will be inspired by his success and realise that there are enough people out there who want a socialist government and who will reliably turn out on election day for whoever runs on such a platform.
Is it possible to contract an STD from a rectally sourced statistic?
One would most certainly get something from whatever someone pulls out of their ass. As to whether it is an STD or something else would depend upon a lot of TMI. :)
All of you are forgetting something very important.
The D after the name really matters. Every D is one step closer to a Democratic majority in the house.
If you vote for the Democrat, even if you don’t like him, you’re voting for Nancy Pelosi or another Democrat to be Speaker instead of Paul Ryan. You’re voting for the Science committee not to be chaired by a global warming denier. You’re voting against nuisance subpoenas issued against prominent Democrats.
If you don’t vote for the Democrat, you’re effectively voting for Ryan to be speaker, Jim Inhofe to head the science committee, etc. This matters. A lot.
wzrd1 #22
Thanks, I learned something new today. So, I guess the Republican politician didn’t lie about that. Broken clocks…
I don’t understand this sentence. I don’t see where anybody used that number.
Did the numbers he stated reflect either the actual number of STD cases in the US or even the full population of the US?
Indeed, the numbers don’t even resemble reality, when politicians of either party discuss them, but with GOP types, the numbers don’t match any permutation possible in this universe.
Here are real stats:
http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats/
sc whatever at 34,
Um, that’s pretty much what I said @ 18.
This seems appropriate.
I’m just pixels on the intertubes and not American but I totally endorse the candidate at Ambidexter’s link.
All youse Yanks should write that in.
The guy interviewing him makes a couple of good points that he completely ignores. First, heterosexuals most likely contribute just as much to the STD pandemic as homosexuals do. Singling out gay people as being uniquely prone to STDs is disingenuous, especially considering that I’m pretty sure that lesbians are less prone to STDs than straight couples. Besides, if gay people were to follow the same “only have monogamous sex once you’re married” plan that he wants, they would also avoid STDs. After all, STDs aren’t just spontaneously generated when two previously uninflected gay people have sex, they’re caught from gay people that already have them. That makes it seem like legalizing gay marriage would actually cut down on the STD rate in gay people.
Second, the interviewer points out that calling homosexuality an abnormal sex addiction is flawed because the idea of gay people being inherently more promiscuous than straight people is just a crude stereotype. I doubt that the average gay person has any more sex than the average straight person, and I doubt that there’s any truth to the idea that gay people are prone to performing more extreme fetishes or the like than straight people.