If you haven’t seen Rachel Maddow’s interview with Oregon Republican candidate for Congress Art Robinson, you need to stop whatever you are doing and watch it.
It is about 20 minutes long. Here is part one. And then part two. Yes, 20 minutes is a long time for a YouTube video and you’ve got lots of things you’d rather do- but you need to see this. Art Robinson is an absolute crank and has no business being a major party candidate.
Why is he a crank? He runs an eight man “Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.” His children are included among the eight. Among the crank pseudo-science he promulgates with his organization are such inanities as:
- There is a process known as “hormesis” that makes radiation healthy for human beings. Therefore, there is no problem dealing with nuclear waste. It should be ground up and spread into the ocean or, better yet, used as insulation in your home. No joke!
- The so-called “AIDS” was a government conspiracy to cover up the fact that gay behavior is just, in and of itself, deadly.
- Public education should be abolished, because it prevents people from being as smart as him. His children, of course, were home-schooled so they know all about things your child is too dumb to learn, like “hormesis.”
- Global warming is disproven. And not just generally by scientists around the world, but by him, specifically.
Lastly, if you watch the full interview you will find he has an interesting theory on the cause of the delay we see in satellite interviews. Namely, there isn’t a delay. It is all in your head. I almost hate ruining the surprise but I know some people just don’t have twenty minutes to drop on this douchebag.
And none of what I wrote is an exaggeration. He wrote all of it in a column in his own newsletter. Despite his words being published by himself, his responses to Rachel Maddow ranged from “That’s out of context,” to “It is too complicated for your puny brain,” to “I didn’t write that!” Note to reader: those were all reactions to the same quote; his answer changed over the twenty minutes.
Ok, you say, so this guy is a crank. So what? Luckily for us he is running for office in Oregon very very far away.
Here is why I’m bringing this up on my purportedly AsMaineGoes centered blog.
Watch this video. It is only a minute.
Yes, when Republican legislators want to learn more about global warming they invite Art Robinson to speak to them. And when he suggests that Maine abolish public education, they are ecstatic.
If you always thought that one of the problems with the Maine Republican party was that they can’t separate the crazy from the reality but couldn’t quite put your finger on a concrete example, look no further. Why would you trust a party that trusts Art Robinson? Why would you let them run our schools? Well, “run” might be the wrong word because it implies they would continue to operate them in good faith; “privatize” is more accurate. Hence the desperate wish for charter schools. They want to bleed public education dry so we can all be a little more like Art Robinson.
I want to know which legislators met with Art Robinson. Can anyone help?
This pretty much sums up the “debate” over global warming. Seriously, I think a lot of people would buy into this — if Sarah Palin (or Paul LeRage) said it:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/evangelical-scientists-refute-gravity-with-new-int,1778/
Sadly, I bet Art Robinson would have won a Maine Republican primary this year.
I see you are also hung up on parties, as if those two groups make up all people.
I believe that if people like you would stop buying into the “wasted vote” idea of the partisans we would have more intelligent choices.
In a first past the pole system, parties are very important. I would support instant runoff voting. But without changing how we vote, we cannot change the basic math that vote splitting leads to the less popular ideas winning.
I know a few people who voted for Nader in 2000. In Maine, it didn’t make any difference. But I’d ask any Floridian who voted for Nader because Bush and Gore were “the same” — Do you really truly believe that our country would be in the same depth of shit that it’s in if Al Gore had been elected in 2000?
This goes triple, or quintuple for this year’s Maine governor election. Maybe you don’t believe that Libby Mitchell would be infinitely superior to LeRage as governor. But unless you think that a LeRage governancy would be a tossup to having Mitchell as governor, you are not only throwing your vote away by voting for someone else, you are in effect voting for LeRage. And if you think he’s the best person to be our head of state, then just give him your damn vote!