Delusional Jill Stein delivers nonsensical rants on Reddit AMA

[Lion Heart 15,041]

Presidential candidate Jill Stein recently did an AMA on Reddit. The following posts are her own words. 

 

[Asked about her position on vaccines:]

Stein: I don't know if we have an "official" stance, but I can tell you my personal stance at this point. According to the most recent review of vaccination policies across the globe, mandatory vaccination that doesn't allow for medical exemptions is practically unheard of. In most countries, people trust their regulatory agencies and have very high rates of vaccination through voluntary programs. In the US, however, regulatory agencies are routinely packed with corporate lobbyists and CEOs. So the foxes are guarding the chicken coop as usual in the US. So who wouldn't be skeptical? I think dropping vaccinations rates that can and must be fixed in order to get at the vaccination issue: the widespread distrust of the medical-indsutrial complex. [???]

Vaccines in general have made a huge contribution to public health. Reducing or eliminating devastating diseases like small pox and polio. In Canada, where I happen to have some numbers, hundreds of annual death from measles and whooping cough were eliminated after vaccines were introduced. Still, vaccines should be treated like any medical procedure--each one needs to be tested and regulated by parties that do not have a financial interest in them. In an age when industry lobbyists and CEOs are routinely appointed to key regulatory positions through the notorious revolving door, its no wonder many Americans don't trust the FDA to be an unbiased source of sound advice. A Monsanto lobbyists and CEO like Michael Taylor, former high-ranking DEA official, should not decide what food is safe for you to eat. Same goes for vaccines and pharmaceuticals. We need to take the corporate influence out of government so people will trust our health authorities, and the rest of the government for that matter. End the revolving door. Appoint qualified professionals without a financial interest in the product being regulated. Create public funding of elections to stop the buying of elections by corporations and the super-rich.

For homeopathy, just because something is untested doesn't mean it's safe. By the same token, being "tested" and "reviewed" by agencies tied to big pharma and the chemical industry is also problematic. There's a lot of snake-oil in this system. We need research and licensing boards that are protected from conflicts of interest. They should not be limited by arbitrary definitions of what is "natural" or not.

(-300 points) 

 

She gets called out for her nonsense: 

 

[–]Sweatin_2_the_oldies 2096 points 21 hours ago 

Let's be honest; the Green Party takes this position because they rely on the support of people who hold faith in homeopathy. It's pandering, pure and simple.

For anyone paying attention, Jill gave a typical politician non-answer. Just throws in a bunch of Fear & Doubt about big pharma with no mention whatsoever of the huge financial interests pushing pseudoscience. Sure, Monsanto shouldn't decide what I eat but neither should NaturalNews.com, who donated $1MM to push GMO labeling in CA and is a purveyor of homeopathic "remedies". You think those greedy ****s wouldn't love to replace our current regulatory system with one that values woo-woo over science? Please.

Published Science and Peer Review are subject to industry influence, but it is by far our best methodology for determining truth. Anything that strays from that is bullshit and anyone who handwaves it away in favor of other systems due to the threat of corruption is a liar.

 

Jill Stein is then asked a question about student debt, and she is then called out for her nonsensical and economically illiterate answer.

 

[–]auriculasafini 86 points 22 hours ago 

If, by some miracle, you could get legislation passed to abolish student debt, what would this bill look like?

Stein: The good news is we don't need a miracle. And we don't need legislation. All we need is to bring out the people who are in debt. That's 43 million, which is a winning plurality of the vote in a three-way presidential race. The president then has the authority to cancel the student debt using quantitative easing the same way the debt was canceled for Wall Street. If we bailed out the crooks on Wall Street who crashed the economy, it's about time to bail out the students, who are the victims of that waste, fraud and abuse. Because the students are left holding the debt after Wall Street destroyed the jobs to pay back that debt. So let your friends know. We have the power to cancel the debt if we spread the word and mobilize to bring out the power of the numbers of people - Millennial's in debt are an unstoppable force to win this election and to win your economic freedom back.

So sorry for the delay! I will stay on longer to make up for that!

[–]usrname42 535 points 22 hours ago* 

This seems incoherent to me.

QE is undertaken by the Federal Reserve, which is independent - the president does not have the power to force the Fed to undertake it, as far as I know, in the same way that she couldn't just instruct the Supreme Court to overturn Citizens United.

Quantitative easing does not cancel any debt; it just involves the Fed purchasing government (and some other) bonds from banks and other institutions in the open market using newly created money. It doesn't do anything to cancel debt, as it doesn't change banks' net assets at all, it just swaps one type of asset (bonds) for another (money).

No debt was cancelled for Wall Street. Federal bailouts under TARP involved temporarily purchasing toxic assets from banks and other firms. They purchased them at above the price the assets could have been sold on the open market at that time, which is what makes it a bailout. But between the sale of these assets and the interest paid on them, the Treasury has currently made a profit on the bailout.

The Federal Reserve also made substantial short-term loans to Wall Street to promote liquidity, these were also all collateralised and have been repaid by Wall Street. The Fed has sent hundreds of billions of dollars more to the Treasury than it usually does since the financial crisis (it sends all profit it makes to the Treasury).

One of the main reasons the Great Depression was so terrible was that the government and Federal Reserve allowed thousands of American banks to fail, crippling the US financial system. (This is the subject of much of Ben Bernanke's academic research - we are incredibly lucky that we had him in the right place at the right time to prevent it happening again). The reason Wall Street was bailed out was to save the economy and prevent mass unemployment at the levels of the Great Depression, not to make sure that the crooks and fat cats got their bonuses. (Making bankers' pay higher was an unavoidable side-effect of bailing out the banks, but I'd rather have a few people undeservingly stay rich if it means millions of ordinary Americans keep their jobs.) Yes, we should have had regulation to stop the crisis happening in the first place, but once the crisis had happened bailing out the banks was the only sane option. If you're concerned about destroying jobs you should be praising the bailout to the skies, because millions more would have been destroyed without it.

 

AND FINALLY. She gets called out for the opportunistic leech that she is. 

 

[–]1paulmart 7 points 22 hours ago 

I am Bernie or Bust, and you are my “plan B”—you even retweeted me! (I actually prefer your platform but at the moment Bernie’s still in the game.) Lately I’ve come to realize there are a lot of people who worship the idea of Bernie Sanders being president and are dead-set on writing him in; for many of them, bringing up Jill Stein makes me a Trump/Hillary troll. In the event that Bernie doesn’t get the Democratic nomination, how do you propose getting these Bernie fans to vote for you instead of writing his name in? Also, how do we go about finding every American with student debt, notifying them about you, and registering them to vote? I think from now until November we can tackle this aggressively and get you 43,000,000 votes.

Stein: Great question. The Bernie or Bust campaign is only now just learning that a write-in won’t be counted. So it’s like staying home and being silenced. As that word gets out, and the Democrats continue beating up on Bernie, people will be increasingly motivated to stand up and fight back. We have just now qualified for federal matching funds. There are many thousands of people who have signed up to volunteer. We are only beginning to hire staff to organize those volunteers. So be assured the ground game is coming. And there will be thousands of people joining you in getting the word out. You are heroic for being a trailblazer. Soon, you will be in very good company. It’s hardest to be the first on the bandwagon, but as other people join you it will get easier all the time.

[–]torusaurus 15 points 19 hours ago 

You lost my vote when Bernie started running and all you could say about him was: he is part of the establishment, joining the Democrats is being a traitor in some way, he's corrupt like the rest and he supports the military industrial complex. To me it seemed like you were trying to out-position him early by going negative. I was appalled that you had nothing good to say about him until the media started acting like it was over after New York, you are totally playing into their hands in an attempt to take away enthusiasm he'll need in the convention. Instead of running as an Independent, Bernie gave us the possibility of changing the Democratic party while challenging the elites entrenched within. I understand you want to say "I told you so!" but you couldn't be more wrong, he has been rocketing from 3% in the polls when he started without SuperPACs or special interests. Your negative tact is unconstructive, now you unwittingly trivialize the important issues you raise while inspiring nobody who puts you up to a microscope. I feel sort of bad telling it like it is like this but I won't blindly vote for anyone without putting them up to a microscope. Bernie is the only one who ever deserved my vote, I'll give you credit - we can't buy into the politics of fear. I wish you the best of luck and work for the future and appreciate your time. You can't fought fire with fire and that's why Trump and Hillary are irreconcilable. Regards,

 

Next.

[Didymus 34,380]

Unreadable OP.

And, source of everything?

Edit: Found it nvm Didn't catch it in the madness.

[PaperIz 7,354]

I'm confused by this. She has a point about the pharmaceutical industry. Who really trusts them? Half the time it IS about money. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding?? 

[Morphine Prince 109,655]

Here we go with the biased title....

[Didymus 34,380]

This has nothing to do with science tho lol

[Didymus 34,380]

How is she pandering to people who support homeopathy even. She's just saying that it's ridiculous to disqualify homeopathy because it's not properly tested when being perfectly fine with products who are being "tested", promoted and sold by completely untrustworthy instances.

[jylee 66]

I'm confused too? 

She says that dropping vaccination rates need to be fixed and makes a good point about distrust with regulatory agencies because of how lobbyists can affect them. Hardly "anti-science"

[AddMeOnMYSPACE 2,096]

Um, okay. I wish I knew about politics more because this is confusing as hell 

[FATCAT 60,888]

Either your mess of an OP confused me, or you didn't actually post her replies? It looks to me that you paraphrased them, without posting her real responses, and if that's true your bias is showing. (I'm talking about the Homeopathy one, the one you claim to be anti-science...)

[Lion Heart 15,041]

Next up, her incredibly stupid response on energy that earned her a ridiculous amount of downvotes.

 

[–]jillstein2016 -1041 points 22 hours ago* 

Stein: Nuclear energy is dirty, dangerous and expensive and should be ruled out for all those reasons. Fukoshima is the poster child of the nuclear power industry. You can put it in someone else's back yard or on the other side of the world but we are all endangered by it.

And we don't need it! Renewable are the least expensive. Nuclear is the most expensive. It only survives because our government is in bed with the industry and campaign contributions by the loan guarantees that the industry cannot operate without [??]. The continued existence of this lethal form of energy is a tribute to the corruption of our political system. Clean up our energy. Clean up our politics. Join the Green movement.

 

Redditor's response: 

[–]2015_BCS_ORANGE_BOWL 241 points 22 hours ago* 

In the nearly 75+ year history of nuclear power, there have been two large-scale disasters. Two. There have been zero in the USA. You act like Fukushima happens twice a week.

Coal plants have a much higher death toll. Oil has a much much higher death toll. Hydroelectric has a much higher death toll. It's weird that you write so much about the cost of Fukushima as if it weren't one of literally two deadly nuclear plant disasters in history. It's as misleading an argument as me saying that hydroelectric is inherently deadly because of the one dam in China that burst and killed hundreds of thousands. Actually that would be a better example because it happened due to something that could be expected (unusually heavy rains) as opposed to Chernobyl and Fukushima which required serious oversight and a natural disaster in the case of the latter.

 

[Lion Heart 15,041]

1 minute ago, FATCAT said:

Either your mess of an OP confused me, or you didn't actually post her replies? It looks to me that you paraphrased them, without posting her real responses, and if that's true your bias is showing. (I'm talking about the Homeopathy one, the one you claim to be anti-science...)

Her responses say "Stein" next to them. The Redditor's names are Underlined and Bolded. 

Those are her OWN words on her Reddit AMA. Why would I Paraphrase her entire rants when the posts are right there on the Reddit link. 

 

[FATCAT 60,888]

1 minute ago, Lion Heart said:

Her responses say "Stein" next to them. The Redditor's names are Underlined and Bolded. 

Those are her OWN words on her Reddit AMA. Why would I Paraphrase her entire rants when the posts are right there on the Reddit link. 

 

I'm talking about this:

==============

–]Sweatin_2_the_oldies 2096 points 21 hours ago 

Let's be honest; the Green Party takes this position because they rely on the support of people who hold faith in homeopathy. It's pandering, pure and simple.

For anyone paying attention, Jill gave a typical politician non-answer. Just throws in a bunch of Fear & Doubt about big pharma with no mention whatsoever of the huge financial interests pushing pseudoscience. Sure, Monsanto shouldn't decide what I eat but neither should NaturalNews.com, who donated $1MM to push GMO labeling in CA and is a purveyor of homeopathic "remedies". You think those greedy ****s wouldn't love to replace our current regulatory system with one that values woo-woo over science? Please.

Published Science and Peer Review are subject to industry influence, but it is by far our best methodology for determining truth. Anything that strays from that is bullshit and anyone who handwaves it away in favor of other systems due to the threat of corruption is a liar.

 

Jill Stein is then asked a question about student debt, and she is then called out for her nonsensical and economically illiterate answer.

=============

I'm not defending her, she's kind of fringe, but I don't see "stein" here

[Lion Heart 15,041]

1 minute ago, FATCAT said:

I'm talking about this:

==============

–]Sweatin_2_the_oldies 2096 points 21 hours ago 

Let's be honest; the Green Party takes this position because they rely on the support of people who hold faith in homeopathy. It's pandering, pure and simple.

For anyone paying attention, Jill gave a typical politician non-answer. Just throws in a bunch of Fear & Doubt about big pharma with no mention whatsoever of the huge financial interests pushing pseudoscience. Sure, Monsanto shouldn't decide what I eat but neither should NaturalNews.com, who donated $1MM to push GMO labeling in CA and is a purveyor of homeopathic "remedies". You think those greedy ****s wouldn't love to replace our current regulatory system with one that values woo-woo over science? Please.

Published Science and Peer Review are subject to industry influence, but it is by far our best methodology for determining truth. Anything that strays from that is bullshit and anyone who handwaves it away in favor of other systems due to the threat of corruption is a liar.

 

Jill Stein is then asked a question about student debt, and she is then called out for her nonsensical and economically illiterate answer.

=============

I'm not defending her, she's kind of fringe, but I don't see "stein" here

That's a Redditor's response   

 

I included the top comments from her Reddit AMA that responded to her flawed positions so that other folks understand WHY those same positions are flawed. Essentially they said what I wanted to say in much better words. 

 

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

"I don't know if we have an "official" stance, but I can tell you my personal stance at this point."

This says it all. Someone who has never held elected positions does not have official stances. They have personal stances that they wish to make official. Jill Stein is no doubt someone with many virtues, but she's untried and untested. You can tell how green she is (  ) just by looking at her "personal" stances online. They're all far too idyllic without any real potential basis in reality. 

The rest of the post is a mess.