# I pit the Kansas House of Representatives for trying to protect our precious bodily fluids **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 24, 2014, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121 "2014-02-24T17:50:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121/21 "2014-02-25T02:47:12Z")
I like making fun of Kansas as much as anybody, and was all wound up with some snarky comments, but then I wondered: What\* is\* the matter with Kansas, anyway? I’ve got a half-formed theory about ‘social heat’. Kansas only has ~3 million people, yet it is spread out over a large area. Like molecules of gas in a bottle, the less space per person, the less they bump into each other and share information. Unlike regular heat, you’d have to add a factor for unique bumps- running into the same guy 5 times will provide diminishing returns in terms of new information being swapped. It is just a sketch, but the theory suggests that Kansas has a low ‘social heat’. Take the ‘crazification factor’ as a given, say it is ~25% everywhere. Dumb ideas just well up from the populace. If it is trying to go through the legislature in a place like NYC, the idea is going to be encountered by tens of thousands of minds before the legislators even hear of it. In a place like Kansas where the social heat is low, a bad idea might wind its way through the system pretty far before enough people who know better run across it. It doesn’t just apply to legislation, but bad ideas generally. People in areas with low social heat don’t get as much passive support from ‘background social encounters’ to whittle away their dumbest ideas. Not sure what is the best way to address that, but flouride is not the problem. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121/22 "2014-02-25T02:54:06Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Actually _high_ flouride concentrations _are_ associated with lower IQs … of course those are levels signficnatly higher than the levels in regulated drinking supplies and above EPA guidelines and those levels might be a marker for other substances in those water supplies … but the distorted factoid is not completely false. Well shit, in high concentrations it’s _lethal_. But that’s the thing, as I’m sure you agree, and that’s why the woo persists. The one and only reason fluoride prevents tooth decay is because it’s toxic. But toxicity is dependent on dosage. That’s a hard concept for some people (which again, is the source of the panic and the woo regarding F[sup]\_[/sup]). A couple of years ago I was in a Home Depot and found a bottle of nitro pills on the floor. I went to the service desk to give it to them for the lost and found and somewhat unwisely said “somebody lost a bottle of nitroglycerin”. It took a minute to explain that this was a medication that somebody lost and not an explosive substance. ---
**Author:** ![Kansas\_Beekeeper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@Kansas\_Beekeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kansas_Beekeeper)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121/23 "2014-02-25T03:04:15Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > I like making fun of Kansas as much as anybody, and was all wound up with some snarky comments, but then I wondered: What\* is\* the matter with Kansas, anyway? > > I’ve got a half-formed theory about ‘social heat’. Kansas only has ~3 million people, yet it is spread out over a large area. Like molecules of gas in a bottle, the less space per person, the less they bump into each other and share information. > > Unlike regular heat, you’d have to add a factor for unique bumps- running into the same guy 5 times will provide diminishing returns in terms of new information being swapped. > > It is just a sketch, but the theory suggests that Kansas has a low ‘social heat’. Take the ‘crazification factor’ as a given, say it is ~25% everywhere. Dumb ideas just well up from the populace. If it is trying to go through the legislature in a place like NYC, the idea is going to be encountered by tens of thousands of minds before the legislators even hear of it. In a place like Kansas where the social heat is low, a bad idea might wind its way through the system pretty far before enough people who know better run across it. > > It doesn’t just apply to legislation, but bad ideas generally. People in areas with low social heat don’t get as much passive support from ‘background social encounters’ to whittle away their dumbest ideas. > > Not sure what is the best way to address that, but flouride is not the problem. I’m not making fun of Kansas. I’m a lifelong resident, and am deeply distressed at what’s happening. It wasn’t always this way. Until the mid 2000s, this was by current standards, a moderate state that valued education, politicians tended to be educated, churches were community anchors, etc. Now education is increasingly looked upon with skepticism, lots of legislators have never been to college at all, and churches are institutions of politics. I was on my county’s Republican committee (precinct chair) for about 10 years, and watch as others on the committee who I knew as moderate politically and in religious faith, changed and became firebrands and extremists, because, I think, that became politically popular. I was forced off the committee, not because I changed. I don’t think the “social heat” theory explains anything about the Kansas that I knew. Yes, bad ideas are floating to the surface now, but given this place’s previous stability, a small population doesn’t explain what has recently happened. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121/24 "2014-02-25T03:16:21Z")
> [@armedmonkey](#): > > The one and only reason fluoride prevents tooth decay is because it’s toxic. Well, no. It reduces the solubility of enamel and promotes remineralization by bonding with calcium and phosphate ions present in saliva. The resulting material is more acid resistant. It’s sort of like armor-plating your teeth. Nothing against your general point, just nitpicking. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121/25 "2014-02-25T03:20:06Z")
I live a mile away from the Robert Dole Center. In the mid 90s, I thought of Dole as a vindictive conservative curmudgeon. Nowadays, he seems like a socialist tax-and-spend fact-loving hippie. He actually helped to pass legislation during a Democratic president’s term in office! Back then, I wouldn’t have felt embarrassed to be a Kansan (I wasn’t a Kansan yet). ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121/26 "2014-02-25T03:23:09Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids. > > Stranger You know when fluoridation first began? Nineteen hundred and forty-six. 1946, How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It’s incredibly obvious, isn’t it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That’s the way your hard-core Commie. I first became aware of it during the physical act of love. A profound sense of fatigue… a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I… I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence. I can assure you it has not recurred. Women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women.But I do deny them my essence. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121/27 "2014-02-25T03:50:22Z")
[From 1955:](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/File:Unholy_three.png) > [@](#): > > Are you willing to PUT IN PAWN to the UNHOLY THREE all of the material, mental and spiritual resources of this GREAT REPUBLIC? > > **FLUORIDATED WATER** > > 1.–Water containing fluorine (rat poison – no antidote) is already the only water in many of our army camps, making it very easy for saboteurs to wipe out an entire camp personnel. If this happens, every citizen will be at the mercy of the enemy – already within the gates. > > **POLIO SERUM** > > 2.–Polio serum, it is reported, has already killed and maimed children; its future effect on minds and bodies cannot be guaged. This vaccine drive is the entering wedge for nation-wide socialized medicine, by the U.S. Public Health Service, (heavily infiltrated by Russian-born doctors, according to Congressman Clare Hoffman.) In enemy hands it can destroy a whole generation. > > **MENTAL HYGIENE** > > 3.–Mental hygiene is a subtle and diabolical plan of the enemy to transform a free and intelligent people into a cringing horde of zombies. > Rabbi Spitz in the American Hebrew, March 1, 1946: “American Jews must come to grips with our contemporary anti-Semites; we must fill our insane asylums with anti-Semitic lunatics.” > > **FIGHT COMMUNISTIC WORLD GOVERNMENT by destroying THE UNHOLY THREE!!! It is later than you think!"** [checks time] Oh, yes, it is. Almost time for _The Daily Show!_🙂 ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121/28 "2014-02-25T04:02:28Z")
> [@Balance](#): > > Well, no. It reduces the solubility of enamel and promotes remineralization by bonding with calcium and phosphate ions present in saliva. The resulting material is more acid resistant. It’s sort of like armor-plating your teeth. > > Nothing against your general point, just nitpicking. To nitpick your nitpick, [science is still a bit out on that one.](http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/m95-133?origin=publication_detail&journalCode=cjm). Splitting hairs, though. Regardless of the mechanism, fluoride fucks up the bacteria that fuck up your teeth. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121/29 "2014-02-25T04:13:17Z")
> [@Kansas\_Beekeeper](#): > > I’m not making fun of Kansas. I’m a lifelong resident, and am deeply distressed at what’s happening. It wasn’t always this way. Until the mid 2000s, this was by current standards, a moderate state that valued education, politicians tended to be educated, churches were community anchors, etc. Now education is increasingly looked upon with skepticism, lots of legislators have never been to college at all, and churches are institutions of politics. I was on my county’s Republican committee (precinct chair) for about 10 years, and watch as others on the committee who I knew as moderate politically and in religious faith, changed and became firebrands and extremists, because, I think, that became politically popular. I was forced off the committee, not because I changed. > > I don’t think the “social heat” theory explains anything about the Kansas that I knew. Yes, bad ideas are floating to the surface now, but given this place’s previous stability, a small population doesn’t explain what has recently happened. Ah well. I thought I’d try a different approach from the usual partisan point-and-laugh. Because, yanno, from the outside it kind of does seem like there is something going wrong, but it isn’t all that funny anymore, at least to me, even if it is happening to the dreaded conservatives in fundamentalist-land. [Thomas Frank wrote](http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2014/02/quote-for-day-thomas-frank-on-whats.html): > [@](#): > > What I found was that the descendents of the Populists were in rebellion; they were furious at “elites” and their social betters; it’s just that the politics of the situation had been inverted. (“Like a French Revolution in reverse — one in which the sans-culottes pour down the streets demanding more power for the aristocracy,” I wrote.) This was the dark secret of the whole nasty business: The right had developed an entire ersatz proletarian movement, a full-blown astrology of class discontent in which the hard-working average citizen was invited to feel himself imposed upon by upper-class liberals. Class animus was — is — central to who they are and how they think about the world. And it has caught on. In a place like Wichita, Kansas, you encounter it on every street corner. Hating “elites,” hating Hollywood, hating government, hating scientists — these are all part of everyday life. Yes, the reasoning behind this philosophy may be faulty; its origins may be suspicious; but it is powerful stuff, and in lots of heartland locales these days, it is just about the only form of social grievance being offered. It’s weird. I don’t know if partisanship is really the response to this. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121/30 "2014-02-25T08:13:12Z")
> [@andros](#): > > :sigh: > > At least they get to _have_ fluoride in their water. Goddamn ignernt fuckos here in Portland managed to scrap a fully-funded fluoride initiative here. Our idiots come in two flavors: knee-jerk right-wing and extra-crunchy granola. Sounds like they won’t be able to eat the extra-crunchy stuff much longer. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121/31 "2014-02-25T10:02:34Z")
> [@armedmonkey](#): > > The thing is, fluoridated water really does lower the I.Q. in children. When I was a kid, my mother used to make me drink fluoridated water, and now I’m stupid enough to believe that fluoridated H2O lowers IQ. You may think that’s a stupid and recursive argument, but ask yourself, would I be stupid enough to make that argument if I didn’t drink fluoridatd water as a child? > > game… set… checkmate, motherfuckers. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121/32 "2014-02-25T10:59:38Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids. In case there are any youngsters who miss OP’s, **BrainGlutton** ’s and **Stranger** ’s reference, they’re referencing a [famous 1964 documentary on the dangers of fluoridation](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfldJIGk7fg). (For a good laugh – or cry – read the YouTube comments.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121/33 "2014-02-25T15:13:19Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > Ah well. I thought I’d try a different approach from the usual partisan point-and-laugh. Because, yanno, from the outside it kind of does seem like there is something going wrong, but it isn’t all that funny anymore, at least to me, even if it is happening to the dreaded conservatives in fundamentalist-land. > > [Thomas Frank wrote](http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2014/02/quote-for-day-thomas-frank-on-whats.html): > > It’s weird. I don’t know if partisanship is really the response to this. You got a better idea? ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121/34 "2014-02-25T15:23:15Z")
The compassionate thing is to find some way to lead people back to understanding what is in their own best interest. Between lashing out at immigrants and minorities, gays, [del]liberals[/del] educated people, government and now tooth decay prevention, they’re going to hurt people that don’t deserve it. I don’t know what yet, exactly. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121/35 "2014-02-25T15:33:00Z")
Part of Brownback’s rhetoric is that ‘we tried the Blue State model already, and it didn’t work.’ Long-time Kansas residents in this thread point out that it used to be a pretty progressive place (plus a lot of fundamentalists I guess), but then people got disillusioned and went hard right. I bet a lot of Kansas are going to get sick of the current approach, but then a non-partisan message will probably be best. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121/36 "2014-02-25T15:50:21Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Sounds like they won’t be able to eat the extra-crunchy stuff much longer. Eh, won’t matter much when their kids die of [FUCKING WHOOPING COUGH](http://abcnews.go.com/Health/law-oregon-aimed-increasing-vaccinations/story?id=22642257). > [@ABCNews](#): > > According to the Oregon Public Health Division, the rate of kindergarteners who have received nonmedical exemptions from required vaccinations has been climbing steadily from 2.4 percent in 2001-02 to 6.4 percent in 2012-13. > > Some counties in the state have exemption rates as high as 15 percent and in some schools the rate is as high as 70 percent Yay Oregon! Toothless and stupid ain’t just for the South! . ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121/37 "2014-02-25T16:40:34Z")
> [@armedmonkey](#): > > Well shit, in high concentrations it’s _lethal_. I once saw a right-wing publication complaining that the EPA was trying to regulate flouride in high concentration industrial applications - after all, it’s in our toothpaste, so it’s perfectly safe! It’s a variant of the “CO2 can’t hurt us, we breathe it every day” thing. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121/38 "2014-02-25T16:45:43Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > I like making fun of Kansas as much as anybody, and was all wound up with some snarky comments, but then I wondered: What\* is\* the matter with Kansas, anyway? I lived in Kansas in the 80’s and have family there now. It is a fine state with fine people but there is something very, very messed up in Topeka. It’s like a whole nother world. I think the matter is that Kansas is very rural and most of the residents would just like to be left the hell alone and so they vote conservatively on election day and then ignore the idiots in the capital the rest of the year. And those idiots, with no useful tasks to spend their time on, listen to the religious zealots that swarm around Topeka for some strange reason. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121/39 "2014-02-25T18:03:17Z")
Well, you know what they say, honey draws flies better than vinegar. Of course, shit works best of all… ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121/40 "2014-02-25T18:48:01Z")
> [@shiftless](#): > > I lived in Kansas in the 80’s and have family there now. It is a fine state with fine people but there is something very, very messed up in Topeka. It’s like a whole nother world. There’s a reason _[A Boy and His Dog](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Boy_and_His_Dog_(1975_film))_ was set there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-kansas-house-of-representatives-for-trying-to-protect-our-precious-bodily-fluids/682121.md?page=3)