# Meet Bernie Sanders **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [February 5, 2016, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207 "2016-02-05T04:32:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207/21 "2016-03-08T16:38:33Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > He’s anti-GMO. That position comes from ignorance. It’s a position on which he, to the best of my knowledge, disagrees with Clinton. Therefore, it’d a reason I prefer Clinton to Sanders. Bernie supports allowing states to require labels on foods containing “genetically modified organisms” (GMOs) based on the consumer’s right-to-know, but does not believe that GMOs are necessarily bad. [http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-agriculture/](http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-agriculture/) That doesn’t sound ignorant or anti-GMO to me. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207/22 "2016-03-08T16:46:02Z")
He’s had anti-war protestors jailed. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207/23 "2016-03-08T16:49:01Z")
> [@Nonsuch](#): > > As I’ve written in other threads, the kind of change he is advocating is possible — but it’s not brought about by quixotic bids for the presidency; it’s brought about by massive organizing, using and eventually taking over existing political infrastructures to build strongholds for your ideas at the local and state levels. More fundamentally, change is brought about by promoting and popularizing ideas. You’re describing one way to do it, but the presidency is a powerful platform from which to promote ideas, too, even if many of them can’t be implemented in Bernie’s time. > [@Nonsuch](#): > > He was a protest candidate caught off-guard when masses of people actually took him seriously. He’s already done a service in forcing Clinton to tack to the left, and I am grateful he has. In an important way, even though he seems destined to lose the nomination, Sanders has achieved an important victory. Why not leave it at that? I agree he’s already achieved an important victory. The longer he stays in the game and the further he gets, the more significant that victory of ideas will be. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207/24 "2016-03-08T16:51:40Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Bernie supports allowing states to require labels on foods containing “genetically modified organisms” (GMOs) based on the consumer’s right-to-know, but does not believe that GMOs are necessarily bad. > [http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-agriculture/](http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-agriculture/) > > That doesn’t sound ignorant or anti-GMO to me. What is the point behind labeling GMO if there is nothing bad about GMO? Why not simply allow non-GMO foods to label themselves as non-GMO? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207/25 "2016-03-08T16:56:20Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > How many legitimate, well-considered arguments about Bernie are you going to get out of this crowd? All candidates are primarily supported by low-information voters, because the vast majority of voters are low-information voters. There’s no actual evidence to support the hypothesis that more people are supporting Hillary out of ignorance than support Sanders out of ignorance. Clinton has won among voters with post-graduate degrees in most of the states polled. In NH, a state Sanders won handily, he still split voters with postgraduate degrees with Clinton. That’s not a perfect measure of political knowledge, but I doubt you have a better one. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207/26 "2016-03-09T00:06:46Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > What is the point behind labeling GMO if there is nothing bad about GMO? What is the point of listing all the ingredients in packaged food products if they’re not necessarily harmful? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Why not simply allow non-GMO foods to label themselves as non-GMO? Because, as in the ingredients list, the public’s right to know what they are putting in their pie-hole requires a mandate, and except in special cases it’s usually difficult to mandate a declaration of absence. I don’t have a single food item that confidently assures me that it “does not contain rat poison” and is “100% plutonium-free”. > [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > All candidates are primarily supported by low-information voters, because the vast majority of voters are low-information voters. There’s no actual evidence to support the hypothesis that more people are supporting Hillary out of ignorance than support Sanders out of ignorance. I agree completely, though ignorance does tend to gravitate to the better known, better looking, better hair, etc. But on the ignorance thing, I was responding to the poster who had said “Nothing tells me a person has amateurish half-baked political ideas like an insistence that the only explanation for disagreeing opinions is ignorance.” And my point was – and thank you for endorsing it – that while ignorance is rarely the _ **only** _ explanation for political choices, it’s a very prevalent one. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207/27 "2016-03-09T00:20:28Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > I live here, and **Horsehead** is right. Maybe if you actually used the World Wide Web to learn about the rest of the world, you’d realize that the USA gets a raw deal in its government policies in comparison to northern and western Europe. I use a multitude of sources and am highly educated. I also happen to know what goes on in the rest of the world, especially if it comes through BBCN, one of my favorite news networks. The US is the whipping boy for every xenophobe ever born, primarily because we’re #1, but also because we’ve done some pretty phukked up things in the name of ‘spreading democracy.’ Any chance that we give them, any slight misstep, is blown out of proportion…yet they all still don’t mind doing business with us, except for the reactionaries and ideological extremists. But they’ll bitch about how stupid we are as they do it. But not this one, baby. Not this one. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207/28 "2016-03-09T00:29:52Z")
And just for the record, that is Horsehead’s _opinion_. The fact that your opinion jibes with his does not make him, or you, right. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207/29 "2016-03-09T00:33:27Z")
Well, that was a nicely emotional evasion of my point. BBC is a very good news outlet. It doesn’t talk a lot about the day-to-day operation of the NHS, because it’s so everyday to them. OK, not the WWW then. Whatever Michael Moore’s deficiencies as a comedian, I found _Sicko_ eye-opening. Maybe you should watch it sometime. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207/30 "2016-03-09T00:49:09Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Well, that was a nicely emotional evasion of my point. > > BBC is a very good news outlet. It doesn’t talk a lot about the day-to-day operation of the NHS, because it’s so everyday to them. > > OK, not the WWW then. Whatever Michael Moore’s deficiencies as a comedian, I found _Sicko_ eye-opening. Maybe you should watch it sometime. I evaded nothing. With an ample supply of smarm, you implied and continue to imply my ignorance. Not a particularly uncommon attitude; it’s part of the elitist makeup everywhere. Maybe you should stick to your own education and not worry about that of others. Condescend to someone else, you’re not impressing me. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207/31 "2016-03-09T16:23:10Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > What is the point of listing all the ingredients in packaged food products if they’re not necessarily harmful? Because its nutritional information. There is a difference between a loaf of bread with 5 grams of fiber and 1 gram of sugar per slice and a loaf of bread with 5 grams of sugar and 1 gram of fiber per slice. What difference does GMO make in the product you buy? > [@](#): > > Because, as in the ingredients list, the public’s right to know what they are putting in their pie-hole requires a mandate, and except in special cases it’s usually difficult to mandate a declaration of absence. You don’t mandate it any more than you mandate people to label their products to be organic. Its anti-science fear-mongering. > [@](#): > > I don’t have a single food item that confidently assures me that it “does not contain rat poison” and is “100% plutonium-free”. If GMO was as hazardous for you as rat poison and plutonium, I would support GMO labeling, heck, I’d support banning it. You see your assumption here is that there is something bad about GMO and we should let people know. I can make arguments for why SOME types of GMO are bad for the environment and crop diversity but this drive to label GMO is anti-science fear-mongering in the same category as the anti-vaccine movement and some parts of the organic food movement. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207/32 "2016-03-09T16:31:05Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I can make arguments for why SOME types of GMO are bad for the environment and crop diversity but this drive to label GMO is anti-science fear-mongering in the same category as the anti-vaccine movement and some parts of the organic food movement. A list of ingredients is not anti-science fear-mongering – why is a GMO label anti-science fear-mongering? It’s all the same, all a matter of letting people know what they’re eating. I see no good reason to **ban** GMO foods, but labeling is purely unobjectionable. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207/33 "2016-03-09T17:36:16Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Because its nutritional information. There is a difference between a loaf of bread with 5 grams of fiber and 1 gram of sugar per slice and a loaf of bread with 5 grams of sugar and 1 gram of fiber per slice. All of it is “nutritional information”? So what’s the nutritional value of disodium inosinate, potassium sorbate, sodium bisulfite, potassium benzoate, aspartame, hydrated silicon dioxide, food colorings, or water – all of which appear, by law, on various labels? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > What difference does GMO make in the product you buy? Exactly the same difference as all that other crap I just mentioned. It’s all been tested, vetted, and deemed safe, and most of the time nobody cares about that stuff, but people still have a right to know what’s in their food. The same way that “organic” has a specific legal meaning in most cases, even though you might want to argue till you’re blue in the face that organic or non-organic makes no practical difference to anything. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > You see your assumption here is that there is something bad about GMO and we should let people know. And as I just finished explaining, “letting people know” and “something bad about it” are two entirely different and unrelated concepts. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207/34 "2016-03-09T17:52:27Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > He’s had anti-war protestors jailed. How is a Senator in a position to do that? ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207/35 "2016-03-09T18:56:01Z")
> [@Nonsuch](#): > > While his electability is a matter of conjecture, Sanders is, in fact, losing. Yes but he’s losing by much less than the pundits said he would be. His upset in Michigan is a game changer and Clinton’s Southern Firewall is now done and finished. Also some superdelegates have swapped positions and declared for Sanders. Yes I know he’ll probably still lose but he’s not out yet and I wouldn’t expect him to drop out at all. He doesn’t have to because of the way he’s funded and the longer he stays in the more the media covers his message. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207/36 "2016-03-09T22:39:23Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Bernie supports allowing states to require labels on foods containing “genetically modified organisms” (GMOs) based on the consumer’s right-to-know, but does not believe that GMOs are necessarily bad. > [http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-agriculture/](http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-agriculture/) > > That doesn’t sound ignorant or anti-GMO to me. OK, then how about this: We label all organic food with a complete list of every chemical in the product, to the best of our knowledge. No abbreviations, no elisions, just the chemical names of every substance we know or suspect is in there. How about that? ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207/37 "2016-03-09T22:47:34Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > Yes but he’s losing by much less than the pundits said he would be. His upset in Michigan is a game changer and Clinton’s Southern Firewall is now done and finished. Also some superdelegates have swapped positions and declared for Sanders. His upset in Michigan is either a game-changer or a fluke; there is no way to tell right now. And while he deserves kudos for mounting such a dramatic upset victory, it means he’s just in the hole slightly less badly than was forecasted. Even losing Michigan, Clinton still gained on him last night. And the only reference I see to superdelegates switching to Sanders is [this article](http://rutlandherald.com/article/20160309/NEWS03/160309463/0/FEATURES) about Vermont. Picking up a few more superdelegates in his home state (which he already swept) hardly indicates a turning tide. As long as Clinton continues to put more points on the board, the superdelegates in her corner have no rationale to change their votes. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207/38 "2016-03-09T22:51:13Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > OK, then how about this: We label all organic food with a complete list of every chemical in the product, to the best of our knowledge. No abbreviations, no elisions, just the chemical names of every substance we know or suspect is in there. How about that? That doesn’t give anyone any information that isn’t contained in the common names of the food species and their derivatives. GMO labeling does. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207/39 "2016-03-09T22:52:54Z")
Besides, it’s not just about the _contents_. People are interested in provenance and methods too. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207/40 "2016-03-09T23:13:07Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > That doesn’t give anyone any information that isn’t contained in the common names of the food species and their derivatives. Yes, it does, because people don’t know that information offhand, and labels should educate them. Why are you opposed to such education? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-bernie-sanders/745207.md?page=3)