# The Left Wing and Kookery **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 8, 2002, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374 "2002-10-08T15:39:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2002, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374/21 "2002-10-08T21:44:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Legomancer \* > \*\* > Is this assumption valid? If so, no wonder so many republicans see themselves as the “more intelligent” group. \*\* And lefties _don’t_ see themselves as the more intelligent group? No lefty party is complete without a spirited discussion about the qualities of their bowel movements. Happiness is a clean colon.:eek: ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2002, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374/22 "2002-10-08T22:06:28Z")
Well, thats better than right wing parties discussing the proper table settings for human sacrifice to thier Dark Lord. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2002, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374/23 "2002-10-08T22:09:06Z")
Have you ever seen a Commie drink water? That’s because they’re trying to corrupt my precious bodily fluids! ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2002, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374/24 "2002-10-08T22:34:07Z")
Don’t forget that many of the kooky things are shared phenomena between the two major American political wings. Here’s a humorous example to illustrate my point, which can regrettably be tested only on the previously uninformed: Reagan or Carter? - [Had an astrologist travel consultant](http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/05/19/back.time/). - [Reported a UFO sighting](http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/ufo990122.html). So, kids, how’d ya do? ---
**Author:** ![chula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a4c791/32.png) [@chula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chula)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2002, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374/25 "2002-10-08T22:36:43Z")
I’m with you on this one. I’m from the Bay Area, which is overrun with hippie wannabes who come from all over the country. I always felt like they were suspicious of me, although my political convictions are probably more sincere than theirs, since I didn’t just find mine last year. I’ve had to choose between hanging out with people whose values conflict with mine and people who annoy me. I don’t dress like a bum - I even wear high heels and make-up sometimes. I like to eat meat. I prefer alcohol to pot. I don’t happen to enjoy hiking and camping much. New age crap makes my skin crawl. Yoga seems cool, but not for political reasons. Luckily, things are a little better in the world I now inhabit. There are more leftist people than hippies in New York City. ---
**Author:** ![chula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a4c791/32.png) [@chula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chula)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2002, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374/26 "2002-10-08T22:46:29Z")
I’m with you on this one. I’m from the Bay Area, which is overrun with hippie wannabes who come from all over the country. I always felt like they were suspicious of me, although my political convictions are probably more sincere than theirs, since I didn’t just find mine last year. I’ve had to choose between hanging out with people whose values conflict with mine and people who annoy me. I don’t dress like a bum - I even wear high heels and make-up sometimes. I like to eat meat. I prefer alcohol to pot. I don’t happen to enjoy hiking and camping much. New age crap makes my skin crawl. Yoga seems cool, but not for political reasons. Luckily, things are a little better in the world I now inhabit. There are more leftist people than hippies in New York City. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2002, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374/27 "2002-10-08T22:47:59Z")
I work at a modern _hospital_ that has bought into a lot of this crap. We offer classes Feng Shui, aroma therapy, chakras, etc. Thursday there will be a lecture by a medical “intuitive” who will offer personal consultations afterward for a hundred bucks a pop. I can only _hope_ we’re doing this to separate the neurotic upper-middle-class from their money, and not as serious treatment. We have a department called "Complimentary Medicine "devoted to this stuff. I was talking to the its manager the other day, who was going to a meeting that evening. There’s a whole office biulding in town filled with yoga instructors, “alternative” healers, and “energy workers”. “Hmm”, I thought to myself, “that’s one appealing target!” Not that I would ever do ill toawrd anyone of course. But I agree, somehow the political left has become associated with all this New Age crap, and it REALLY irks me. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2002, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374/28 "2002-10-08T22:59:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sofa King \* > \*\*Don’t forget that many of the kooky things are shared phenomena between the two major American political wings. > > Here’s a humorous example to illustrate my point, which can regrettably be tested only on the previously uninformed: > > Reagan or Carter? > > - [Had an astrologist travel consultant](http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/05/19/back.time/). > > - [Reported a UFO sighting](http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/ufo990122.html). > > So, kids, how’d ya do? \*\* Of course, reporting a UFO sighting is not the same thing as saying that you saw a flying saucer… all you’re saying is that you saw something in the sky and you didn’t know what it was. That there are UFOs is indisputable; people have seen things in the sky that are, as yet, unidentified. This does not mean that they’re all kooks who think they’ve been visited by aliens. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374/29 "2002-10-09T00:44:24Z")
Preach it, **Lego.** I’m a hybrid lefty (liberal with pragmatic touches of libertarianism) who is currently reading Gardner’s skeptical classic _Fads & Fallacies._ I hate, _hate_, that my political leanings tend to associate me with past-life-regression types and believers in homeopathic medicine and their dumbass ilk. But as others have noted, the other side of the spectrum has its yabbos as well. “Pray real hard and God will remove your tumor!” What-the-hell-_ever_, ya freak. ---
**Author:** ![grendel72](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/91b2a8/32.png) [@grendel72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grendel72)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374/30 "2002-10-09T02:32:21Z")
…So we’re not talking about the political affiliation of my pots and pans? [sub]Because I’m pretty sure they’re organising against me…[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![RexDart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b77776/32.png) [@RexDart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RexDart)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374/31 "2002-10-09T03:33:13Z")
> [@](#): > > _Legomancer’s OP_ > \*\*it’s more likely that someone into that kind of stuff would more likely be Democrat than Republican, especially with the hold the Christian religion seems to have on the latter. I also imagine the Libertarians (and, of course, the Greens) also get saddled with a lot of this bunch. \*\* I don’t think us libertarians go in for this stuff too much. We mostly read magazines like _Reason_, which doesn’t have much tolerance for quackery. And as a regular reader of _Skeptical Inquirer_, I think most libertarians would fit in really well with the folks at CSICOP busting up the kooks. The hippie generation of the 60’s abandoned their parents’ religion. As they age, I think they’re looking for something “deeper” than political ideals, and so they gravitate to these pseudo-science hodge-podge mysticist ideas to fill that void. They seem to buy into anything occidental in origin, from the superficial (like feng shui or acupuncture) to the outright spiritual (Buddhism, other Eastern religions.) They probably are the sole reason chiropractors are still in business, so we know they fall for quackery in medicine. Of course, it could just be the general reason. They’re used to being on the fringe of politics, so now they’re gravitating to the fringes of pseudo-science and to anything that differs from the norm. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Scylla \* > \*\*Just don’t mess with my PBFs. \*\* C’mon **Scylla** , do you know when flouridation began? 1946. Nineteen hundred and forty-six. How’s that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracies? It’s all too obvious. A foreign substance is introduced into our bodies without the knowledge of the individual. Why did you know there are even studies underway to flouridate ice cream? _Children’s_ ice cream, **Scylla**! (Ok, I had to get in one more _Strangelove_ reference, I know the whole movie by heart and never get to show it off.) ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374/32 "2002-10-09T03:42:31Z")
You can’t fight in here, this is the War Room! Well, how do you think I feel, Dimitri? It think I was about 16. Living on an air base. (No, it was _not_ shown at the base theatre) Until that point, I hadn’t realized it was possible to laugh your ass off and be scared out of your wits at the same instant. It was a revelation. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374/33 "2002-10-09T06:10:44Z")
I spend at least an hour a week rearranging my Feng Shui books. ---
**Author:** ![chula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a4c791/32.png) [@chula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chula)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374/34 "2002-10-09T06:53:28Z")
This is the first time I’ve seen a thread that needed to be moved out of the Pit. If people are going to insist on being civil, we’ll have to move this to another forum. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374/35 "2002-10-09T07:04:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RexDart \* > \*\*I don’t think us libertarians go in for this stuff too much. We mostly read magazines like _Reason_, which doesn’t have much tolerance for quackery. \*\* [Really?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=137883) There are intelligent individuals, there are stupid individuals, there are kooky individuals. No political group can claim a monopoly on any of them. [sub]well, maybe the [Monster Raving Looney Party](http://www.omrlp.com/) can[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374/36 "2002-10-09T07:23:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sofa King \* > \*\*Reagan or Carter? > > - [Had an astrologist travel consultant](http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/05/19/back.time/)\*\* According to the cite, it was Nancy Reagan who had an astrologist travel consultant, rather than Ronald Reagan. Maybe we need a thread on Women and Kookery. 😉 Just kidding… ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374/37 "2002-10-09T13:14:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by grendel72 \* > \*\*…So we’re not talking about the political affiliation of my pots and pans? > > [sub]Because I’m pretty sure they’re organising against me…[/sub] \*\* You’re right, **grendel72**. They are organising against you. It’s all that bad feng shui of yours… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374/38 "2002-10-09T14:50:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bryan Ekers \* > \*\*I spend at least an hour a week rearranging my Feng Shui books. \*\* I don’t know why, but that made me laugh out loud. ---
**Author:** ![mack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374/39 "2002-10-09T15:06:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RexDart \* > **The hippie generation of the 60’s abandoned their parents’ religion. As they age, I think they’re looking for something “deeper” than political ideals, and so they gravitate to these pseudo-science hodge-podge mysticist ideas to fill that void. They seem to buy into anything occidental in origin, from the superficial (like feng shui or acupuncture) to the outright spiritual (Buddhism, other Eastern religions.) They probably are the sole reason chiropractors are still in business, so we know they fall for quackery in medicine.** pfft. I think you’ll more often see people exploring non-western culture, medicine, and spirituality when they’re young. By the time people, yes even some in the “hippie generation of the 60’s”, reach middle age they’ve had enough brushes with cancer, death, and disease to know that western medicine is the way to go, at least for the real bad stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374/40 "2002-10-09T17:40:39Z")
_Cartman, muttering in his sleep:_ “Hippies! Hippies all around me!” If I were a woman, I’d be insulted by the fact that every publication aimed at the female half of the population seems to have an astrology column. (Usually focusing on relationships.) My local free weekly left-wing paper, _Creative Loafing_, has lots of New Age crap, including a particularly annoying astrology column. This one really bugs me because the guy makes a big deal about giving positions of planets, and he’s always wrong. I can only assume he’s going by 2000-year-old charts, rather than opening a current almanac, using astronomical software or just **going outside and looking at the stars**. I’ve written this nimrod to try and help, by telling him the actual locations of the planets in the sky (for a given time period); but I don’t think he wants to be helped. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-left-wing-and-kookery/131374.md?page=3)