[Daniel Jones]

Hi Don,

Thanks for your reply. Well, to begin with, I believe I was responding to the original post, not your comment. If I did that incorrectly, I apologize.

My problem is mainly with the original poster’s contention that “anyone who thinks that climate change isn’t a serious threat, or that epidemics don’t require sensible public health responses, or that elections in Western nations are rigged, is dangerously wrong.”

That’s one of the most egregious straw men arguments I’ve read in a while, and directed towards his own kin, no less. There is no hope for representative government when behaving like that is the norm, straw manning one another and presuming bad motives or intellectual defects.

But as long as you’re here, rather than simply trying to use more diplomatic and scientific language to try to explain “the science” or psychoanalyze the man’s brother (who sincerely believes what he believes and probably has good reason for it–most of us have good reasons for our beliefs), why not dismiss the original question out of hand as a partisan failure to employ empathy, a hallmark of left-hemisphere thinking?