Science seeks to arrive at truths and better understanding.

Lawyers and politicians often are acting to persuade and convince.

Realising the difference made many of my previous frustrations with online discussion clear: I was bringing a dialectical knife to a rhetorical gunfight.

Of course, at the time a lawyer I knew online piped up to contradict all of this, until I pointed out just what it was they were doing

There are times you want someone powerfully persuasive running things. And there are times you want someone dead-set on finding truth.

RFK Jr. unfortunately seeks to persuade based on myths, falsehoods, and lies. As you note, wrong person for the job.

Oh, and title-expertise confusion is what that frequently-abused notion of "appeal to authority" is. Again, RFK Jr. is poster-child for that.

But philosophers vs. sophists? That's one long-lived battle.

RFK Jr is a moral and intellectual coward. He actively and loudly pushes dangerous deadly conspiracies then actively and loudly denies he has any culpability for the predicted harm and death. Measles in Samoa.

RFK Jr has "Qrazie Ideas" yet is still supported by racist billionaires like Tim Mellon & Andrew Conru

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/02/business/economy/mellon-kennedy-childrens-health-defense.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/21/billionaire-tim-mellon-trump-donation

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/why-timothy-mellon-is-the-poster

RFK Jr serves the eugenicist agenda of the 1%

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/16/revealed-international-race-science-network-secretly-funded-by-us-tech-boss

https://thecause.substack.com/p/how-eugenics-makes-sense-of-birtherism

MAGA billionaires consider most of the world's population as "surplus to requirements". It's why they fund covid disinformation.
https://bylinetimes.com/2020/10/09/climate-science-denial-network-behind-great-barrington-declaration/

https://jacobin.com/2021/12/right-wing-think-tanks-herd-immunity-death

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/may/04/maga-soft-eugenics

Far too many politicians are EVIL in the literal as well as figurative sense.

Self-interest vs service to the community? Pfft! Meh! Pshaw!

Self-interested megalomaniacs always want the role ahead of anyone who actually might be capable of doing it.

the problem with the word "evil" is that it's a kid's fairytale word and is popular with various crackpots

so we shun use of the word because of a vague discomfort, a feeling of guilt by association

but shunning use of the word "evil" means we surrender a powerful tool of communication

so i say:

use the word "evil"

with our definition

reclaim speech rather than surrender speech

The human need for celebrity, and the American tradition of always elevating our worst, dug us our own deep, dumb grave.

Oh well. I doubt I give a shit what comes out this shit stain's mouth anyway.

I agree. It is evil to cause the return of childhood illness we had all but eradicated because of a gut feeling. Or he was convinced by liars and grifters.

Politicians are, at very least, not supposed to actively harm the communities they are representing. In a perfect world, they might actually make things better. But doing things like the health sec has done are evil, and our society is drastically worse as a result of RFK Jr.

I can appreciate that OP is a scientist and wants to avoid using the word evil. But in this instance, it is applicable. It's also important to call out evil when we see it. There have thus far been zero consequences for the monsters ruining society, and that is just not alright with me.

It is absolutely fine to be "mean" to a man who is deliberately harming people. I don't care what excuse they give, the GOP is about harming people. I truly believe they get off on it.

RFK Jr. is dangerous not because of his background but because HE WANTS TO HURT PEOPLE. And he does not care who he kills or harms.

But he can tell you how much the cocaine got stepped-on just by smell.

JrBob is still a junkie. And he's killing Americans and spreading disease.

No
More
Kennedys
In
America

That name is verbotten.

Not to be mean.

I mean, I think it's okay to be mean to bad people. Yeah, calling out Kennedy's deficiencies shouldn't be done primarily to be mean, but bullying a bad person seems to me like a perfectly fine secondary objective.

We didn't bully Dubya, or Cheney, or Reagan into ragequitting politics, and look where being polite to villains got us.