38
votes
Bernie Sanders hospitalized for blocked artery, had two stents inserted; campaign events canceled until further notice
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- Title
- Bernie Sanders, 78, canceled events until further notice after being hospitalized
- Authors
- ABC News
- Published
- Oct 2 2019
- Word count
- 477 words
Regardless of if he is my favorite candidate in this race or not, Bernie Sanders is still a human being and I wish him a painless and speedy recovery. I am glad he is taking a step back from campaigning and putting his health first, you only get one life.
Slightly off-topic, but I always find the "he's still a human being" argument to be a very variably-applied one. Not calling you out specifically OP, but even here on Tildes, when John McCain died, the top comment in that thread stated he "deserved no respect", and another highly-voted comment stated "I'm glad he's dead".
Frankly I think it's sad/bemusing how conditional we're all willing to be when it comes to either issuing condolences, or celebrating someone's life.
Likewise, when Sanders does finally die, there will be many on the other side of the political spectrum who issue the same comments as what was stated here on Tildes for McCain. Is it so hard to be at least cordial to people on the other side of the fence?
Worth noting is that the user who said "I'm glad he's dead" was relatively well known at the time for consistently making insanely over the top comments exactly like that one (and worse) on political topics, and they were eventually banned... though I don't remember exactly when they were banned, and while AFAIK it was never revealed specifically why they were banned, I imagine it was related to that particular issue.
Oh yeah, I was just using those comments as exemplars. I was just remarking on the conditionality of respectful comments on the internet generally. But what you said about that user being banned doesn't surprise me at all given the contents of that comment.
When they don't want you to exist, yeah. I'm not talking about John McCain in particular, but why should I be nice to people who are letting the United States slip into fascism?
You don’t need to be nice, but hate only begets more hate. Continuing the cycle of hate only drives everyone further apart. It furthers the us vs them mentality that does nothing but tear humanity down. When you scream at someone they are less inclined to listen to what you are saying and will seek to only listen enough to defend or refute, rarely to empathize or understand.
I’ve personally seen people full of hate have their beliefs changed via empathy and calm discussion, never through more hate. Our society is built too much on retaliation and retribution rather than forgiveness and rehabilitation. It’s much harder to love your enemy, but you’ll never stop the hate and division unless we can get past it and see them as fellow humans that need compassion and education.
That said, I don’t think there is much (if ever) chance of converting someone via the internet. Social media and web forums allow even the most toxic people to find others who share their toxicity. It assures them that they are correct in their way of thinking and that everyone else is the ignorant one. I believe that talking with someone on a human level, face to face has the best chances of changing someone’s mind. That’s the tricky part though, is that everyone’s indoctrination and life experiences are different and so educating them is going to require different techniques and different approaches. Similar to teaching a subject in school, the student is much more inclined to listen and learn when the teacher is patient and helpful rather than annoyed and impatient. Some people will just get it naturally but others will require more one on one education.
I write all this to say that you can be relieved that someone is no longer spreading hate and toxicity, but you should mourn the fact they were never properly educated and missed the opportunity to change.
Where does the civility start and stop? I think your example of McCain is a good one, because he's not a clearly objectively evil person. What of those who were directly responsible of extensive human suffering? Many celebrated the death of Saddam Hussein online and otherwise. If someone similar died today, is celebrating their death on Tildes something that is taboo?
Yeah I think it's an interesting moral/philosophical debate. I don't know the answer to it at all. I mean, obviously Stalin/Hitler were bad people, should their death be celebrated? Where is the defining line on that spectrum?
Maybe don't celebrate the death of a person but celebrate an end to the harm they'll cause? Doesn't clear up the blurry line in the middle, though.
The same happened when H. W. Bush died. The top-voted comment claimed to be glad he was dead.
I was a new user then, and it almost put me off Tildes entirely.
Though in that case, almost everyone (including you) was calling them out about it, and I believe (not certain since it's deleted) it was even the same user that @cfabbro mentioned above that got banned for routinely posting comments like that.
It's a really difficult situation from a moderation perspective, I'm honestly still not sure how to handle it. There's a huge spectrum of things people can say that are effectively expressing the same sentiment, and while I do think it's a shitty (and completely pointless) opinion to express, tossing out removals/bans for some of the "lighter" forms of it still feels really heavy-handed.
It wasn't so much that I was shocked that somebody would say it -- I'm used to scumbags on the internet. The troubling part was that it received so many votes.
But you're right that the majority did call them out for it, and that does make it better. I'm also glad to hear they've since been banned from the site (for apparent other shitheadery).
I don't think it's strange at all. Policy decisions and political differences don't exist just to be abstractly debated on the internet or in classrooms or in board rooms. They are enacted in the real world and affect real people. They can alleviate suffering or they can cause it.
Some people have caused a lot of suffering. I don't think it's so strange that the people whom they harmed - and would continue to harm had they not died - would be happy and feel that the world is improved by the death of someone cruel.
I'm not sure if I've ever hit "openly celebrate death" yet, but I mean, some people have opinions that are absolutely morally repugnant to me as well. Some people want to hurt me just because I'm gay, for instance - not even physically, but they push openly for things that will make my life worse to the benefit of absolutely no one. It's pretty hard to be cordial to someone who's talking about how they want to put your entire life into turmoil, even if they're wearing a nice suit and using weasel words to couch the violence and hatred inherent in their opinion.
stint a person's fixed or allotted period of work
stent a tubular support placed temporarily inside a blood vessel, canal, or duct to aid healing or relieve an obstruction
I don't know -- I'm less concerned about missing a few campaign events and much more concerned about that stigma you mentioned. The "too old to run" ageism is very strong this election cycle.
I'm not sure the term "ageism" applies in this case. Bernie is applying for arguably the most-important job in the country, and it's a stressful job that he's expected to carry out for at least four years—and potentially eight years.
Bernie is 78 years old, which is also the average life expectancy in the US. He's also five years older than the oldest president ever elected, and that was Reagan running for his second term. We've never had a 78-year-old president, and that will be Bernie's age his first day in office.
The way I see it, Bernie's age and health are perfectly valid concerns.
It's not just about health. It's also a matter of stamina and of mental degradation, mental aptitude, the ability to reason, reflect, adapt and so on.
Biologically, our minds work less and less effectively the older we get. The drop-off post 60 is significant. Past 75 there is a huge drop-off.
Sanders is too old. Period. Any 75 year old is.
We also get fixed in our ways and more inflexible the older we get. We all become less able to understand new things, to connect with new people, new views.
Quite simply, when you're too old, you're necessarily more poorly qualified for the job. Unless you can hugely compensate for all the drawbacks of you being too old, there will always be a younger and better candidate for the job. Even if you've got a legislative history or connections or whatever else.
The stress and strain of being president is huge. Your capacity for work, long hours, being at the top of your game all the time 24/7 are real and important qualifications. You're not a figurehead, not the leader of a board of directors or a CEO. You as a person have special, demanding responsibilities that can't be delegated.
No politician is irreplaceable. It's a travesty that 80-year-olds have important positions in both the legislative and judicial branches due to connections or life-time appointment.
Oof, this is exactly what I was referring to in reference to my ageism comment. Discounting someone for the pure basis of old age alone is discriminatory. Period.
Yes, I know that cognitive decline and cognitive aging occur; I've studied under top researchers in Alzheimer's/Dementia/Cognitive aging. Yes, individuals over the age of 75 often suffer from cognitive impairment. But to discount all individuals over the age of 75, as though there is no exception? That kind of absolutism is prejudice on the grounds of someone's age. Are you his physician? Have you given him a mini-mental state exam or an AD8 screening?
Yes, I understand they are going to become the president of the United States, and, yes, that's a stressful position. Everything you said about qualifications isn't wrong. But look at Sanders on the campaign trail: he's working for long hours, doing multiple different talks and interviews, traveling constantly, and arguably, is, "at the top of his game," not withstanding his current hospitalization, which could be for complicated factors beyond just age.
Should age be discounted completely as a factor in a presidential election? No, I'm not arguing that. But should it be something that immediately disqualifies someone? No, I don't believe that's fair. We should be concerned about it only as far as it relates to his health.
He's not immediately disqualified though. Bernie is still allowed to run, and if he wins the election, he will be president. There is no rule stopping him.
However, statistically speaking, Bernie is more likely to be dead in four years than alive. And being dead will severely hinder his ability to lead the country.
I was specifically referring to /u/nacho's statement of:
To your point about statistics, though, I feel that it's necessary to take US average life spans with grains of salt and recognize that they are, themselves, averages. They include outliers such as infant mortality, overdoses, whether or not you smoke etc. which I'd argue Sanders probably isn't at risk of. But I also don't know, I'm open to being wrong.
Being President means you will get poor sleep and be under extreme stress a lot of the time. Trump can get away with it because he doesn't do anything. Bernie isn't that kind of guy. This job will kill him early if he takes it.
Nancy Pelosi is 79 years old. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 86 years old. I don't buy that the presidency will "kill Bernie early" if he takes it, as if he's guaranteed to die in the next four years if he's stressed out.
Neither of those are senior executive management positions. The Presidency is qualitatively a different job than legislating, which is almost entirely about maintaining relationships with people and letting aides do the actual intellectual heavy lifting.
And it's also pretty clear that both Pelosi and Ginsburg are not at all what they were in their primes. They both should have retired years ago. In Pelosi's case, it's a black mark on her and the Democratic caucus that they haven't had any reasonable succession planning strategies in place for party leadership positions like this. The Republicans, despite being the party of stuffy old men, still routinely manage to field candidates for leadership positions that know how to use email.
In this case it literally is a concern about physical and mental capacity though. It's no more discriminatory to bring someone's extreme age into the equation than it would be discriminatory to insist that people at risk for back problems shouldn't be doing manual labor.
It's honestly extremely concerning and says some very bad things about our political system that it is so thoroughly dominated by people 60+ that we can't even find serious candidates who are any younger. That speaks to a serious institutional rot if long tenure (and the personal connections that implies) carries so much weight.
It's pretty undignified that these people are holding onto these positions for so long instead of retiring to elder statesman roles and pulling a Jimmy Carter.
Look, I'd love for more young people to have the balls to attack capitalism and I'd support them. But until those people come out and have the same fearless attacks on corporations and gusto to tax the wealthy, then I'll continue to stand up for the people that do against criticisms that I feel are unfair.
As I've said several times here, you want to talk about age or health? None of you are his physicians and know Bernie's health history, what he is at risk for, what he may or may not be predisposed for. Socialization around health and age is something that leads to bias and when that bias leads people to discredit or discount that person SOLELY based around their number of years they've been born, then that's discrimination. If it's a matter of debate surrounding health of Bernie, then sure, have at it. But you also better be talking about incidence rates of stints, and prognosis while not in the presence of heart attacks at the same time (i.e. procedure went fine, he'll recover and be back on the campaign in a few days while he recovers).
This is exactly why it’s hard to take the Sanders movement seriously this time around. If the emphasis is entirely on the right slogans and the right kind of grandstanding there’s nothing there to actually support. Not liking capitalism is not a political platform. A platform is supposed to be about what you want to do instead, but nobody seems to care to answer any of the interesting questions there.
Your don’t need to be a doctor to know that “Damn near 80” is very, very old. Pretending it’s not starts to sound a lot like special pleading just because you like the guy.
I don't think calling someone ageist should be used to shut down an argument. Maybe on principle it's not fair to forbid people over 70 or 75 from being president, but there's too much at stake. Both presidents we've had who ever over 70 had some form of dementia/Alzheimer's/etc, in addition to a third being incapacitated by a stroke, and that's really not a good track record. People's chance of death goes up every year, even if they're healthy otherwise, and why have someone who's 70 when we could have someone who's 50 or 60? (in general, not talking about specific candidates in 2020)
I have to fundamentally disagree. If the criteria, which was quoted as "anyone over 75 is too old. period." then that is discriminatory. Replace "75" with "gay", "muslim", or "latinx" and it would be clear as day that this line of thinking is discriminatory.
If we want to require criteria or limits based on cognitive capacity or health measures -- propose/suggest that as a criteria. Don't go around claiming someone at a certain age is incapable of doing something if they're fully capable of it.
Hell, why stop at 50? Let's only have people who are exactly 35 years old be allowed to run for president. Anyone older is clearly closer to death than someone the year before. -- Sounds insane, right? That's what happens when you base something solely off an arbitrary value of age. There are also arguments that individuals who are older might be more able to remember and learn from life experiences (ex. someone that is 70 might have lived through and experienced the civil rights movement whereas someone who is 50 would not have).
Again, you want to talk about means testing for the president in the form of a psych/health evaluation? Then talk about that, instead, and I'd be more likely to listen to your opinion. It might just be an issue of semantics, but saying "there's too much at stake" doesn't absolve someone from poor, discriminatory arguments.
Those groups don't inherently have a higher risk of death though. Being 70+ does.
Yeah, drawing the line at 65 or 70 is arbitrary, but it's just as arbitrary as 18 being the age where you can start doing a lot of stuff. We should draw that line because a president dying is a big deal. I'm not saying to draw that line for Congress, if we want people who are 75 or 80 years old to give us their wisdom (and they should), they can be Congresspeople. 44 people have been president and of those, two suffered/are suffering from mental decline, one was incapacitated by a stroke, another died from a stroke, and two more in their late 60s died from diseases that wouldn't kill a younger person (W.H. Harrison from pneumonia, Taylor from stomach disease). You can argue that modern medicine would have been able to treat the last two, but people over 70 still absolutely have a higher risk of dying from things that a younger person would survive.
Out of curiosity I looked at more recent presidents who left office over 65 to see how they fared:
Overall it's not as solidly in my favor as I thought it might be going into it, but it's not a good look either. Let the elders be in Congress or political roles outside of elected office. The presidency is too important to let someone within 10 years of life expectancy hold office.
I'm assuming you're advocating to remove the lower age limit on presidential elections as well?
I don't see anything special about the age 35 that endows someone with automatic presidential experience over someone that is 34, do you?
Fun fact. Alexander Hamilton was around 33 when the Constitution was signed. Some historians speculate that this and the "natural born" citizen bits in the eligibility requirements were specifically put there as a "fuck you!" gesture by people who didn't like him.
What about someone who is 12? Are there any limits?
I think it's fair to have a lower bound limit based on age, due solely to necessary worldly experience in interaction with the "adult world" and having necessary legal definitions of "adult" in order to lead a country, yeah.
But to equate a lower limit based around necessary experience with the world to an upper bound limit is an almost needless debate that fails to grasp my initial arguments.
To be clear I'm not equating anything, just curious on your thoughts.
I don't really understand how you aren't arguing that. If we can't discount someone based on the assumption of age effecting other characteristics like cognitive performance and health then we can't link it to anything and it's useless as a metric in itself. I think it's a fine argument to make, but I don't understand how what you're saying isn't arguing that age can't be a factor in presidential elections.
Age can be a legitimate concern when you get up there in years. Before my grandfather died last year, he went from perfectly functioning in all his mental faculties to thinking Ronald Reagan was still president in the span of about 18 months. Early on in his trip to dementia he would seem fine, but make very questionable random decisions.
I don't think it's offensive or politically incorrect to acknowledge that humans are fragile beings with limited lifespans.
Eh, we saw the same claim around Clinton during her run with regards to her health, and that didn't stop her from winning the popular vote.
Interesting that ABC News has found a reason to cover the Sanders campaign. https://freebeacon.com/politics/abc-news-has-covered-sanders-for-only-seven-minutes-in-2019/
I'll be honest, I first heard about this on CNN live stream. ABC was the first site that I could find that had a print version of the story when I googled it. Though that doesn't change the facts in your article, I just wanted clarity on why I personally chose this source.
There's something very sad about a major news outlet jumping on a candidate's major health event yet remaining silent on any of their opinions/stances/other news.
Surprise surprise, when you're talking on the corporatism of the United States, the major corporations pretend you don't exist.
The study they reference is only referring to coverage on World News Tonight, a daily half-hour show. It is still worthwhile to compare Biden's 68 minutes to Sanders' 7, but it's completely wrong to say "Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) has received only seven minutes of total coverage from ABC News in 2019."
World News Tonight is one of ten regularly scheduled ABC News shows, almost all of which cover American politics.
I expect, fairly or not, that the "too old too run" issue will suddenly get ramped up, not just for Sanders, but for all three of the septuagenarian front-runners.
78 is way too fucking old for presidency (and 76). I like Bernie but he's just too old this time around.