Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) has vibrated the internet with a whacky speech he recently gave to an audience of climate skeptics. Here's the bit that many are picking up on:
"I don't know whether or not fluoridating the water helps people's teeth become better or not," said Rohrabacher, invoking his childhood memories. "I don't know that," he continued, "But I do know that in this country, we should be the ones who should be deciding what we put into our bodies one way or the other, not the federal government or the local government putting fluoride into our water!" The water fluoridation screed elicited support from the crowd.
Okay, so we learned something new today about the Heartland crowd. They should consider holding their next climate skeptic conference in Portland, or this village in Palm Beach, Florida. But back to the GOP congressman and his problem with fluoridated water. Wonkette asks:
What is it with Republicans and really fucked up ideas about drinking water, anyway?
Cute. The problem with this logic, however, is that plenty of liberals have a similar disdain for fluoride. As one famous Portlander tweeted last year, referring to a subset of progressive Democrats:
How you can hate on the GOP for being creationist climate science deniers and then go on about how vaccines and fluoridation are poison? — colin meloy (@colinmeloy) January 30, 2013