The Character Assassins of "Science"
The Character Assassins of "Science"
We all need to be careful. Hate is easier that you think.
And it hides behind things like fear, self-righteousness and, these days, social justice.
We can disagree about science or policy, but it’s the othering of human beings and the creation of thought criminals that fuel division and foster hate. One of the most common weapons people wield in the silencing of dissent is the hit piece - essentially the sucker punch of "journalism” and social media. Hit pieces are designed to discredit using ad hominem attacks and applying other logical fallacies to the assertions of the target.
I’ve written about this before…
I’m not going to name or focus on the assassins, but I think it’s important to recognize the difference between a good argument and a character assault. If you want to know who the inconvenient voices belong to, you only need to follow the hit pieces and the protests of “fact-checkers.” These are the folks who manage to escape the censors. And when you see these articles, ask yourself why the writers don’t focus on the “misinformation” itself?
There are even organizations dedicated entirely to training people to fight anti-vaxxers.
Apparently, “punching down” is acceptable when the marginalized community is comprised of people who refuse vaccines or oppose mandates (according to the new definition, opposing vaccine mandates makes you an anti-vaxxer). In fact, doctors are encouraged to use their rank to “fight back.”
I suppose the real mind trick here was conflating standing for medical freedom with picking a fight and being a threat. It has made us dangerous. It has made it a virtue to fight us. And anything we say to defend our position is subsequently considered an act of aggression.
Dr. Jessica Rose is the latest target of the medical establishment. Some of the strongest attacks are launched against doctors who go off script. But Unacceptable Jessica is not having it.
The author makes a series of strange and false claims about me. This is par for the course for this person, so I am informed. But this article is about the personal and public attack aimed at me.
D has never met me, or spoken to me, and did not try to contact me before taking time out of precious life to write this piece, and to publish it. I imagine D at her beautiful cherry desk with her bookshelves lined with encyclopedia behind her, typing madly away at her laptop about this terrible girl named Jessica. What was your purpose here, D? If these COVID-19 shots are safe, then they are safe. Why do care about my position on this subject matter? It doesn’t affect you. Does it bother you? Why does it bother you? If you personally believe that I am contributing to so-called ‘vaccine hesitancy’ by presenting data, and that this belief holds any water at all, then I suggest: the truth, transparency and informed consent. The truth, transparency and informed consent, in fact, would have prevented any kind of vaccine hesitancy, in my opinion.
People are rejecting the shots now because they are seeing loved ones being injured: not because of what I say. I am speaking on their stories reported to VAERS, not the other way around.
I highly recommend reading the entire post. She takes on the hit piece like she takes on VAERS data.
I don’t see hit pieces about anti-vaxxers disappearing anytime soon, so those of us who are speaking up will likely need thick skin and rooted hearts. It can be triggering to be disparaged and misrepresented, but hopefully we can focus on lifting each other up… Maybe we can even disarm the hit pieces like Unacceptable Jessica did, and use them as opportunities to clarify our positions.
They aim for you when you’re over the target and people are noticing. It’s becoming a badge of honor.
Now we just have to keep our cool. And our integrity.
That Auschwitz Memorial tweet is perfect for an article I’m working on now—thank you for alerting me to it, Ann!
"We all need to be careful. Hate is easier that you think. And it hides behind things like fear, self-righteousness and, these days, social justice."
I dig this.
Instead of feeling disdain for the moment and people we think are causing it we can point to the systems and the emotional thrust behind them in critiques, but blaming people, feeling superior, and wanting revenge of some kind, man, that ain't goin nowhere.
And I find we often turn to the darkness for solutions when we feel a fear. People get murderous fast, too reactionary, instead of facing a situation head on and defusing they often make everything worse by creating unnecessary enemies by trying to dominate the situation.
But this is the age of the petty tyrant, and as Carlos Castaneda made note of, if the petty tyrant makes us angry, sad, lost in pain, or anything else other than whistling a different tune with a smile in our heart through all that noise then we'll ultimately become the petty tyrant because we'll be using their tactics to handle the situation, and hence further the rule of the petty tyrant.