Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
It is instructive – it is vitally important – that we remember how truths about “masks” and “vaccines” and the actual danger of “the virus” were cat-called as “misinformation,” “anti” Science and, yes, “denialism.” How those who dared to speak the truth were persecuted and punished – and still are (viz, the recent punishing of Dr. Peter McCullough, the eminent cardiologist, for stating truths about “the virus” and the “vaccines”).
That is what comes of tolerating cat-calls in lieu of conversations, no matter how uncomfortable those conversations may be. No matter how wrong some people may be, sometimes.
If a person is antagonistic toward a group of people on account of race or religion or some other such non-specific attribute, that will become clear enough soon enough – and that person’s arguments or statements can be picked apart on the basis of sloppiness, inaccuracy and disingenuousness (after a pattern has been established, after it becomes clear that contrary facts aren’t acknowledged and the person’s arguments and statements change to reflect the chastening effect of truth). That person’s statements and arguments can then be dismissed as wrong, without resorting to cat-calling.
It is easy to cat-call the arguments and statements of those you disagree with – and even easier, if you dislike them, personally.
With good reason.
It is very easy, for example, to dislike the person of someone as personally loathsome as Dr. Fauci – or the CEO of Pfizer, Anthony Bourla. But it is also easy to deflect and dismiss – and even pathologize – any questioning of their actions, their views, their policies, as being “anti” – including, in the case of Bourla, – “semitic” as simply (exactly the right modifier) motivated by dislike of them personally, or on account of their race or religion. And that – if accepted as argument-ending before there is an argument – confers upon their actions, their views and their policies a kind of blanket immunity from being questioned or criticized.
Well, a free society cannot exist without questioning and criticism, whether right or wrong and however uncomfortable certain topics may make some people feel. A free society requires people who can think – and aren’t cat-called for doing so. Even when what they think – and say – is racist or anti-Semitic. Not placed in air-fingers quote marks because it is a fact that there are such people.
But there are also worse people.
They are the people who use those terms to cat-call people who aren’t those things but who make statements or raise questions they’d rather not address, often because they are true and the truth can be very threatening, to falsehood. We’ve had an object lesson about that over the course of the past almost three years now. The lies told us about “the virus,” which were used to further worse lies about “masks” – and then on to “vaccines” – which nearly led to camps – show us what happens when such lies are protected by accusing those who dare to question them as being “anti,” as being “deniers.”
And there is still the road ahead of us, with a fork in it.
Peters explains why this fork is a most perilous one indeed, and why it’s imperative that we choose the right one.
Nothing worse than a liar. No shortage of those.
Another Piedmont Fremen co religionists?
I get the feeling sometime after the election they are going to admit the vax is bad and will try to blame the Bad Orange man for rushing it thru.
I think you’re right, and it will work on the same 40% it always works on. IOW’s, it wont make any difference to Trump.