I was getting ready to write about Sen. Rand Paul’s manifesto above ( he really is a libertarian, isn’t he?) when Humble Talent’s Comment of The Day, on the post “Theater Ethics Meets Pandemic Ethics: If I Were Still Running My Theater Company And We Had A Large Cast Show In Production…”
Perfect timing, and my favorite kind: it saved me the effort of writing a post. This should open up the pandemic and vaccine debate nicely, and get it out of the constricting limitation of live theater.
Heeeeeeere’s Humble…!
***
I find these Covid threads just… really tedious.
I have found common cause with the American left on precious few issues in my lifetime, and I often find that even when I agree with them, they put the issue forward in the most obnoxious and useless way possible: They mock, they demean, they use bad arguments, and even when they’ve come to the right conclusion they rarely understand the source material. It’s frustrating.
But on this one discrete topic…. I understand mocking anti-vaxxers.
Sorry guys, if you’re in the vaccine skeptic group… You are being dumb. Your body your right, yada yada yada. Sure. You have the right to be dumb. Just because it’s your right to be an idiot doesn’t shield you from the consequences of being an idiot. And while telling you that you’re an idiot, pressuring you not to be an idiot, and there being consequences to being an idiot might harm your tender egos, America isn’t going to end.
The reason why I feel on this one discrete topic, mocking anti-vaxxers, particularly American anti-vaxxers is appropriate is because there was no convincing you. On this topic, more than any other in recent history, you are completely information resistant.
“Well Jeff! Look at Israel, they’re having a spike right now, and most of their cases are breakthrough cases, how do you explain that?!?!”
Because everyone is experiencing a spike right now, international travel isn’t completely locked down, the vaccines were never sold as being 100% effective and as new variants come out the efficacy is only going to lower, and because more than 95% of Israeli adults are vaccinated. So when anyone in Israel gets Covid it is orders of magnitude more likely that the case will be a breakthrough than a non-vaccinated case.
More, Israel is currently experiencing an average of 250 new cases per 100,000 people per day. Which is significantly lower than Florida, at 950 new cases per 100,000 people per day, despite having a population density two and a half times that of Florida. Israel’s new case rate is lower, their hospitalization rate is lower, and their mortality rate is lower.
And this should surprise no one. These questions are not hard to answer. The information is out there.
But you have decided to exhibit the EXACT same behaviors that have been previously mocked here when describing Democrats: You are taking in surface level information that is reinforcing the position you want to have, placing your fingers in your ears and screaming “WHAT ABOUT ISRAEL” as loud as you can.
The worst part about this is that in America, this is largely a political snafu: Before being elected, Kamala Harris said that she wouldn’t take a Trump vaccine because she just couldn’t trust them, and then, basically the moment she won, she did a complete 180 on the topic. And, purely coincidentally, that was about the same time that the bobbleheads on the media stopped pumping the tires on vaccine hesitancy and Retards For Freedom started looking for a reason to pick up their dropped torch.
I’m kidding, in case you missed it: that’s not a coincidence. Oh, I’m sure that some of you might have been hesitant, but that just means you joined the RFF earlier than most. Vaccines have been a reality of life for decades: Most people who went to school before 1972 have one of the original vaccine passports: The smallpox vaccine scar. Most states have vaccination requirements to go to public school. Immigrants to America are required to prove certain immunizations before their application can be processed.
How many of you, your word to God’s ear, actually managed to go your entire life without a vaccine?
But unlike all those other vaccines that you took unquestioningly, this isn’t a vaccine for a rare disease that is mostly relegated to the dustbin of history, or random flareups in RFF communities. This isn’t a condition like tetanus which isn’t spread by people, and only has personal ramifications.
Part of the way that Freedom works is by having people come together like a community, to make good choices, both for themselves personally, and for the people around them. Freedom isn’t just the ability to mewl like a manbaby about how hard done you are when your friends and community exercise their right to have nothing to do with you, it also includes the responsibility not to be a retard.
And you are failing.
Ethics Alarms 
This is a tough topic for some people and I commend you and Jack for putting it out there for open discussion even thought we’ll probably disagree on parts of the discussion.
Humble Talent wrote, “Vaccines have been a reality of life for decades: Most people who went to school before 1972 have one of the original vaccine passports: The smallpox vaccine scar. Most states have vaccination requirements to go to public school. Immigrants to America are required to prove certain immunizations before their application can be processed.”
This was exactly my perspective about vaccines and one of the reasons I chose to get the vaccine when it became available to me even though there are possibilities of unknown side effects; however, the perspective that it’s just another in a long line of similar vaccines and it’s FDA approved like other vaccines is simply not accurate. I chose to get the J&J vaccine knowing that I’m choosing to be part of an experiment and knowing that there have been problems and some of them are serious; my choices, my consequences.
By the way; I’m right with you as you discuss anti-vaxxers in general, however this experimental vaccine, yes it is still experimental, IS different and the difference in how it works and what it does in the body and the complete controlling of the “settled science” narrative is a problem, a real problem both ethically and morally.
This vaccine is not like others, take some time to watch this long podcast. There is an index below the video to take you to some specific sections of the video. Parts of that video are truly annoying to listen to when they’re talking over each other but it gets better after a while. Someone needs to pull Steve Kirsch aside and tell him that he cannot properly listen when his mouth is moving, he starts talking and doesn’t want to stop, he seems to think it fine for him to interrupt others, but it’s not ok for others to interrupt him – Arrgh, that kind of hypocritical attitude really irks me.
Some observations regarding the COVID vaccines. The political left is flailing about ridiculously and their sheeple are swallowing all their narratives, no matter what they are, as if it’s all proven facts.
1. When President Trump was still in the Oval office and in the midst of a Presidential campaign, the political left was intentionally sowing the seeds of wide-spread distrust in the vaccine with their nearly constant mantra that they wouldn’t trust anything Trump is involved in and yes that was in conversations regarding the development of the vaccines.
2. When the experimental, yes it’s still experimental, vaccines became available and got their Emergency Use Authorization (EAU) and President Biden was elected President the whole narrative changed nearly over night, now the vaccines are their new “settled science”, effective, completely safe and they are pressuring and/or requiring people to get the vaccines, your individual human right to choose your own medical treatment has become irrelevant in their eyes; again, this is an experimental vaccine.
3. There are legitimate scientists voicing some real safety concerns about the spike protein that’s being created by all the vaccines to build immunity against COVID and the fact that health authorities are intentionally withholding critical data about that spike protein from the public to maintain their narrative is truly a ethically and morally disturbing fact.
4. Health authorities are intentionally hiding from the public that there are very effective drug treatments available right now for those infected with COVID and those effected with long term COVID effects, these drug treatments have actually had proven trials and the FDA still won’t release an approval for the drugs for they can be prescribed for use to fight the COVID virus and the long-term effects.
Both political and health authorities are exerting a tremendous amount of effort across the board to maintain their narrative and censor anything and anyone that might counter their narrative. I’ve been saying it for a while now; the political left has a nearly absolute control over the narratives that are being presented to We the People and after the last 4+ years of blatantly false Pravda like propaganda narratives and outright lies from the political left, that control over the narrative should scare the hell out of everyone when they pay attention to how they are pushing their COVID hysteria and COVID vaccine safety narratives so hard. They’re using their narratives to control the public, stomp on human rights and intimidate an entire population into getting an unproven, maybe unsafe by past FDA standards, experimental vaccination that has been rushed into production without meeting the same kinds of standards as other vaccines and they’re giving these vaccines to MILLIONS of people without the real understood knowledge that it is EXPERIMENTAL! If you don’t get the vaccine you might loose your job, not get a job, and will likely be prevented from participating in normal activities in our society – a social outcast – think 1930’s Star of David on Jews in Germany type of outcasts. That’s right, a social outcast because you didn’t want to take part in a mass population medical experiment.
Finally a few of questions for anyone willing to participate:
1. Exactly what possible harm does an unvaccinated person pose to you?
2. Do you fear unvaccinated people, if so, why?
3. How can you tell if a person is vaccinated or unvaccinated?
Please be specific, I might have a follow up question.
I believe vaccinations are necessary for a prolonged life in today’s world, if you are a life-long anti-vaxxer, I’m truly not on your side and I won’t engage in any of the anti-vaxxer’s outlandish deflection arguments that may be brought to the table. That said; anti-vaxxers have the human right to choose not to have any vaccines, it’s a medical decision, it’s their choice, it’s their consequences and I’ll stand up and fight for their human rights even though I may disagree with their choice – I’m absolutely firm on this.
Sorry, responded below.
For those without the time/inclination to watch the podcast that Steve links to, the most alarming topic covered concerns the efforts by the FDA and Merck to suppress information regarding the possible effectiveness of ivermectin as a prophylaxis against and treatment for Covid-19.
The evidence is strong enough that Dr. Weinstein is currently using ivermectin as a prophylactic (instead of a vaccine) and claims that we could potentially eliminate the virus that causes Covid-19 with its widespread use.
Never underestimate the power of regulatory capture and the profit motive.
And, just to be clear, those questioning the wisdom of vaccinating the entire population are neither (necessarily) anti-vaxxers or dumb.
“Never underestimate the power of regulatory capture and the profit motive.”
That’s…. insane.
I actually dealt with Ivermectin back in my farm days, it’s most common use is cattle delousing, you mix it with oil and apply it to the backs of cows to keep biting flies off. I’m not entirely sure what the reason is that it would be effective against Covid if taken orally, but that’s not really important…. Ivermectin is middle of the road for price, Brett said he was taking two 50 mg doses daily, and would have to for the duration of the Pandemic. Those doses are about $5 each. If Pharmaceutical companies were in this for a profit motive, being able to sell an already developed, relatively expensive, $10/day drug regimen in perpetuity would be orders of magnitude more effective than a two dose vaccine even if you factor in boosters.
“’Never underestimate the power of regulatory capture and the profit motive.’
That’s…. insane.”
Not at all. You might disagree with it, but it’s a standard theory in economics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Upton Sinclair
No Jon, my point was that if we were actually dealing with a regulatory capture situation, the pharmaceutical companies would be going for the prescription with the highest profit margin.
The fact of the matter is that even if Ivermectin worked and was universally dispensed in America, Covid isn’t going away outside America, we exist in a world market, and Ivermectin doesn’t produce any lasting benefit. $10 per day per American forever is more than two $30 doses of vaccine, even if you take an annual booster.
I don’t believe that $10/day is accurate. That may be what you’re paying, but I’ve heard it’s incredibly cheap to produce.
I heard that on a video by Dr. John Campbell, and English doctor of nursing who’s done a series of videos on Covid since the pandemic started. He’s very pro vaccine, but also pro Ivermectin. He did the math, and basically the actual cost of a dose of Ivermectin was less than the cost of producing the capsule that contained it. I don’t have time to go back and watch the videos, but I believe it was in one of these two:
edit: I was going to link the two videos, but one of them was running and happened to have this on the screen:
“A 2018 application for Ivermectin use for scabies gives a direct cost of $2.90 for 100 12 mg tablets.”
It’s at 3:50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j7am9kjMrk
The other video that might have the math is this one:
Ivermectin is off patent. Anybody can produce it. It’s a commodity. There is no profit margin. That’s not the case for the vaccines.
https://www.drugs.com/price-guide/stromectol
The trade name of oral Ivermectin is Stromectol, and the retail price of Stromectol is $5.33 per unit. There is a generic version of Ivermectin that retails at $3.95 per unit. But it bears note that both those prices are for 3mg doses, your YouTube video said 12mg and Brett said he was taking 50mg twice daily.
The cheapest I was able to find, Canadian wholesale, was through a proprietary McKesson order guide at $1.90 per cap in a 20 pack of 3mg doses.
It’s telling that he cited a 2018 usage for the treatment of scabies, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that veterinary medicine might be a little different than medicine for human consumption.
“For those without the time/inclination to watch the podcast that Steve links to, the most alarming topic covered concerns the efforts by the FDA and Merck to suppress information regarding the possible effectiveness of ivermectin as a prophylaxis against and treatment for Covid-19.”
Well… That and all the information coming out of trials is that Ivermectin isn’t effective. I said below that I wasn’t sure why an anti-parasitic agent would be effective as an antiviral, but medicine has all kinds of unintended connections, so I dug. Because NONE of this made sense.
The idea that Ivermectin is effective against Covid seems to stem from a single Australian study. Their methodology is, frankly, insane. They didn’t do clinical trials, they used cultured dishes, and they found that exceptionally high doses of Ivermectin was effective in killing Covid. But that’s like saying heat is effective at killing Covid after lighting a petri dish of it on fire and finding a lower prevalence of live Covid in the ashes. It’s why Brett was taking 100 mg daily when the normal dose for people is 3mg and the normal dose for cows is 12mg. He is almost certainly axe-murdering his liver.
I have no conception under God whether or not that level of Ivermectin might or might not be effective at fighting Covid, but no one seriously concerned about the possible toxicity of Covid vaccines should get within a country mile of 33x the normal dose of anti-parasitic.
The proponents of ivermectin are certainly relying on more than just a single Australian study. See, for example, the studies cited by this U.K. non-profit:
https://bird-group.org/health-professionals-resources/
On the other hand, other sources that I normally use (for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin) align with your statement.
What is someone who does not have the technical expertise to dig into the existing research (like myself) supposed to believe?
In theory, we trust people who know more about medicine than we do.
Look, we’re having this discussion against a backdrop of skepticism: The vaccines are new, the FDA hasn’t approved them yet, they’re “experimental”, there are side effects, there’s a toxicity problem. Some of that is false, some of that is misinterpreted, and some of that is irrelevant. I could*** get into the weeds with them, issue by issue… But I think holding up Ivermectin as an alternative demonstrates their lack of seriousness: If they were actually concerned about side effects, they wouldn’t be entertaining chugging thirty three times the recommended daily dose of an anti-parasitic drug because it looks like the anti-parasitic works in a petri dish. Because while it *might* work in preventing or treating Covid, we don’t know that: Literally zero live-system studies have been done ever, and given enough time, it will *probably* give you renal failure.
I’m not exactly sure who you’re going to trust to get your medical information. But the people talking about Ivermectin like it’s a legitimate and obvious alternative to the vaccines have applied skepticism to the vaccines and suspended their disbelief for Ivermectin. That’s not rational thinking. I expect that these people are just looking for an alternative to the vaccines because they don’t like the vaccines, facts be damned.
*** The word “Could” having previously confused Steve, I’m going to expand: The ability to do something doesn’t carry the requirement to do that thing, especially when there’s no reason to do it. Anti-Vaxxers desperately want the affirmation of people that seem to know what they’re talking about interacting with their crackpottery. You don’t debate the ethics of throwing animals with the crazy cat lady hucking her feline friends at you, you back away slowly and mock them.
I mean: Brett said during the interview: Pharmacies won’t fill the prescription. I heard that and I KNEW there was more to it than was being presented: Pharmacies generally don’t get to make healthcare decisions like that. That’s a great way to lose your license. Except when, perhaps, the prescription is ridiculous. I mean, think about what this would look like: Ivermectin comes in 3mg caps. A daily dose would be 33.3 caps. a month’s worth would be 1032 caps. Pharmacies generally won’t even HAVE that.
My only observation is that I have no objection to people making an informed decision not to take the vaccine. I completely agree that people who are reflexively “anti-vax” or fearful that the vaccine is some kind of government conspiracy are mock-worthy, although I personally eschew such behavior.
Vaccines carry risks. As long as a person thoughtfully weighs the risks of not vaccinating against the risks of severe or fatal illness, fully consults with his physician, and accepts all the potential consequences, I can’t see the need to criticize them. I can, and do, criticize uninformed or reflexive behavior that doesn’t consider the consequences, or subordinates them to some kind of political agenda.
It also matters that the vaccine is still considered experimental, and it is a brand-new technology. These facts can legitimately factor into any personal decision to take the vaccine, as long as the person fully understands the risks and accepts whatever consequences may follow his choice.
Finally, the most mock-worthy are those who choose unwisely and wind up with severe disease with long-term consequences, in the ICU, or on their deathbead and then blame others for their plight and want other people’s (read: government) money to pay for their self-inflicted misfortune.
“Vaccines carry risks. As long as a person thoughtfully weighs the risks of not vaccinating against the risks of severe or fatal illness, fully consults with his physician, and accepts all the potential consequences, I can’t see the need to criticize them. I can, and do, criticize uninformed or reflexive behavior that doesn’t consider the consequences, or subordinates them to some kind of political agenda.”
The problem is that we don’t live in self contained bubbles. Your choices have ramifications that effect more people than just you, and while everyone should be able to do their own risk analysis and come to a conclusion, there is a certain amount of selfishness in being belligerent about vaccines because you think you’ll be OK if you get Covid… And selfishness is not a virtue.
We exist in systems that are built on the expectations of trust, good intentions, and self-interest. We assume, for instance, we trust, that the people in the other lane going 60MPH will not veer into us and kill us all. It’s a good expectation because people are self-interested and they don’t want to die. Our highway systems would not function without that trust.
Anti-vaxxers are not acting like rational, self interested people. And they are fucking up systems bigger than themselves.
We exist in systems that are built on the expectations of trust, good intentions, and self-interest. We assume, for instance, we trust, that the people in the other lane going 60MPH will not veer into us and kill us all. It’s a good expectation because people are self-interested and they don’t want to die. Our highway systems would not function without that trust.
This is actually a terrible assumption to make on Highway 287 from Laramie, WY, to Fort Collins, CO.
I laughed. Fair.
The problem is that we don’t live in self contained bubbles. Your choices have ramifications that effect more people than just you, and while everyone should be able to do their own risk analysis and come to a conclusion, there is a certain amount of selfishness in being belligerent about vaccines because you think you’ll be OK if you get Covid… And selfishness is not a virtue.
Bah. This argument might have flown with me back in April, but in August where virtually every American could have been fully vaccinated by now, it is pure sophistry. If you are not vaccinated and get the disease, you have nobody to blame but yourself. If you are vaccinated and come down with it, bad luck, but that’s the risk of going outdoors every day. Sorry, no sale.
The main people paying the price for not getting vaccinated are… The unvaccinated. Just as it should be.
But there’s a non-insignificant number of people who *cannot* take the vaccine. They have health complications, or are allergic to vaccines.
Look, back when the pandemic started, I was very critical of the possibility of actually developing a vaccine. Sometimes, for various reasons, developing a vaccine just isn’t possible, and even when it is, sometimes it takes a very long time; The Ebola vaccine took decades to produce. And because I didn’t think that it was likely that a vaccine was forthcoming, I was of the opinion that all the healthy people under the age of 40 should figuratively lick the inside of Covid-positive people’s mouths, have the 2020’s equivalent of a chicken pox party, and get it over with, because it was going to be a fact of life that everyone was going to get Covid, the people who were going to die from Covid were going to die from Covid, and it was a question of “when” rather than “if”. And if we reached natural herd immunity faster, there would be less reason to lock down.
The vaccine completely changed my calculus, it’s probably one of the worst miscalculations of my life. And it’s not like that because I don’t know what I’m talking about. No, developing these vaccines were a testament to humanity’s ability to get shit done when their back is against a wall. It is 2020’s moon landing. And the fact that people don’t seem to understand or appreciate that actually kind of bothers me. Taking the vaccine saves lives. Even if you get a breakthrough case, your symptoms are significantly milder than they were otherwise.
All that said: I think we agree more than we disagree: ” If you are not vaccinated and get the disease, you have nobody to blame but yourself.” Barring a damn good reason not to get the jab: Damn right. They have no one to blame but themselves. And being stupid is not a virtue either.
But there’s a non-insignificant number of people who *cannot* take the vaccine. They have health complications, or are allergic to vaccines.
So we must forever comport our lives to support their infirmity? I’m sorry, I think not.
Look, this disease will eventually infect us all. It is utterly inevitable, and there’s nothing to be done. It, to paraphrase The Terminator, can’t be bargained with, or reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse or fear, and it absolutely will not stop, EVER, until it infects every vulnerable person.
This thing is far more similar to the common cold than influenza, or MERS, or even the “alpha” variant of SARS-CoV-2 (I’m talking about the “delta” variant here), and vaccines are useful at lowering infection risk and mitigating illness, but they cannot stop the spread, not even if we vaccinate every living human regardless of risk. This is something we are going to have to live with. Every person in America, at least, has had the common cold, and eventually, so will it be with SARS-CoV-2. Yes, even the vaccinated, although they may not know it.
For my money, I want it to spread as fast and far among the unvaccinated as possible. It is the only way we will ever return to normalcy. Anyone who tells you different is uninformed, selling something, or works for the CDC.
All that said: I think we agree more than we disagree: ” If you are not vaccinated and get the disease, you have nobody to blame but yourself.” Barring a damn good reason not to get the jab: Damn right.
Indeed.
“The problem is that we don’t live in self contained bubbles. Your choices have ramifications that effect more people than just you, and while everyone should be able to do their own risk analysis and come to a conclusion, there is a certain amount of selfishness in being belligerent about vaccines because you think you’ll be OK if you get Covid… And selfishness is not a virtue.”
And that’s the statist’s foot in the door for all manner of onerous commands from on high.
Libertarianism isn’t a suicide pact and “The Virtue of Selfishness” is not a great book to live by.
Would you refuse to help a lady who needed help crossing the street? Would you charge her a dollar for your time? Not every example of people not being stupid assholes is the first step on a slippery slope to authoritarianism.
Living in nature with natural risks is also not a blank check for statists and “Trusting People Who Have Proven Untrustworthy” is not a great book to live by either.
The lady crossing a street is helping someone navigate the systems we created for ourselves. I know you don’t really believe that’s analogous to a pandemic about which we are still learning and analogous to a vaccine about which we are still learning.
Nah. This is still in “let people make their own decisions” phase. A solution which has worked incredibly well for our society.
By the way…you’re weak analogy would be complete if you invited some busybody in DC to *compel* everyone on the street to ensure everyone else on the street makes it across safely regardless of anything else going on in everyone else’s lives.
Don’t use weak analogies.
“1. When President Trump was still in the Oval office and in the midst of a Presidential campaign, the political left was intentionally sowing the seeds of wide-spread distrust in the vaccine with their nearly constant mantra that they wouldn’t trust anything Trump is involved in and yes that was in conversations regarding the development of the vaccines.”
This is why Democrats shouldn’t be too smugly self satisfied: They started it, and while I really do believe that Democrats generally would have been better on vaccine uptake had Trump won that Republicans are being now, it’s not exactly a certain thing. 70% of people who say they’re opposed to vaccines are Republicans, and that means that 30% of them are Democrats. And those Democrats are anti-vaxx outside of a political motivation. It bears remembering that outside a couple of religious groups, anti-vaxx sentiment previous to Covid was clustered in kooky progressive enclaves. I’m old enough to remember stories about the resurgence of measles in 2016. Anti-vaxxers have always been dumb.
I think that the panel you linked is making a very different argument than you think they are: My take on what they’re saying is that people weren’t adequately warned about the possible side effects of a Covid vaccine, that alternatives aren’t being adequately explained, that the people in power need to be held accountable, and the censorship around alternatives needs to stop. What they aren’t saying is that the vaccine isn’t safe or that you shouldn’t take it. Malone and Kirsch said right up front that they had both taken the vaccine. In fact: Malone took the vaccine despite already having had Covid.
For whatever reason, there is a very vocal, very virulent lobby against all things vaccine, and they really like to play up the rates and severity of symptoms. Remember when the AstraZeneca vaccine was temporarily shelved because of an increased risk of blood clots at the rate of about 4 per million (the exact number, I believe, was 79 cases in 20,000,000 from the UK)? What you may or may not have known/heard is that at 4 cases per million, the AZ vaccine was several orders of magnitude less likely to cause blood clotting than most hormone based birth control pills. Has anyone, ever, made the argument that the risk of blood clots is so large that women should double think the pill? Why was the vaccine so special?
Which is why I don’t know how deep into the weeds I want to get: I don’t believe that the people who are anti-vaxx are actually concerned about these issues so much as they’re just anti-vaxx and looking for excuses to reinforce their priors. I don’t want to spend a whole lot of time and energy explaining to people that won’t listen why they’re being stupid.
Has anyone, ever, made the argument that the risk of blood clots is so large that women should double think the pill? Why was the vaccine so special?
Actually, Catholic moral theologians have been pounding that fact for a long time. The side-effects on most contraceptives are appalling large. Many contraceptives have been pulled from the market for all the side-effects, and the companies that made them have been sued out of existence. But, you know, Catholics.
I know you meant that last bit to be a little tongue in cheek, but the fact of the matter is that the Catholics are opposed to most forms of contraception including ones without any side effects. You tell me what the side effects of condoms are, because the Catholic Church’s official stance on them is that they are prohibited in the faith.
So really… Are they against them out of concern for the side effects, or are they morally against them and looking for anything that could justify their position? Because, yeah… Catholics.
HT,
Keep in mind that the Catholic Church is opposed to the deliberate sterilization of the sex act. The reason for this, as Pope Paul VI pointed out in Humanae Vitae is that the use of contraceptives leads the spouses to lose the full respect of their procreative capacities and start to view each other as objects for gratification. So the harm that other contraceptives do, in this regard, is the same with condoms. The degree of harm in other ways varies based on the contraceptive. The point that Catholics raise about hormonal birth control is not so much that they have these harmful consequences (blood clots, weight gain, moodiness, feelings of being less attractive, etc), but more the attitude “I’m willing to subject you to all these possible side effects so that I can get my consequence-free kicks”. It is the relational harm that is the problem. The negative side-effects are just more evidence of the relational breakdown.
But as for a possible consequence of the condom, I have to admit I’ve not managed to track down the study Jason Evert referred to in his talk “Life Giving Love”. But this study he quoted looked at the effects of semen on a woman’s body, and there was evidence that a woman’s body would learn some of the man’s DNA so that when she conceived his child, her body would be more predisposed toward it. For example, one of the consequences of her body not learning the man’s DNA was higher rates of preeclampsia. This was true for couples that used the condom, and it was also true of women with many partners, because many partners confused her body. But, again, I haven’t looked at the actual source, so take that with a grain of salt.
> I’m old enough to remember stories about the resurgence of measles in 2016. Anti-vaxxers have always been dumb.
How about old enough to remember the swine flu panicdemic of 1976?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_swine_flu_outbreak
Or Thalidomide. While it was approved in Germany, the FDA never approved it and they also didn’t do anything about 2.5 million doses being distributed as samples in a clinical trial. The medication was referred to in FDA documents as a sedative, tranquilizer or sleeping pill. The problem was it caused birth defects. And while exact numbers still haven’t been released 10,000 cases were reported with a survival rat of 50%.
“I think that the panel you linked is making a very different argument than you think they are: My take on what they’re saying is that people weren’t adequately warned about the possible side effects of a Covid vaccine, that alternatives aren’t being adequately explained, that the people in power need to be held accountable, and the censorship around alternatives needs to stop. What they aren’t saying is that the vaccine isn’t safe or that you shouldn’t take it. Malone and Kirsch said right up front that they had both taken the vaccine. In fact: Malone took the vaccine despite already having had Covid.”
I think your list of things they are saying is accurate, but you missed the mark regarding what you think they’re not saying.
Kirsch is 100% anti-vaccine. He said he took it before looking into it. It was only when he was talking to his carpet cleaner (or something similar), who said that both they and their spouse had bad reactions to the vaccine, that he realized something was amiss. His reasoning was that if the number of people with bad reactions was only a handful out of millions of vaxxed people, as we are being told, then it was highly unlikely he would personally know two of them. He then started doing his own inquiries, including talking to several doctors, and kept coming up with about a 3% bad reaction rate.
Weinstein has said repeatedly on his podcast that he believes the vaccine is unsafe, and that he does not want to take it. His definition of unsafe, however, is not that it will with certainty do harm, but instead that we do not yet have enough data to clearly know if it will do harm or not. He has often used the analogy of a gun which might or might not be loaded. If you hold it to your head and pull the trigger, not having your head blown off doesn’t mean it was a safe action.
Malone said in the Weinstein podcast that he took the vaccine because he needs to travel so much for work and being unvaccinated would have made that extremely difficult. I have seen him on other video, where he is more able to express complete thoughts uninterrupted. Based on those, I believe he is on balance pro-vaccine, but is very concerned that adverse events are not only being underreported but doctors and others trying to report adverse events are actively being intimidated. He said many doctors had contacted him to tell him this was happening to them.
For what it’s worth, I am at this point strongly against the vaccine. My previous position was more nuanced. I had my mother take it, and thought it was a good idea that my in-laws take it as well, given their age. I wasn’t planning on taking it myself, since I had Covid. I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about having my kids take it, but not strongly opposed, either. I thought on balance it was probably a good idea for middle aged or older people who would have extensive contact with the public and who had not had Covid.
Two days post vaccine, my mother-in-law started having tremors and circulatory symptoms she had never experienced before, culminating in a massive stroke. It’s certainly possible this was merely coincidental to having the vaccine, but if you look at the VAERS data, there are an awful lot of coincidences happening. I read in one article, which took the position that the VAERS data was being misunderstood and misused, that there had in fact only been a few hundred confirmed adverse events with over 160 million vaccines given. I take the same position as Kirsch: if this were true, then I shouldn’t know anybody who had an adverse event. I hear stories like this frequently. Many, many coincidences.
I also believe the numbers regarding Covid cases, if not actively manipulated, are at best inaccurate. There was a big kerfuffle, I think in May, 2020, including an article in the New York Times, regarding cycle thresholds for the PCR tests. Each cycle of these tests amplifies genetic material exponentially, until you get a signal. Apparently anything under 28 cycles is a strong result, but as you get up into 30 cycles or more, you’re likely picking up noise. Many people were being labeled positive with Covid when the cycle threshold for their test was in the 30’s. As far as I know, the CDC still has not clarified the protocol for testing the unvaxxed, but there was a memo sent out for testing the vaxxed that specifically limited cycle thresholds to 28. So positive results for unvaxxed are artificially high compared to the vaxxed.
Similarly, people who died while positive for Covid were reported as having died from Covid, even if the circumstances of their death had nothing to do with Covid. The reverse is happening for vaccinated people.
Then there is the question of who is affected by Covid. The CDC recently came out with a data table showing that there were a few comorbidities that made it likely that a case of Covid would go badly. Chief among these were obesity and diabetes with complications. In particular, if you had 6 or more of these comorbidities combined, your outlook was bleak. However, if you didn’t have any of these comorbidities, it was unlikely you would have anything other than a mild case of Covid.
So combine Covid likely not being particularly dangerous for young, healthy people or for people previously infected with Covid, along with inaccurate reporting about how many people actually get infected with/without the vaccine, along with what appears to be intentional, massive underreporting of adverse vaccine events, and I do not want anyone putting that stuff in my kids arms.
The trouble with reading too much into knowing/hearing about people who had major medical problems after getting a COVID vaccine is that for a good number of months in spring/summer 2021, (a good chunk of the people you know/hear about (by my guess, like 20-50% in the US?) have had a recent COVID vaccine.
Humble Talent wrote, “I think that the panel you linked is making a very different argument than you think they are…”
Other than what I wrote in this paragraph…
I made no claims about what I thought their arguments were, I don’t know where you’re getting the idea that I went any further than that, did you make an assumption?
Humble Talent wrote, “My take on what they’re saying is that people weren’t adequately warned about the possible side effects of a Covid vaccine, that alternatives aren’t being adequately explained, that the people in power need to be held accountable, and the censorship around alternatives needs to stop.”
I agree.
Humble Talent wrote, “What they aren’t saying is that the vaccine isn’t safe or that you shouldn’t take it.”
That’s not entirely true.
What is true is they’re not saying that the vaccine is not effective, in fact I think they stated it outright that the method the vaccines use to attacking the virus is effective.
What they did actually say about the vaccine safety is that the spike protein that the vaccine tells the body to produce, and I quote, the “spike protein is very dangerous” and the “FDA knew it could be toxic” and the vaccine is not staying in the arm where it’s supposed to stay. all these things are big red flags for we the people that need to be thoroughly looked at and not hidden from the people.
Humble Talent wrote, “Malone and Kirsch said right up front that they had both taken the vaccine. In fact: Malone took the vaccine despite already having had Covid.”
I haven’t hid the fact from anyone, including here on Ethics Alarms, that I got the J&J vaccine as soon as it became available to me on April 1, 2021, which just happened to be April Fools Day, LOL!. I had already done my research on the side effects, publicized blood clot issues, FDA procedures for experimental vaccines in case I needed to report side effects, what I could expect or not expect since it was experimental, and briefly looked at the spike protein issue back then but I understand that issue better now thanks to things like the video I posted. In the end, the percentage of bad side effects in the overall scheme of things made a big difference to me and why I went ahead and got the vaccine and all I can do at this point is to hope that there are no unknown long term side effects to the vaccine that will ruin my retirement years that are just around the corner.
Well oops, that last part had a hole lot more bold than I intended, the only word I intended to be bold was the word big, I didn’t close the tag properly, stupid fat fingers trying to type too fast.
Got it!
Thanks!
“Other than what I wrote in this paragraph… […] I made no claims about what I thought their arguments were, I don’t know where you’re getting the idea that I went any further than that, did you make an assumption? […] I agree. […] That’s not entirely true.”
My God, Steve. You complained that I made an assumption about what you thought (Which I full admit I did, that’s why I said “I think”. It’s called an “inference”), and then immediately went on to lay out how my assumption was right. You disagree with me, obviously, but what’s the difference between what I assumed your position to be and what it actually is?
Humble Talent wrote, “You complained that I made an assumption about what you thought”
Actually no, I didn’t complain, I simply stated what I perceived as a fact, made a reasonable observation about your perception and posed a question related to my observation. What I did was not complaining, your assertion is absurd.
Humble Talent wrote, “You complained that I made an assumption about what you thought (Which I full admit I did, that’s why I said “I think”. It’s called an “inference”)”
No Humble Talent, words in the English language actually have meaning, try using the words properly. An inference is a conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning where an assumption is a thing that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof. You made an assumption based on nothing but your biased delusions not an inference based on some evidence.
Humble Talent wrote, “…then immediately went on to lay out how my assumption was right.”
This is gaslighting bull shit. Your assumption was “I think that the panel you linked is making a very different argument than you think they are…” and I’ve proven that false.
Humble Talent wrote, “You disagree with me, obviously…”
Applying Hanlon’s razor. It’s apparent that you didn’t actually read all of what I wrote, it’s the only reasonable conclusion I can come to that properly explains that inaccurate misrepresentation; it’s either that or you’re intentionally lying, you choose.
I actually agreed with with you in part and then stated actual facts from the video that categorically disproved your claim that “What they aren’t saying is that the vaccine isn’t safe…”.
Humble Talent wrote, “then immediately went on to lay out how my assumption was right.”
That’s either pure delusion on your part or an intentional trolling lie. You’re welcome to your own opinion but not your own facts and the actual facts in this case prove otherwise.
Humble Talent wrote, “what’s the difference between what I assumed your position to be and what it actually is?”
Well Einstein, your initial statement was “I think that the panel you linked is making a very different argument than you think they are…” you seem to have assumed that I my position was “very different” than reality and in fact I’ve proven that your assumption was completely false.
In Conclusion
It’s become very clear to me over the last few days that no matter how reasonable, honest, truthful, accurate, etc I am discussing things with you, you’re going to intentionally go out of your way to twist what’s written into your carefully crafted gaslighting delusions and then you’re going to attack those delusions as if they’re fact. Your unethical commentary tactics have consequences and one consequence is you’ve become completely irrelevant to me and I think I’m done with you in the same way I was done with Alizia. I’m sure there will be gnashing of teeth and torrent’s of tears streaming down you’re cheeks as a result of this decision.
I’m not going to feed an obvious internet troll, so you can feel free to spout a bunch of hateful bull shit about me or you can simply fuck off, I just don’t give a damn any more what you write.
TROLL: noun (abbreviated version of internet troll) Those that post inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion, often for their own amusement.
You could always… Y’know… Stop responding.
From the comment:
“Just because it’s your right to be an idiot doesn’t shield you from the consequences of being an idiot.”
What EXACTLY are the consequences you are talking about? It’s a statement often made by the Left about any number of things, but, tell me, Humble Talent, what consequences do you have in mind?
If it is anything more than, “you might get sick, and then you might die,” you might just be a crypto-fascists. We have been through Buck v. Bell, and Korematsu and Tuskegee. The tendency toward authoritarianism has a much longer history than does the tendency toward freedom of the individual. I do not have a lot of patience for authoritarians of any sort. They immediately deserve skepticism, because they will always find ways to amass power.
Here is what really burns up people on the Left. They could be speaking the truth 100%. But, if I don’t trust them, I can disregard 100% of it. Boy, they really don’t like it when you don’t trust them! Especially when they have acted untrustworthy. Here, I think they have. People should be skeptical, and the authorities deserve every bit of distrust out there.
If you wish to lament the freedom of idiots, you will never be lacking in reasons to cry. If you want to threaten them, you are an enemy of liberty, and, probably, a useful idiot, yourself.
You see, I don’t mind idiots; they are mostly harmless. It is the useful idiots that are dangerous.
-Jut
This is encouraging:
https://www.euronews.com/2021/08/01/plans-for-vaccine-passes-provoke-protests-in-france-switzerland-and-italy
-Jut
I’ve done this twice now… response is below.
First, I want to take exception to conflating hesitancy to take the COVID-19 vaccines with anti-vaxxers. There’s a huge differences to being skeptical about one particular vaccine and being skeptical about all vaccines. And conflating the two blurs the issues and dismisses out of hand legitimate arguments and concerns.
I stand in an odd position, because I oppose getting any of the COVID-19 vaccines, and I have been vaccinated. I took the double doses of the Moderna vaccine when it became available at my workplace. Was it to protect my family (my wife is pregnant with our fourth)? Not at all. We’re all healthy, and the odds of the coronavirus having any effect other than a harsh cold for my household is surprisingly small. Was it because my workplace pressured me into it? No, though I will cite that the 14 days paid sick time goes away if I snag a sufficiently large batch of SARS-CoV-2 and I’m not vaccinated. So why did I get the vaccine? At the time, I believed it the right thing to do to help the efforts of reaching herd immunity. So what has changed since then? Let’s consider my thinking, meandering as it is.
I don’t think there’s any legitimate argument against the efficacy of the vaccines, especially the Moderna and Pfizer variants. I agree they reduce the infection rate, they reduce the virulence of infections, and they reduce the death rates. I also think, from a standpoint of trying to reach heard immunity, the vaccines go a good way towards accomplishing that.
Do I support people in their hesitancy with regards to the long-term side effects? Absolutely. We’ve had tremendous success with vaccines over the course of the last century or more. Vaccines are one aspect that has helped us achieve such extended lifespans. But we’ve also seen drugs and vaccines and therapies come onto the market, and then have their approval revoked when some unanticipated side effects emerge. mRNA vaccines have been under development for 20 years or more, but until now they’ve never been marketed. There’s bound not only to be side-effects, but a large number of unanticipated side-effects, and it is reasonable to want to wait until more information is available. Certainly an FDA approval (which is rumored to be coming soon for Pfizer) would go a long way to assuage fears. Until then, it is reasonable to wait. But that’s not the reason I’m opposed to taking the vaccines.
Do I look at the numbers? Yes, I do. Does it appear that currently there are higher rates of side-effects reported than for any other vaccine in recent history? Yes. VAERS is seeing a surge in reporting on the COVID-19 vaccines. AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson were halted in places over concerns of larger-than-expected numbers of side-effects. Does this justify not getting the vaccine? Not necessarily. This is a balancing act. If the side-effects of the vaccine are less frequent in cases and severity than acquiring COVID-19 naturally, then the numbers still recommend the vaccine. And I believe the numbers currently show the balance to be in favor of the vaccines. This could potentially flip with the Delta, Lambda, Omicron, Babylon 5, or Death Star variants, but we still have to wait for time and data to reveal what’s happening there. So that’s also not my reason for opposition.
So why I am opposed to getting the vaccine? In true Retards for Freedom fashion, I’ll cite freedom. Not from a standpoint of my-body-my-choice, because I don’t believe that. (I oppose abortion, remember?) It doesn’t pass a societal test, and it doesn’t pass the Catholic moral theology test. But there’s a greater concern going on here, and I believe it is encapsulated in the vaccine passports and the threat to freedom that represents. Vaccine passports are the gateway drug into the full oppression of a populace. Show your party credentials, or you’ll be thrown out. We’re already seeing that New York. No restaurant access without the passport. And if the government can get away with force such passports on us, do you really, truly, honestly think they’ll stop there?
Maybe I’m being heavily influenced right now as I’m reading “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” by William Shirer (Hi, my name is Ryan, and I’m falling into the “my opponents are Nazis trap…”), but it certainly seems that if the government can revoke rights because of crises, they will continue to create crises so they can continue revoking rights. Eventually they will have such a precedent of success in revoking rights that they’ll just do it without a crises. And by then, it will be too late.
Will more people die if people don’t get vaccinated? Probably. But that’s the cost of pushing back against the totalitarian mindset besieging us. I see this in the same light as the gun debate. Yes, more people will die due to guns by keeping gun ownership a right. But it is a cost that has to be paid to keep freedoms intact.
I mean…. At least you own it.
https://www.hli.org/resources/aborted-fetal-tissue-in-vaccines/
As of March 2021, the Charlotte Lozier Institute lists about fifty vaccines of several different types in actual use or undergoing various stages of testing.
About twenty of these vaccines use material from aborted babies during their development, production and testing phases. On the other hand, this means that more than half of the available COVID-19 vaccines do not resort to the use of material from aborted babies at all.
This is a summary of the latest information regarding the ethical suitability of the three classes of COVID-19 vaccines produced in the United States:
Vaccines using no fetal tissue (ethical):
VLA 2001 (Valneva and Dynavax)
VSVΔG/V590 (Merck and IAVI)
KBP-201 (Kentucky BioProcessing)
Baculovirus plus AS03 (Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline)
T-VIVA-19 (Sorrento).
Vaccines using “immortal” fetal cell lines (some cell lines do use fetal tissue in confirmatory lab tests, and some do not):
UB-612 (COVAXX and United Biomedical)
mRNA-1273 (Moderna/NIH)
NVX-CoV2373 (Novavax)
LUNAR-CoV19/ARCT-021 (Arcturus Therapeutics)
BNT-162a1,b1,b2,b3,c2 (Pfizer and BioNTech)
MRT5500 (Sanofi Pasteur and Translate Bio)
INO-4800 (Inovio Pharma).
Vaccines using “fresh” fetal tissue (unethical):
AdCOVID (Altimmune)
AZD1222 (AstraZeneca)
hAd5 S-Fusion+N-ETSD (ImmunityBio and NantKwest)
Ad26.COV2-S (Janssen and Johnson & Johnson)
VXA-CoV2-1 (Vaxart)
PittCoVacc (University of Pittsburgh)
Comment of the Day.
Ryan Harkins wrote, “So why I am opposed to getting the vaccine? In true Retards for Freedom fashion, I’ll cite freedom. Not from a standpoint of my-body-my-choice, because I don’t believe that. (I oppose abortion, remember?) It doesn’t pass a societal test, and it doesn’t pass the Catholic moral theology test. But there’s a greater concern going on here, and I believe it is encapsulated in the vaccine passports and the threat to freedom that represents. Vaccine passports are the gateway drug into the full oppression of a populace. Show your party credentials, or you’ll be thrown out. We’re already seeing that New York. No restaurant access without the passport. And if the government can get away with force such passports on us, do you really, truly, honestly think they’ll stop there?”
This is similar to what I wrote elsewhere.
Well deserved COTD, HT, and I will say one of the great benefits of the whole COTD thing is that it inspires some (like me in this case) to go back and see what we missed. I skipped most of that Theater-Get vaccinated thread because, for me, pretty simple — a private company wants everyone working in close contact with others to be vaccinated, so fine, if they can’t or won’t get vaccinated, then they’ll just have to work elsewhere. Employment conditions in a private company, after all, are decided by the employer, well, mostly anyway.
But, as some of these topics do, it expanded to issues well beyond the prerogative of a director to establish conditions for the actors and crew. So, now, I have to go back and work through those comments, and, for that, HT, you deserve an HT (hat tip) from me.
And, I may borrow one of your thoughts from time to time (slightly modified) since it actually applies to a number of situations: “But you have decided to exhibit the EXACT same behaviors that you have mocked when describing ____: You are taking in surface level information that is reinforcing the position you want to have, placing your fingers in your ears and screaming “LALALALALALA” as loud as you can.”
Feel free to use it, but that’s not a HT-ism, “fingers in your ears shouting LALALA” is a tried and true EA comment section meme that I repurposed.
“What EXACTLY are the consequences you are talking about? It’s a statement often made by the Left about any number of things, but, tell me, Humble Talent, what consequences do you have in mind?
If it is anything more than, “you might get sick, and then you might die,” you might just be a crypto-fascists.”
Well… I don’t see how I could be several of them, but that’s irrelevant because I’m not even one. There’s a whole lot of consequences we could talk about, most of them revolve around either you or your family, or strangers you come into contact with getting sick and dying. There’s a social ostracism component. I’m particularly fond of the schadenfreude I feel when an anti-vaxxer gets sick and then posts a mewling hospital bed video about how stupid they were… There’s nothing quite like being told “you were right” by a moron I didn’t actually have to warn in the first place. Those are personal.
From a business standpoint… I think there’s a possibility of businesses trying to require vaccinations for entry (I’m thinking about sports teams or theatres in particular), I don’t know how feasible that is, but it’s defensible… membership in the RFF isn’t a protected class, and businesses have rights too. Vaccinations as a requirement for employment are possible. On the level of governments… I think public schools might end up on the docket, again… vaccinations have been required for years, it would just mean adding one vaccine to the list.
All of that is to one level or another, reasonable. It’s at least reasonable to debate it. It’s all defensible, it’s all constitutional.
This however, is a little special:
“Here is what really burns up people on the Left. They could be speaking the truth 100%. But, if I don’t trust them, I can disregard 100% of it. Boy, they really don’t like it when you don’t trust them! Especially when they have acted untrustworthy. Here, I think they have. People should be skeptical, and the authorities deserve every bit of distrust out there.”
I mean…. To an extent, I get it, the people we’re talking about don’t really deserve a whole lot of Trust. But I guess my questions to you are:
“Do you actually think the vaccine is ineffective?” (And/Or) “Do you actually think the vaccines are dangerous?”
Because if the answer to both is “no”, then you’re forgoing the vaccine to make a spiteful political point, and I think I’ve demonstrated that I don’t have patience for that view. If the answer to either or both is yes… I could try explaining the theory to you. I could forward you on to some resources I trust. But those seem like naïve pipedreams at this point. Realistically, I have the impression that most people who answer “yes” to either have arrived there having followed a path of purposeful ignorance. We are 18 months into this, and the idea that people who are genuinely intellectually curious couldn’t have sourced out their own information just doesn’t pass muster.
My answer to both questions would be, “I don’t know.” It seems more and more like this is going to end up like the flu: deadly, mostly survivable, with a moderately effective slew of vaccines to fight it.
But, yeah, I got vaccinated, pretty much for the same reason I wore a mask: to get the mother-fucking nannies to shut the hell up!
Didn’t work.
Probably never does.
Likely just encouraged them.
When will I ever learn?
Again, probably never.
-Jut
I don’t understand these brainworm takes.
I guess I should have asked the question “Have you taken the vaccine?”, but I didn’t envision a reality where the person vigorously advocating drinking a capful of bleach per day (real thing) having never drank a capful of bleach. In fact, every single one of the people vociferously advocating “vaccine hesitancy” has admitted they’ve taken the vaccine.
Which means this is fully performative.
On reading your comment, my first take was going to be “Who cares what the Dems think?” I mean… I don’t, obviously. You don’t, I think. The easy response to that is: “Right, but they’re being really preachy and smug”, and sure, the sky is also blue. But I don’t make health decisions as a function of opposition to what my political opponents are currently doing. And neither do you, apparently, you just agitate like you do.
You are the flip coin of Democratic leadership, the people that advocate a progressive lifestyle: Free from “stigma”: “Don’t worry about having healthy relationships, don’t worry about having steady employment, don’t worry about marriage, don’t worry about kids.” Saying all this, while all the time living very conservative lifestyles, knowing deep down the truth that every conservative knows: Good life choices determine future success.
And this performative opposition, or performative acceptance, of low-information but somehow relatively popular narratives hurts people. It keeps people from making good life decisions because it adds this veneer of respectability to something that is not actually acceptable.
Please stop.
“The reason why I feel on this one discrete topic, mocking anti-vaxxers, particularly American anti-vaxxers is appropriate is because there was no convincing you. On this topic, more than any other in recent history, you are completely information resistant.”
Are you saying that when you are unable to convince someone to agree your opinion, you feel justified in mocking and denigrating the people who disagree with you? Have you considered that perhaps your arguments are just not very persuasive? Have you even tried to understand why people do not want these vaccines? Perhaps your own bias is clouding your opinion of the vaccine-resistant, and hindering your ability to make persuasive arguments. Or do you simply feel like you are so confident in your own stance on the vaccines, that that ought to be persuasion enough?
Treating other people like they are stupid is not persuasive. Denigrating other people is not persuasive. Refusing to listen to an opposing view point is not persuasive.
Your own certainty that you are right and that everyone should listen to you is not actually an argument. It is bias.
“The worst part about this is that in America, this is largely a political snafu: Before being elected, Kamala Harris said that she wouldn’t take a Trump vaccine because she just couldn’t trust them, and then, basically the moment she won, she did a complete 180 on the topic. And, purely coincidentally, that was about the same time that the bobbleheads on the media stopped pumping the tires on vaccine hesitancy and Retards For Freedom started looking for a reason to pick up their dropped torch.”
You are making an awful lot of assumptions about when and why people decided they were not sure they wanted to take this vaccine. You are also throwing out an awful lot of insults that are counter-productive and only going to entrench people’s anti-vaccine stance further. “Retards For Freedom” REALLY? That is your argument? Calling everyone who disagrees with you a “retard” and implying that anyone who wants bodily autonomy and the right to privacy is an idiot? VERY persuasive. I think I will run right out and grab that vaccine now because someone with the rhetorical power of an 8 year old schoolyard bully called me mean names and said I was stupid. Wait, no, I won’t.
Freedom, bodily autonomy and the right to privacy are not stupid. They are essential to a free society.
I do not trust that this vaccine is safe because it is a new technique, it was not rigorously tested, there are no long term studies on its safety, and there are an awful lot of people dying or experiencing adverse side effects after taking it. No one appears to be taking those side effects seriously, researching their causes or providing any information about what is going on. None of those reasons have anything to do with who thinks what is a good idea. I was worried about the vaccine when it was being developed under the Trump regime, and I am worried about it now. The politics surrounding the vaccine do not help, but they have nothing to do with why I am not currently willing to take it.
Your assumption that the only possible reason for me to be worried about the vaccine is the politics of the messaging and who the message is coming from is insulting, demeaning, and indicates a lack of critical thinking on your part. Insults are not persuasive. Demonstrating an inability to listen to the people who disagree with you, an unwillingness to parse through their arguments for root causes, and a complete lack of empathy is not going to convince people to see things your way. This nasty attitude convinces me that the pro-vaccine crowd is a bunch of elitist, snobbish narcissists throwing a temper-tantrum because they are not getting their way. Temper-tantrums are not persuasive arguments.
“Immigrants to America are required to prove certain immunizations before their application can be processed.”
Immigrants to the United States have to do nothing other than walk across the southern border. They are currently doing so by the hundreds of thousands, and the latest information I have seen indicates that a large percentage are doing so not only un-vaccinated, but also sick with active cases of covid. Those who are actually intercepted by border patrol are then released to do as they please. The ones who are not intercepted by the border patrol are obviously free to do as they please. Perhaps you are speaking of legal immigrants, or immigrants to Canada. Immigrants to Canada are Canada’s business, and legal immigrants to the United States are getting screwed. Legal immigrants should not have to submit to criteria that are not imposed on illegal immigrants, particularly when illegal immigration is being condoned and encouraged by the current administration.
“How many of you, your word to God’s ear, actually managed to go your entire life without a vaccine?”
You fail to distinguish between people who are ant-vaccine to all vaccines, and people who have concerns with this particular vaccine. This is an undistributed middle rhetorical fallacy.
“But unlike all those other vaccines that you took unquestioningly, this isn’t a vaccine for a rare disease that is mostly relegated to the dustbin of history, or random flareups in RFF communities. This isn’t a condition like tetanus which isn’t spread by people, and only has personal ramifications.”
No, this vaccine is not like all those other vaccines. That is the entire problem, and why people are hesitant to take it. This vaccine was rushed through development, did not go through normal testing procedures, is not approved by the FDA for anything other than experimental use, and is not the same kind of vaccine as the others. Other vaccines have been rigorously tested, have a history of safety and efficacy. The coronavirus vaccine does not.
Most vaccines are intended to prevent spread of a communicable disease. Meningitis, Mumps, Rubella, Pertussis, HPV, Measles. If you were not aware that those diseases are highly contagious, then perhaps you need to do some of your own research on vaccines. This current virus is by no means unique in its communicability and the vaccine is not unique in its purported purpose.
New guidance by the CDC on masking and their statements that the vaccine does not prevent spread of the virus, however, indicate that the vaccine does not actually prevent contagion. The new propaganda line seems to be that it reduces symptoms. There are other treatment methods that do the same thing. Ivermectin, Regeneron, Remdesivir. If the vaccine does not even stop the spread, and is only good for prophylactic treatment, then why are other treatment methods not viable alternatives?
“Part of the way that Freedom works is by having people come together like a community, to make good choices, both for themselves personally, and for the people around them. Freedom isn’t just the ability to mewl like a manbaby about how hard done you are when your friends and community exercise their right to have nothing to do with you, it also includes the responsibility not to be a retard.”
Freedom means freedom from tyranny. It does not mean that the community gets to terrorize, torment, and persecute you when they disagree with you. That is tyranny.
If everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you? Sounds like it.
See, this is what I was expecting! A whole lot of words saying little aside from some faint undertones of tone policing.
“Are you saying that when you are unable to convince someone to agree your opinion, you feel justified in mocking and denigrating the people who disagree with you?”
Well, first off, I ALWAYS feel justified in mocking people. But I never do it when I’m trying to convince them of something. I sometimes do it when I’m trying to convince other people that are following the conversation, because I feel like pointing out the absurdities inherent in someone else’s position is useful.
“Treating other people like they are stupid is not persuasive. Denigrating other people is not persuasive. Refusing to listen to an opposing view point is not persuasive.”
Right… I’m not trying to persuade you. I don’t think that there’s anything that I could do to persuade you, and that’s not because I don’t have the information, and it’s not because I don’t think I could explain it. I think that you’re being deliberately information-resistant. I can’t make a rational argument to someone who doesn’t want to be confused by the facts, and so I’m not going to waste my time. This is one of the big differentiators between Jack and I: He’s too professional and proud to really get down in the muck and sink down to your level. I live here. I love that I called anti-vaxxers retards and it hit you close enough to home that you spent seven paragraphs bitching about it. Feed me.
“No, this vaccine is not like all those other vaccines. That is the entire problem, and why people are hesitant to take it. This vaccine was rushed through development, did not go through normal testing procedures, is not approved by the FDA for anything other than experimental use, and is not the same kind of vaccine as the others. Other vaccines have been rigorously tested, have a history of safety and efficacy. The coronavirus vaccine does not.”
This would almost be cute if it weren’t carrying so much weight. Full disclosure, I’m not an epidemiologist. But I routinely drink beer and play poker with the one that developed the Ebola vaccine at the Health Science Center in Winnipeg in 2019. I could explain to you, as it’s been explained to me, how vaccine development normally goes, how this one went, and why we shouldn’t be concerned. I could explain to you the joke that is FDA approval, and point out that it took them 7 years to approve the Saskatoon berry as food, while still giving the seal of approval to bologna. But lets be real… You don’t care. And the idea that the average American actually cared about FDA processes or the intricacies of vaccine approval is so absurd that I just can’t take it seriously. These aren’t reasons. They’re excuses.
“I love that I called anti-vaxxers retards and it hit you close enough to home that you spent seven paragraphs bitching about it. Feed me.”
I wasn’t aware that this blog was a bridge for trolls.
I see nothing in your response that indicates you have any intent in participating in an honest conversation, or any desire to engage in ethical discourse. Kudos on being a troll.
Null Pointer wrote, “No, this vaccine is not like all those other vaccines. That is the entire problem, and why people are hesitant to take it. This vaccine was rushed through development, did not go through normal testing procedures, is not approved by the FDA for anything other than experimental use, and is not the same kind of vaccine as the others. Other vaccines have been rigorously tested, have a history of safety and efficacy. The coronavirus vaccine does not.”
Humble Talent wrote, “This would almost be cute if it weren’t carrying so much weight. Full disclosure, I’m not an epidemiologist. But I routinely drink beer and play poker with the one that developed the Ebola vaccine at the Health Science Center in Winnipeg in 2019. I could explain to you, as it’s been explained to me, how vaccine development normally goes, how this one went, and why we shouldn’t be concerned. I could explain to you the joke that is FDA approval, and point out that it took them 7 years to approve the Saskatoon berry as food, while still giving the seal of approval to bologna. But lets be real… You don’t care. And the idea that the average American actually cared about FDA processes or the intricacies of vaccine approval is so absurd that I just can’t take it seriously. These aren’t reasons. They’re excuses.”
I call bull shit Humble Talent, Bull Shit!!!
With all due respect Humble Talent you didn’t address anything in the paragraph that Null Pointer wrote with any kind of intelligent rebuttal. Your reply to this alone is signature significant response. You wrote “I could explain to you”; well climb down off your self validating “I stayed at a Holiday Inn” high horse and explain what you said you could explain instead of this bull shit; this Comment of the Day was specifically purposed to bring this topic out for open discussion, so damnit, explain it in your own words!
Well if you call bullshit Steve, it must be, I mean… You’re the expert.
Look, I’m responding exactly into these comments what it being put in. There’s a whole spectrum of responses to a whole spectrum of comments up these threads. We’re 18 months into this, the information is out there, we’ve had discussions here before. None of this is happening in a vacuum, and I’m not going to suspend that knowledge or my disbelief because treating people as they deserve to be treated will hurt their feelings. If I thought for a minute that Null was approaching the conversation in anything approximating good faith, I might actually respond. But I don’t believe that, Null is to vaccines what Alizia was to literal white supremacy. They don’t deserve to be taken seriously, they don’t deserve my time. I’m not going to humor them and give them the kind of food they want.
And in case you missed it: That was EXACTLY the point of my original comment. At some point, you’re being too stupid to talk at the adult table. I said it using words and everything:
“The reason why I feel on this one discrete topic, mocking anti-vaxxers, particularly American anti-vaxxers is appropriate is because there was no convincing you. On this topic, more than any other in recent history, you are completely information resistant.”
Humble Talent wrote, “Well if you call bullshit Steve, it must be, I mean… You’re the expert.”
Oh bite me HT.
Where is that explanation HT, cat got your tongue?
Here is my specific question, how about you step up and explain it so we all can understand what your actual view point instead of this talking past each other nonsense.
Please explain, as you wrote you could…
…and also explain how your explanation addresses the concerns that Null Pointer has like…
The FDA is literally bastardizing their own rules for allowing an experimental vaccine to be released to the public on a massive scale and you seem to think everyone is just supposed to be good little sheeple, swallow the narrative and get the shot without questioning what’s actually happening? This is one of those things that make you go hmmmmmmm.
These are genuinely fair concerns about this particular group of vaccines and your categorical dismissal of the concerns as anti-vaxx nonsense is bigoted (obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, in particular prejudiced against or antagonistic toward a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group) ad hominem garbage – own it HT.
Want to be perceived as the adult in the room then you have to prove it by actually being the adult in the room HT. Be the pebble and do what you claimed you could do.
Steve, if they’re legitimate concerns, and you’re so well informed, why have you spent so little time looking into it? I need you to understand that you, asking me, that question, here, proves my point: You could have Googled this a year ago. You could have talked to someone. You could have sought knowledge. Because this isn’t the kind of thing hidden behind a dungeon on the top of a tower and you’ve had a lot of time. Why is it, do you think, that you know so much about the backroom conspiracy theories on why the vaccines might not be safe, but not even the bare minimum about what the process you’re talking about are?
Are you asking me because you know, and you want to see if I know? Are you asking me because you really don’t know? What’s the more damning answer? Because my post was specifically about how uninterested I am in wasting my time playing Wikipedia to people who don’t actually care about the answer.
Ask me again to answer it, and I will.
Humble Talent,
You’ve already been asked twice by me to back up your claim (the evidence to support my claim is in my two comments above) you haven’t done so, and now you’re trying to shift the responsibility of knowledge away from you the person who actually made the claim which is exactly what internet trolls do that cannot back up their claims. You’ve already made your choices.
I do have to agree with Humble Talent about taking time to search online for information and try to become educated on certain points. For example, scholar.google.com is still a good resource. There’s a survey paper I found relatively quickly entitled “Worse than the disease? Reviewing Some Possible Unintended Consequences of the mRNA Vaccines Against COVID-19.” It takes some time to describe the background behind the mRNA vaccine development and the steps were taken to accelerate the testing, as well as analyzing each challenge the vaccine developers faced, and how they overcame those challenges. Even better, since it is a survey paper, it references scores of other papers that dig deeper into the topic and the issues.
Frankly, at this point, the general information on what parts of the normal vaccine development were skipped is available and points to clearing a lot of red tape and allowing several stages of testing to occur simultaneously. Also, at this point, the number of vaccines administered and the exceedingly small number of severe adverse reactions points to the vaccines not being dangerous in the short term. Moreover, the effectiveness does continue to be supported, if not at the 95% level, then at least still relatively high.
So I think, when discussing the vaccines directly, the only real concern is whether there are severe long-term effects. There is a great deal of speculation of things that might occur (the survey paper takes time to address what those concerns are and what mechanisms might actually exist that makes those concerns valid), but without more data (and we won’t have more data for years, probably), evaluating the long-term effects will be difficult. Thus we’re left with a certain gray area, where people have to judge between the risks of contracting and spreading the coronavirus now, versus what could be very severe complications down the road, or what could be of no concern whatsoever.
Of course, none of this touches on the concerns that the increasing calls for vaccine mandates raise.
HT, do you have a good resource that evaluates possible long-term consequences of the mRNA vaccines that you would recommend?
“Frankly, at this point, the general information on what parts of the normal vaccine development were skipped is available and points to clearing a lot of red tape and allowing several stages of testing to occur simultaneously.”
This is exactly right. The three testing stages were run concurrently instead of sequentially, and they removed a lot of redundant processes. Even the windows they had before… Stage Two and Three testing usually took two years each, but after about a month, they weren’t monitoring for side effects so much as they were doing long term efficacy testing, and in the case of Covid, being uncertain of long term efficacy was still a whole lot better than having nothing. And this is my point: If you’re actually concerned… How could you possibly not know this?!!?!?! How little must someone care to have never run a single search in 18 bloody months? They didn’t hide this in a vault at the bottom of the sea! It’s purposeful, self imposed ignorance.
As to the question; “HT, do you have a good resource that evaluates possible long-term consequences of the mRNA vaccines that you would recommend?”
Not really. If one exists, I haven’t seen it yet, my impression is that mRNA vaccines are too new. And I would regard anything that told you otherwise skeptically.
That said… There are certain logical exercises you can do. I know, for instance, that when I turn my tap on, there is a spectrum of possibilities, ranging from likely to unlikely. Most likely is I get water. From there, I might be cut off, so nothing might happen, there might have been some line maintenance, and maybe I get mud. Then there’s the things that aren’t likely or are impossible: It’s not likely that a ball of fire comes out of my tap, and it’s functionally impossible for water from my sink to get sucked back up the tap.
Because of the nature of vaccines, what they are and how they’re packaged, it is the next best thing to functionally impossible for side effects to present long term. We’re a year into vaccine regimens, and have administered billions of doses globally. We might not have all the data in yet, but my expectation is that anything that could possibly happen has probably already happened.
Take Individual Responsibility For How You Debate
I was going to respond when you wrote:
“You’ve already been asked twice by me to back up your claim you haven’t done so, and now you’re trying to shift the responsibility of knowledge away from you the person who actually made the claim”
and thought better of it (See, I can do that), but then you just had to poke. Steve, I’m not your dad. I’m not Google. I’m not arguing with you. I’m not debating you. I don’t have responsibility to you. I don’t owe you a dialogue, I don’t owe you answer, I don’t owe you shit. I’m not “shifting the responsibility for knowledge”, I can’t stress this enough: We’re in a pandemic. We’re 18 months in. You are ostensibly a whole and thinking human being. You are responsible for your own fucking knowledge and unloading that burden on internet comment sections, no matter how esteemed, isn’t legitimate.
“You are responsible for your own fucking knowledge”
Yes. Which is why I have been looking at studies like these.
COVID-19 vaccine and blood clotting
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41591-021-00025-5
Blood clots and bleeding events following BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine: An analysis of European data – PubMed (nih.gov)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34174723/
Myocarditis Following Immunization With mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines in Members of the US Military – PubMed (nih.gov)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34185045/
Perimyocarditis following first dose of the mRNA-1273 SARS-CoV-2 (Moderna) vaccine in a healthy young male: a case report – PubMed (nih.gov)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34348657/
Acute Myocardial Injury Following COVID-19 Vaccination: A Case Report and Review of Current Evidence from Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System Database – PubMed (nih.gov)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34219532/
Reported orofacial adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccines: The knowns and the unknowns – PubMed (nih.gov)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33527524/
[COVID-19 from the perspective of a gynecological endocrinologist] – PubMed (nih.gov)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34335125/
There are several common themes in these studies. Adverse events are more common and more severe in young people and in women of reproductive age. They say the events are rare, but they also say there has not been enough research into them. I want to know exactly how rare they are before I agree to take the vaccine. I want to know exactly who is at risk and why.
You don’t actually want people to do research, you want people to take your word for it, do what you want, and shut the hell up. Bite me.
I’ll respond to this at the bottom
Let’s briefly review the actual relevant facts in this little side thread for posterity sake.
Humble Talent stated, and I quote, “I could explain to you, as it’s been explained to me, how vaccine development normally goes, how this one went, and why we shouldn’t be concerned.”
I asked Humble Talent to do what he said he could do twice, first with this…
…and second with this…
Those are actual facts.
The responsibility to back up what one chooses to write is that of the author, period.
What transpired next is where the problem lies.
Not once but twice Humble Talent has tried to shift the responsibility for gaining knowledge that he claimed to already have and was supposedly willing to share and lay the responsibility on the one that challenged him to so what he said he would do. You can see the comments above, the first one was AUGUST 10, 2021 AT 10:25 AM and the second one was AUGUST 10, 2021 AT 1:28 PM, read them.
HT’s is gaslighting.
Humble Talent made a claim, I gave him every opportunity to meet the challenged to support what he wrote with action, he has chosen twice to try to flip the goal post to the other end of the field and try to require others to obtain that which he claims to already have, and now he belligerently refuses to back up what he wrote, this is exactly what people do that cannot support what they write and resort to internet trolling and ad hominem tactics. Based on the conversation, I can conclude that Humble Talent posted something that he simply could not support and he doesn’t have the integrity to own it, sobeit.
As far as I’m concerned, Humble Talent’s reputation has been permanently tarnished by his signature significant choices in this conversation. It would have been better for Humble Talent to remain silent and be thought a fool than to write and remove all doubt.
Humble Talent is not arguing in good faith, period.
Steve, you are still functioning under the idea that I’m making an argument about Covid information here. I’m not. I don’t need to cite things like that because I don’t care. I said it up front: People, like you, are entirely information resistant. So why the actual hell would I waste my time producing information for you?
When I said “I could explain to you, as it’s been explained to me, how vaccine development normally goes, how this one went, and why we shouldn’t be concerned.” I followed it up with: “But lets be real… You don’t care.”
I could explain it. Hell, Ryan explained it, and I expanded, above, because he wasn’t an entitled little shit about it. But the fact of the matter is that you don’t care. And I know you don’t care, because if you actually cared, you would do your own fucking work. You still can: I’m not the gatekeeper to all this information. If you actually cared enough and weren’t so intellectually retarded, you could come to the same resources that countless numbers of people before you have got to.
I’m not gaslighting you. Fucking. Google. It.
Humble Talent wrote, “Steve, you are still functioning under the idea that I’m making an argument about Covid information here. I’m not.”
That’s pure unadulterated gaslighting and an outright lie. You LITERALLY made wrote that you could explain how the COVID vaccine was developed and why we shouldn’t be concerned and then when challenged to actually explain what you claimed you could explained you’ve done nothing but dodge it, deflect from it, attack the messenger, and outright refuse to do what you initially stated that you could do. You’re quite a piece of word HT.
Humble Talent wrote, “But the fact of the matter is that you don’t care.”
You are making absurd assumptions and turning them into pure ad hominems. For your information HT, I don’t ask about things that I don’t care about it.
Humble Talent wrote, “People, like you, are entirely information resistant.”
That statement has absolutely no connection to reality whatsoever. Pure unbridled ad hominem.
Now I know for sure that you’re just lying through your teeth trying to piss me off; that being said, fuck you HT, go troll elsewhere.
Humble Talent wrote, “I’m not gaslighting you.”
Liar.
Prove me wrong Steve. Prove that you care: Google it.
(And if you want to say that you don’t owe me proof…. That’s right…. That’s my point.)
This has turned into nothing but a mud slinging match. We’re done here.
I’ve been a huge fan of this blog since I stumbled on it in 2016 at a very divisive and sad time with the Trump election.
I found Jack to be honest and run his blog with integrity.
I enjoyed the comments and interactions with the various views and while sometimes people crossed a line I wasn’t comfortable with, it wasn’t that bad and the commenters seemed overall kind and respectful.
I’ve seen many names regularly over the years and have enjoyed “getting to know you” via your comments and interactions.
I’ve not been the biggest commentator but did have my comments chosen for COTD twice. Which was cool since I don’t consider myself an expert on politics or ethics.,
This post and in particular Humble’s comments has been SOOOOOOO far removed from anything respectful or even fair that I almost decided to not return here ever.
I can’t believe it’s been allowed to go on so long. My only guess is maybe Jack hasn’t been able to read all the comments.
I’m feel so upset about this I’m not sure how to even express it.
The interaction with Steve was it for me. I feel like I am in some lane Facebook post with the “experts” there.
Humble has totally shown himself to be someone unqualified to speak on this subject and also acted like a pompous prick.
I have no clue how to even write this post but it’s DUSGUSTING to have read these STUPID comments with so much pretense and arrogance and NO kindness or humanity.
If you are so right then BE KINd and say things in such a way to REACH people who may be very afraid, confused, or even terrified.
You have NO IDEA each readers experience in this pandemic!!! As a person who was given a leadership position by having your comment chosen you had an opportunity to be a space to help people UNDERSTAND by HEARING THEM.
Instead you went to low route. You were neither humble or showed any talent at interacting with fellow human beings.
I feel sick and am deeply saddened that ONE of the two places where I’ve found solace and comfort during the last 5 years is not that anymore.
My guess is no one will care much. But I’m sad because I loved this blog and told everyone I knew about it. Shared posts successfully on social media and encouraged people to read the comments to get a feel for the great community.
Very sad indeed.
Humble, I was going to share an interview with a German lawyer and Dr David Martin with you. I’m guessing it’s nothing you’ve heard. But with all you do know… who knows.
Bye friends. Sorry Steve. It pained me seeing you spoken to that way. As others.
MMM: I decided long ago that when two credentialed commenter come to metaphorical blows, the best approach, and the most ethical one, is to let it sort itself out. These have occurred periodically since 2009, when this blog began. Your comment is part of that sorting process. I also send off-blog emails to commenters when called for. In general, not always but most of the time, such heat generates enough light to be valuable. The argument you refer to has, absolutely.
But to answer your question, no, I haven’t read all of the threads, so I may have missed some line crossing. I’m juggling here: I want diverse points of view across the spectrum, but when that exists, these sometimes uncivil arguments break out. Both HT and SW have their own web platforms, and they know the rules here, as well as my preference for civility even though I breach my own preferences at times.
I think you should regard such outbreaks as the anomalies they are. This one is nothing compared to some of the TGT-Stephen Pilling battles, of which there were several, or AblativeMeatshield vs Still Spartan, or even Michael West’s take downs of afore noted TGT, our resident atheist/liberal. Then there were the Chris vs. Steve-O scuffles.
One thing I do note is that the blog doesn’t have enough women, at least in the comments, though those who are here contribute a great deal. Women, in my experience (though not in the case of my wife and sister!) don’t tolerate hard confrontation and bare knuckles debate, while men, in many cases, enjoy them. I have emails from some of the best commenters we’ve had here, all female, telling me that the rhetoric is too often harsh. I don’t know what I can do about that. My preference would be for women to learn how to deal with it for what it is: a male style, not as personal as it seems, and worth learning how to parry. Men, meanwhile, can learn from the female commenters too–as have I.
Jack,
I think it fully appropriate for me to apologize directly to you too for my part in extending the conversation well beyond what others considered to be civil.
Thanks, Steve.
mermaidmary99 wrote, “Bye friends.”
Don’t go, seriously don’t. You add to the diversity around here. These kind of things happen sometimes but it really is quite rare. Please stay.
mermaidmary99 wrote, “Sorry Steve. It pained me seeing you spoken to that way.”
I’m an adult and I can take it as well as I can deliver it and it is a two way street. I’ve gone to far too and Jack has pulled me off my arrogant perch a few times and set my feet back firmly on the ground. I know when it’s gone too far and I say so like I did in this sub-thread when I wrote “This has turned into nothing but a mud slinging match. We’re done here.” and move on trying my best not to hold a grudge. I guess I hadn’t considered that the conversation had gone way too far for other readers, like you, and I think it fully appropriate for me to apologize directly to you for my part in extending the conversation well beyond what others considered to be civil.
All that said, even I reach the limits of what I will tolerate once in a while like I did with Alizia some time ago and with Humble Talent in this thread today. I honestly hold no grudges with these people, we’re hard on each other sometimes, I accept that, I make a choice, I stick with my choice and I move on.
This HT is the same person that huffily told Other Bill that he would no longer interact with him because OB said something that was borderline ad hominem. Sorry HT – if you are not actually a Troll, you are doing a very good imitation of one.
Ok, I will stay and thank you Steve and Jack for your words and apologies.
Yes I am a woman but believe me i can be a jerk and have been known to make men cry when i rip them a new one 😉 but I don’t LIKE how that feels inside and also with the divisiveness of Covid I think it’s very important to be kind and foster open dialogue because we don’t HAVE THAT ANYMORE, and we SHOULD!!!
When someone advocates making fun of others who they call “anti-vaxxers”, I think that is a FUCKED UP WAY TO APPROACH THINGS and if that person thinks acting like a know-it-all pompous asshole is going to make his voice more effective he is SORELY mistaken.
I wanted to share this interview. I find it VERY important. VERY. I would ask Humble and Steve to listen and Jack.
The things brought up here are NOT what you are hearing and all I can ask is why not? The man interviewed his highly credible and you can hear his credentials at the top of the interview.
I’d LOVE to hear what you all think of this after listening. why? because it’s THAT important.
Maybe all this happened to have other people find out this very hidden stuff. remember the big short? that movie? well to me this guy is the “big short guy” of the Big Pharma… seeing stuff where no one was looking.
BTW, he predicted the pandemic, in wuhan and northern Italy BEFORE it happen based on things he will talk about in the interview.
It was edited to take out the German translations since it was aired in Germany for some event.
Best to you all and i’ll stuck around. maybe i’ll put on my “man” suit and kick ass here when i come to comment and set you all straight 😛 hahahah. jk. but I can, you just didn’t wanna see that side of me.
Enjoy. I think you will be happy to have heard this. It’s something not being discussed and should be imo.
I’ve seen that video and I looked at a fair portion of the data he referenced. The facts he presents appear to be accurate but I’m not completely convinced about the validity of all of his conclusions. It’s really interesting stuff!
A note on “retard.” I find the word jarring, but when used in a metaphorical sense rather than to denigrate someone who is actually laboring under a cognitive handicap, I regard it as a stylistic riff for effect, like my often-criticized use of ‘asshole” here, or other posters’ use of “fuck.” Ethics Alarm could hardly penalize a comment for using “retard” when there’s a post here opposing the proposed banning of the word.
I kind of felt a little bit bad after I wrote it, I shouldn’t type while angry. It’s a personal failing. But like you said: I’m not meaning to denigrate people with a cognitive handicap. All that said, I think it’s defensible and in some cases, perfectly deserved.
Sorry again.
Why would the FDA change the status of the mRNA injections from experimental to approved without knowing the long-term side effects and while still learning about the short-term side effects?
First off, they didn’t change it from one to the other, they approved an experimental treatment. Maybe they thought we were in a state of emergency or something, who knows? And Ever since that approval, they’ve been collecting additional data: Chances are that some of the vaccines, particularly Pfizer, will receive FDA approval before the end of the year.
And once the FDA approves these vaccines, do you think the people whining about FDA approval will go away, or will they shift lanes to the next reason they *really* don’t like the vaccines?
HT,
What I mean by “why would” is; why would in the *near future* followed by the rest of my comment that you did not address.
FDA approval removes a fundamental argument people use to *resist mandates/passports* but does not remove the thousands of highly credentialed doctors, virologists, immunologists, etc., who are questioning the safety and implementation of these vaccines but receive virtually no coverage by the MSM and are censored on social media.
Highly respected doctors are being fired for successfully treating patients with alternative medicine, and in fact anything besides vaccine RX is suppressed.
The vaccine controversy boils down to a trust issue and a very strong argument can be made that anyone who does not have great reservation about how this particular virus outbreak is being handled is quite possibly borderline retarded, or a democrat.
Sorry, I misunderstood the question.
Why would the FDA approve a vaccine without knowing the long term side effects and while still learning about the short term side effects?
Because that’s how it works. Ryan kind of explained it below, and I expanded on it: The normal process for vaccine approval is about eight years: A year for development, a year for Stage I testing, and two years each for stage II and III testing.
The difference between stages I, II and III aren’t what they’re doing, so much as who they’re doing it to, how many people they’re doing it to, and what they measure. Instead of doing the testing consecutively over the course of seven years, they did it concurrently over one.
And before people get excited about closing the windows from two years to one: All documented side effects to vaccines happen within two weeks of vaccination, usually related to anaphylaxis (allergies). Which means that there really isn’t any such thing as a “long term” side effect. Even pre-Covid anti-Vaxxers who said that vaccines were giving children autism were saying that the autism developed within 48 hours of vaccination. Which is why while they continue to monitor throughout the seven year trials, the point of going that long is efficacy testing (basically, they want to see how long the vaccines last).
But don’t take my word for it: Look it up.
Jack,
I’m NOT an anti-vaxxer. Will say that up front. I have had many as has my son, etc.
You pretty much left NO room for you to be misinformed or mistaken. That I find concerning.
I have a question What if there was information you have not seen or heard or read (not the stuff anti-vaxxers put out) would you be open to see/read it? What if it was from reputable scientists to boot?
Is it possible in your world that you could be ignorant of things in this area?
Why do I ask? Because in the last 6 months I have learned things most of us don’t know, weren’t told or taught. I’ll admit I have been VERY skeptical and have wanted what I learned to NOT be true.
I wonder if you’d be open to read some stuff that goes way past the Ron Paul theater…
I know I’m a woman and that I”m not that smart about politics or history but i KNOW i have a damn good sniff test and I have NEVER been wrong about anyone in my life. Sheesh I found YOU on a whim from a teenie article and KNEW though you were being blasted as a kook and whatever they said about you back then… trying to debunk you, i KNEW you were honest, and a seeker of truth.
I have had 2 comments of the day even with my lack of knowledge in things and have shared your site with hundreds personally… and thousands professionally. (once in a giant message to my customers)
Anyway, I just wonder if you are open to learning things that most people don’t know or have access to, and also, stuff that has been hidden and suppressed.
are you? If so I can send you some stuff that is quite compelling and for sure raises shit loads of questions and goes WAYYYY past the anti-vaxx arguments and rebuttals.
Hopefully this will let me post!
To be fair to Jack, that was my comment.
One of the worst things infecting modern American conservatism is the tendency to reject expertise. Don’t get me wrong: We came by it honestly…. We have seen some stunning examples of experts who don’t deserve our trust, and they reinforce that on a near constant basis. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and these people do have the tools and knowledge to be correct more often than the average person. It’s important to look at what they’re saying and see if it makes sense.
And again… We’ve been dealing with this for 18 months. The information is out there. I think it would be helpful to Americans, because the Covid reporting has been thoroughly infected by your politics, to go on a foreign news source and see what the conversation is like outside of America, because I don’t think you understand just how broken you are right now.
So, who remembers when Aliza was here, getting paid by the word for her comments – or so it seemed.
I didn’t read many of her novellas, and I’m not reading many of these. Life is too short.
Being concise is not a sin, folks. If I want to read a book, I’ll reach for Eric Flint or David Weber.
This is my fault, DG. I like the long posts that contain a lot of information and develop an argument…and they are the same general length as my posts, which, my wife tells me, are often also too long.
To be fair, HT’s comment was 740 words, and the average op-ed piece is 700-750. That was just an opening paragraph for Alizia.
Testing – my long comment didn’t go in again 😦 and i also misread it wasn’t jack’s post… but i still am curious.
Also, Humble… if my post gets on, will you answer since you authored this thread? I really do have some info that I think you’d be interested in. Hopefully you aren’t like those you accuse in the thread… my hope. 🙂 with a name like Humble, I’d think not 🙂
I’m sorry—it was stuck in Spam. It’s up now!
I’ll read/watch anything. Hell, I sat through Steve’s 3 hour video (mostly because I knew Brett, he’s a little kooky, but he has some expertise and he really cares).
ok here’s something to watch… grab popcorn. and be sitting.
I’ll watch it;
I’m five minutes into this and already skeptical. Despite having a good graphics team, and being called the “German Corona Committee”, this is actually a non-government organization headed by four lawyers with an explicit mandate to go around normal committee processes. I can’t tell whether they’re trying to emulate the an actual, officially sanctioned committee because they’re taking themselves very seriously, or because they want to mislead people into thinking that they’re actually government sponsored, but this isn’t a “testimony” so much as it’s a podcast. That’s not dispositive, obviously, but it feels greasy enough that it has my hackles up.
20 minutes in and I don’t know what point you’re trying to make. At about the 18 minute mark Martin said that various novel coronaviruses share genetic makeups at rates upward of 90%. Duh. If they didn’t, they almost certainly wouldn’t be coronaviruses. Humans share 98.8% of our genetic makeup with chimpanzees. That other 1.2% does some SERIOUS heavy lifting. That’s how that works. Despite a couple of these people being doctors, it’s comments like that that remind me that what we’re seeing are five practicing lawyers having a discussion about medicine.
I also think he’s being exceptionally loose with his language, and I’m not sure whether that’s because he didn’t take into account a conspiracy theorist minded audience, or because he’s playing to them. Martin: “So ask yourself a simple question: How would one have a patent on a treatment for a thing that had been invented three days earlier?” (Referring to a Sequoia patent filed on April 28th, 2003) […] “The Sequoia patent has another problem: It was issued and published before the CDC patent on coronavirus was actually allowed. So the degree to which any of this information could have been known other than insider information between those two parties is zero”.
This seems to be a bitterment over the fact that the CDC tried to patent SARS COV, as opposed to a statement of fact, the reality is that the CDC issued a press release on the 16th of April that attributed SARS to a coronavirus, and people had been looking at the outbreak in Asia for months at the time. It *obviously* wasn’t “invented” on April 25th. Martin had earlier said that the reason the CDC patent had originally failed is because the patent office had said that the information was already readily available, and you can’t patent something already in the public domain. Again…. This is snarky insider pool on patent law.
40 Minutes in and this turned into a WILD ride. At around the 30 minute mark, I had assumed that we were being prepped for a lab leak theory, but he skipped right on over that and is explicitly saying that Covid was purposefully released for a profit motive. I’m particularly enjoying how the impartiality mask is starting to slip, and the panel is outright referring to people as being either a “good guy” or a “bad guy”. This reminds me of that Zeitgeist movie that was released after 9-11…. The video was about an hour long, the first 15 minutes were reasonable-sounding theories about how the trade centers were manually detonated, and ended up talking about how Jews ran the world.
Done…. And it didn’t get much better from there. I still don’t know the point you were trying to make. Even if I take every word that was said there as gospel: That the entirety of SARS-CoV-2 was baked up and patented in 73 pieces since 2003 and released as a deliberate attempt to gin up a global vaccine for profit (which fails all kinds of sniff tests), the fact of the matter is that literally no one on the panel said that taking the vaccine was the wrong thing to do. This failed utterly to interact with my argument.
Even if we give them everything, this is like being purposefully poisioned, and then refusing to take the antidote because you think the poisioner poisioned you because he wanted to sell you the antidote. Even if you believe that, the right thing to do is to get well and then hold him responsible.
I don’t want these questions to get lost in the shuffle and I don’t “think” anyone has addressed them directly yet, so I’ll post them here in a new comment.
I’ll address them, SW:
1. I am 90% convinced that the lockdown, though unavoidable politically, especially with our disgraceful journalists flogging the panic button, was an epic mistake. If cases begin “raging” again, I can see Democrats ramming another down our throat, putting kids back on Zoom, mandating masks. Society is shit under those constraints; life sucks, and I suspect widespread violence will result. They pose a threat to society, and I’m a member of society.
2. Fear them? Not personally. I refused to fear anyone even before the vaccine. See above: I fear what they can do to the country, society, children, our institutions, and our future. The pandemic has all but killed my business and my family’s savings I will never be able to retire now, not that I want to. I have so much debt and other priorities to cover that I can’t afford to get several teeth dealt with that cause me pain every minute of every day. The sooner the pandemic impediments are done with, the sooner I can seriously address these and other problems.
3. You can’t tell.
1. Exactly what possible harm does an unvaccinated person pose to you?
Me personally? Almost none.
2. Do you fear unvaccinated people, if so, why?
Not personally. Maybe they concern me from a “faith-in-humanity” perspective.*
3. How can you tell if a person is vaccinated or unvaccinated?
The 5G connection.
*There ARE some legitimate reasons not to be vaccinated, but generally, it’s because these people are stupid. And being misinformed isn’t an excuse anymore. There was a poll that came out recently that said that a full third of unvaccinated people said that the primary reason they were not getting the vaccine was the financial cost of the vaccine. This, despite the vaccine being free. Now, you could say: “Wait! Jeff! Isn’t that a condemnation of America’s media?!” And sure, it absolutely is. But we’re 18 months into this, and there’s precious little else to talk about. How have these people not talked to someone in healthcare? How have they not done a basic Google search? That’s not legitimate anymore.
“I’m particularly fond of the schadenfreude I feel when an anti-vaxxer gets sick and then posts a mewling hospital bed video about how stupid they were… There’s nothing quite like being told “you were right” by a moron I didn’t actually have to warn in the first place. Those are personal.”
I’m extremely pro-vaccine. I just presented a sermon about how two men of great faith were critical, perhaps the most central in history, to the invention of the modern vaccine. For years I have eschewed the anti-vax Jim Carreys of the world, mostly Leftists, who are against ALL vaccines (there are millions of them, probably just laying low right now until this blows over, hoping not to be noticed as the press passionately works on their “every anti-vaxxer is a fat Trump supporter” narrative.) But I cannot imagine taking any pleasure in seeing them in a hospital bed. It would be like taking pleasure in someone’s death because they died while driving and texting, or without wearing a seatbelt. Frankly, both of those behaviors are more risky to a healthy young person than not taking the covid jab. Probably MOST deaths can be chalked up to life decisions: heart disease, cancers, and car accidents are often the long or short-term results of poor diet, smoking, drinking, and reckless driving. Many of those same behaviors also put others at risk. You could derive endless pleasure in walking from deathbed to deathbed, mocking each dying person and reminding them that their families and children are going to have to go on without them, and it’s all their fault, and they should have listened to you. There’s no material or statistical difference, so why limit that sweet schadenfreude to sufferers of one particular disease?
Before the election I argued on Facebook with a very liberal friend who was basically saying that the vaccine was being rushed because that evil Trump was just obsessed with getting a vaccine ready (that was a major talking point in the daily news at the time.) I walked him through the Operation Warp Speed process, as explained by scientists we both respected, including Francis Collins. We ended up basically saying the same things, but with him trying to imply that the vaccine was still going to be untrustworthy, because Trump.
Now he’s another vaccine apologist (good) but only because it’s now being laughably presented as “the Biden vaccine.” Both the vaccine and the virus continue to just be political footballs. All the Alex Joneses in the world haven’t done enough for vaccine hesitancy as the obvious politicization of this whole situation by experts, lawmakers, and corporate media. There was no scientific reason to close parks or outdoor spaces. There is no scientific basis for masking kids or shutting down schools. Teachers have just about the safest jobs of all essential workers; they can do their jobs without ever coming within 6 feet of another adult, unlike cashiers. They lobbied and got the “science” changed at a federal level, and we all saw it. We’ve all seen Gavin Newsom, Biden, and even Fauci yukking it up at various functions without masks. Acting like a villain from the Hunger Games is going to make people think that you’re up to no good. Using a crisis to get yourself and your Party all sorts of present and future advantages is going to feed conspiracy theories. It’s easy to mock “covidiots,” but leaders should be able to grasp the obvious fact that in any given group, a full half are going to be of below average intelligence. It’s the leader’s responsibility to be able to predict their behavior and have clear, reasonable, and authentic messaging. Everything coming from the entire media/political/scientific/corporate conglomerate has been bungled in regards to this vaccine. Now they’re in “it’s the stupid unvaccinated idiots’ fault- get them! Make them suffer! Forget about how I promised I would end the virus!” phase of the leadership meltdown, and it’s doing worse than feeding the conspiracies; it’s proving them right.
If they died, it would be a tragedy and I’d feel differently, but if they’re posting a video, they’re generally just in a WHOLE lot of discomfort, and that feels karmic. You’re a much better person than me.
And we have absolutely no disagreement over the mendacity of Democrats. They weren’t honest or good actors in this from start to end, it’s why I said that my agreement with them was discretely on vaccines, and the stupidity of the people not taking them.
This was in the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison, WI this morning.
This faking of vaccine cards should have been expected.
Fake cards are not out of the realm of possibility; I currently carry one in my wallet that I reproduced digitally (scanned the original and color laser printed my wallet copy) because carrying the original card in my wallet would literally destroy its readability over time, this actually happens all the time, I keep the original one at home. There is nothing special about these vaccine cards, anyone with average Photoshop skills could make a fake blank one from an original valid vaccine card, switch a few of the numbers around and give it to others to hand fill out the rest – my original one is hand filled out for the name and birth date. Honestly; who is going to be doing the cross checking on something like this, after all it IS a medical record and no one can release anything about anyone’s medical record without their written permission.
Steve, that is neither new nor particularly concerning. People were faking smallpox vaccine records 100 years ago.
But it’s MINDBLOWING to me that people would go through the exercise of committing fraud to avoid a free vaccine. This says so much more about the mindset of anti-vaxxers than the legitimacy of the vaccine.
Humble Talent wrote, “This says so much more about the mindset of anti-vaxxers than the legitimacy of the vaccine.”
Generally I probably would have completely agreed with you on this statement but not this particular time. This is an experimental vaccine that has been intentionally politicized, there are massive social pressures surrounding this particular vaccine and it’s becoming clear that the “settled science” narrative that’s being presented to the public is not the unbiased truth. When people are confronted with these kinds of medical, political and social pressures to put something in their body that they may have reservations about they are likely to resort to extremes to counter the extremes they’re confronted with.
Yours Truly: You are responsible for your own fucking knowledge
Null Pointer: Yes. Which is why I have been looking at studies like these.
Have you actually read any of these?
“COVID-19 vaccine and blood clotting”
Links to a German study that found 11 cases of blood clotting in a population of 25 million. This was the AZ issue… And like I said before, that’s a fraction of the rate of blood clots the FDA found acceptable as a side effect in female birth control pills.
“Blood clots and bleeding events following BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine: An analysis of European data – PubMed”
Links to a study that found an increase Adverse Effect rate from 30 to 150 cases per million between different vaccines (Phiser and AZ, respectively)
Myocarditis Following Immunization With mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines in Members of the US Military – PubMed
Links to a study that looked at 23 cases of myocarditis (swelling of the heart causing temporary mild chest pain) in a population of 2.8 million.
Perimyocarditis following first dose of the mRNA-1273 SARS-CoV-2 (Moderna) vaccine in a healthy young male: a case report – PubMed
Links to a CASE study of a single man who developed perimyocarditis (similar to mycarditis, different tissue is inflamed)
Acute Myocardial Injury Following COVID-19 Vaccination: A Case Report and Review of Current Evidence from Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System Database – PubMed
Links to another CASE study of a 67 year old man who had a heart attack.
Reported orofacial adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccines: The knowns and the unknowns – PubMed
Links to a study on facial swelling due to anaphylaxis
[COVID-19 from the perspective of a gynecological endocrinologist] – PubMed
THIS ISN’T EVEN ABOUT VACCINES!!!! It studies the differences between Covid effects in men and women!
“There are several common themes in these studies.”
Yeah: One of them is that you haven’t read them
Really… You went to the NIH, found study titles you thought supported your argument and presented them as a link farm you didn’t think anyone would click on. You cited:
-Two studies of the AZ vaccine that looked at the well publicized clotting issue.
-One study on tissue inflammation at a rate of 11 per million.
-Two case studies… And I have no idea what conclusions to want to draw from a case study.
-A study on vaccine anyphalaxis… Which… Isn’t new.
And -A study that never includes the word “vaccine”.
None of this is unexpected. None of this is particularly serious. You aren’t being particularly serious.
But my intellectual curiosity is the problem. Sure, Jan.
Humble Talent, you are managing to display both a profound lack of understanding of the scientific method and a complete lack of critical thinking skills.
The articles that cover a single individual are what are known as case studies. Yes, they cover one person, in depth, to give a broad understanding of the factors involved and a real life example as reference for diagnosing a medical condition, treating a medical condition, and provide context important for comparison purposes in other patients. I find that context useful for making informed decisions about whether or not the potential side effect might be relevant to me, and for identifying potential areas of concern that need further study. They answer questions such as: How likely is it that the vaccine was the actual cause of the adverse effect? What other concomitant disease did the patient have, and how likely is it that those other factors were the underlying cause? What possible treatment options are there for this adverse effect? How effective are these treatment options? What is the quality of life that the patient is likely to have going forward?
You also display a complete lack of reading comprehension ability, as you seem to have missed that acute peripheral facial paralysis (Bell’s palsy) is also covered in “Reported orofacial adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccines: The knowns and the unknowns”. I find the side effect of facial paralysis to be relevant in my decision making process. Anaphylaxis is actually a very big concern for me, personally, as I have a history of anaphylactic reactions to medications. In this case the component that seems to be implicated in anaphylactic reactions seems to be polyethylene glycols, which I am not allergic to. That is important information for me to know. It is actually a bonus in the vaccines column, and one less thing for me to worry about.
“COVID-19 from the perspective of a gynecological endocrinologist” covers gender differences in symptomology from covid-19, as well as a differences between gender after a treatment study with progesterone and the increased risk of progesterone to women when taking the covid-19 vaccine. Progesterone is commonly used in birth control pills, and is therefore a relevant factor for women when deciding whether or not to take the covid vaccine. Gender differences in the virus and gender differences between vaccine reactions are actually a huge deal when deciding what the proper course of action will be, especially as the original testing done when deciding to approve an experimental vaccine excluded reproductive age women.
“Myocarditis Following Immunization With mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines in Members of the US Military” is a small study, yes. So where are the larger ones? Where are the double blind placebo studies looking for further information on this topic? Have they identified the mechanism that is causing myocarditis? Do they know how many actual cases there are, and how many cases are going unreported? How many more mild cases have there been that did not warrant hospitalization? Is there any estimate on that? Are there other cases that are being mistaken for heart attack, or other symptoms that might be reported that indicate a higher actual rate of the side effect? This study states that “While the observed number of myocarditis cases was small, the number was higher than expected among male military members after a second vaccine dose.” If myocarditis is more common after the second dose, does it become even more common after a third or fourth? Does this have relevance to the current announcements that regular booster shots might be required?
All of these studies contain references to other studies that are also relevant to deciding whether or not a particular study has any merit, and provide additional context for further study.
I take all of these things very seriously, and put a great deal of time and consideration into my evaluations. There are still new covid vaccines being developed, and I may decide that one of those is acceptable to me. I may also, with more time and study decide that I am no longer as concerned by one of the existing ones. I did originally consider getting the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, but then blood clots were found as a side effect. They also managed to mix 15 million doses incorrectly during manufacturing which makes me doubt their competence. I want to wait and see what the medical science says before I take any of the vaccines.
You and every other jumped up, self-important, snobbish, elitist, self-appointed tyrant of my body can go suck lemons. I will take as long as I want to to make my decisions and gather whatever data I feel is necessary to do so. You have satisfied your opinion to yourself sucking on the teat of propaganda. You are rationalizing your attitude to yourself with nothing but bullshit and spite.
Jan, I don’t want anything to do with your body. And that’s an awful lot of words to say: “Gee, Jeff, you caught me, so now I’ll skim the abstract and pretend I know what I’m talking about.”
Such classy trolling. You, and everyone like you, are the reason for vaccine hesitancy. Congratulations.
Well gee, I thought that “vaccine hesitancy” was just common sense, these vaccines being all dangerous and experimental and all.
But now you’re telling me that the real reason for “vaccine hesitancy” is because people were mean.
The fact of the matter is that the reason for “vaccine hesitancy” is whatever the hell you idiots have in your head cannon in that specific moment, you don’t even have internal consistency to your professed reasons. How about you just rock back and admit it to yourself: You don’t know exactly why you don’t like vaccines: Maybe you’re afraid, maybe you have your back up because of the politics involved. Maybe you don’t like being told what to do. Maybe you watched too much YouTube. Maybe it’s a combination of any and all of the above. But why ever it is, the fact is that it is, and you’ll use whatever convenient excuse in the book to justify your position.
Because nothing you linked there should actually cause hesitancy. At rates of less than 30 SAEs per million you are less likely to experience a Covid vaccine SAE than you are to be struck by lightning. Hell, at those rates, we’re almost within tolerance of these issues being the matter of random chance. And meanwhile… something like 15% of America has caught Covid, and between 1 and 5% of those people had to be hospitalized.
Don’t pretend like you’re some high minded scholar doing the math. You’re a child, scared of learning.
Bless your heart.
Humble Talent wrote, “Sure, Jan.”
What the heck is this supposed to mean?
Oh my God Steve. FUCKING GOOGLE IT.
Humble Talent wrote, “Oh my God Steve. FUCKING GOOGLE IT.”
Well, well, how dare me not instantly know a stupid meme that wanders through feeble minds that have been infected with dumbass short texting and Twitter insulting blurbs that think they are “communicating” something profound.
So, it’s another one of those stupid cult-like memes (which I intentionally ignore) that ignorant assholes think everyone knows about and used to intentionally insult others and spread without proper references to what the fuck they mean and this particular one came from an early 70’s popular sitcom (that I watched as a young teen because Marcia was cute) made into another idiotic low budget pointless movie remake (because idiots in Hollywood can’t be creative enough to come up with something new) in the 90’s that I never watched because it was stupid shit and I was a working adult (also in the Army at that time) raising children and I had better things to do with my life.
I think memes fall into the same category as acronyms, they generally should never be used in conversation because not everyone knows what the fuck they mean and meme users expecting others to know what they mean or “FUCKING GOOGLE IT” are inconsiderate assholes that need to find better ways to communicate. Memes are “communication malpractice”, I think Jack has a good definition for that phrase somewhere on Ethics Alarms.
I simply asked an honest question; why is it that you feel the need to be a complete asshole?
Did you just rant about the use of memes and conclude with a meme?
Why yes! He absolutely did.
Michael West wrote, “Did you just rant about the use of memes and conclude with a meme?”
Yes I did, and I did it intentionally.
Do you understand irony?
I know you hate pop culture reference, but the South Park movie was amazing. It was about censorship. Everyone should watch it. There was this moment… America has declared war on Canada because children in America have started to swear, and they blamed Canadian comedy. Sheila Broflovski, a stereotypical Jewish mom with a terminal case of Karen-itis, and one of the mothers of the children, makes a speech to the American troops, and during that she says: “Remember what the MPAA says; Horrific, Deplorable violence is okay, as long as people don’t say any naughty woids! That’s what this war is all about!”
I’m not an asshole to everyone Steve. Go to the top of this thread and scroll down. I’ve given everyone what they’ve put into this, I’m just a whole lot more honest about it. Because mockery is the correct response to absurdity.
And you are absurd.
Humble Talent wrote, “Oh my God Steve. FUCKING GOOGLE IT.”
That reply from Humble Talent has earned him the coveted Asshole of the Month award.
This graphic is my creation, Jack had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Steve, I know you didn’t understand my comment, I know that most of this has blown directly over your head. I know that you are trying very hard to ignore what I’m saying so that you can talk about what you want to talk about…. I get all this. But I need you to understand that other people are reading this.
In a series of comments where I’ve spent literally thousands of words about the personal responsibility for information, about your duty to inform yourself, about a general lack of intellectual curiosity… I can’t put into words how absolutely perfect it was for you to see two throw away words in a comment to someone else, and instead of doing the bare minimum, you defaulted back to “everyone else needs to tell me what’s going on”.
Steve, I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect example of what I was talking about. I feel like I should thank you. For that: I hereby dub thee: Retard in Chief. It has every bit of the legitimacy of that image above. If you’re so inclined, feel free to make a certificate up for it and hang it on your wall proudly. You deserve it.
Its a reference to a meme that features a picture of Marsha Brady with the text “Sure, Jan.” Memes are now, apparently, considered reasoned arguments by much of the population, seemingly including Humble Talent.
Memes, and pointing out that you haven’t read your citations.
Your mindreading powers are as astounding as your rhetoric. Your distaste and refusal to consider any aspect of my research materials is not a vindication of your viewpoint. If you have to resort to mindreading to counter my points, then you have no viable argument to support your viewpoint, and are not worth discussing engaging.
You know, I used to have respect for you and your commentary. I didn’t always agree with you, but I thought you brought up interesting or valid points that I should consider. I no longer feel that you are worth listening to at all. Obviously, you are nothing but a troll with no ability to think through any of your positions and no ability to consider another persons point of view. If you were capable of discussing anything like an adult, I would consider your viewpoint and accept any points that were valid. You just don’t have any point other than “I am right and everyone else is an idiot” to make. That isn’t a valid point. Its a child throwing a temper tantrum. Grow up.
The VAERS system is critical to understanding how the vaccines are affecting the global population.
The link below is to a letter from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to Dr. David Kessler.
“Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., chairman and chief legal counsel for Children’s Health Defense, is asking Dr. David Kessler, one of the newly named co-chairs of President-Elect Biden’s Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board, to consider the long-overdue need for a comprehensive, high-integrity system to monitor adverse outcomes following vaccination.”
In a letter this week addressed to Kessler, Kennedy wrote:
“ … [as] former FDA Commissioner, a professor with triple expertise in pediatrics, epidemiology, and biostatistics—and as someone who has repeatedly called attention to the structural deficiencies of our nation’s drug adverse event reporting systems — you are uniquely qualified to articulate the system’s existing shortcomings and recommend badly needed improvements.
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/rfk-jr-david-kessler-covid-vaccine-vaers/
Youtube censored that video from Rand Paul.