“Consensus” can get out of hand
One by one, Big Tech is canceling from the social media anyone who raises questions about the safety or efficacy, or even the morality, of the new COVID-19 vaccines. The censorship campaign was launched late last year.
From YouTube we get this: It “would now ban any content with claims about COVID-19 vaccines that contradict consensus from local authorities or the World Health Organization” (https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-youtube-int/youtube-bans-coronavirus-vaccine-misinformation-idUSKBN26Z21R). And just like that, “consensus” is elevated to the status of an idol, and the World Health Organization to an absolute authority that cannot be questioned. Never mind that it’s an arm of the abjectly corrupt United Nations.
And legitimate concerns and questions about the vaccines are equated with daft quackery and unhinged conspiracy theories. But in truth, you can question the COVID-19 vaccines without rejecting tried and successful vaccines for, say, polio or smallpox. Questioning does not turn you into a wild-eyed “anti-vaccine” conspiracy nut.
What do you get when you mix science with politics? You get… politics!
When I studied Political Science in college, politics was defined as “the authoritative allocation of value.” The key word there is “authoritative.” It includes the “authority” of brute force, coercion, and shouting down dissent.
And what is “consensus”? It’s nothing more than what everybody, or practically everybody, thinks at the time. “Consensus” doesn’t have to be true, and all too often, it isn’t. The experts can be wrong. The power brokers can be wrong. That’s why real science, an endangered species, always leaves the door open for further questions. But the tough guys with the keys to the jailhouse don’t want to hear any questions.
This is not how honest men and women behave. Whenever “science” relies exclusively on consensus, it isn’t science anymore. It’s only politics.
I don’t have the scientific background to ask penetrating questions about the vaccines. But I do know enough about politics to question the capacity and the motivations of the persons who are pushing the vaccines.
And those are questions that everybody needs to ask.