This should not be the face of Public Health or Government in tackling the pandemic.
The moment when many conservatives lost faith in the CDC was when they failed to refute a letter signed by 1,200 CDC employees demanding that racism be declared a public health emergency, at a time when America, with the exception of the universal condemnation of the George Floyd killing, was completely divided over the issue of policing, and whether racism amounted to the actions of a tiny number of racist police officers, or was part of a systemic issue of violence against African Americans. To be fair, the conservative media bubble was guilty of focusing in on the issue without providing a broader context, both both sides of the media ecosystem are just as guilty on that particular charge- what matters was how it looked to grass roots conservatives, populists and independents.
At the same time, simultaneously declaring that BLM protests were perfectly safe whilst all other public open air gatherings were not, had a catastrophic impact on the institutional trust of those on the Right, especially given that support for Police Officers amongst conservatives is just as much a shibboleth as their admiration for those who serve in the military.
The above paragraphs contains a substantial factual correction. I have to admit to getting somewhat more caught up in trying to convey the mood and perception of conservatives, and failed in my due diligence of research. I often write from memory and only tend to link when providing evidence for the matter at hand, which is this case was medical and scientific evidence.
A fairer assessment of the more just grievances presented by BLM protests would correctly place the blame for American injustices with bad laws instituted by Congress, which removed discretion from judges and placed it firmly in the hands of prosecutors, and a media ecosystem only concerned by ratings in the ‘if-it-bleeds-it-leads’ era of journalism, and not at the feet of police officers. It is worth noting that almost every over OECD country implemented exactly the same pioneering proactive policies innovated in New York, leading to massive falls in crime throughout the Western world and beyond, yet no other country experienced anything like the levels of American incarceration evident. Many paired proactive policing approach with a reform-orientated approach, which although being broadly less successful than hoped, were highly successful in youth reform.
Public Health, or any other institutions credibility for that matter, only remains effective when it stands above the realm of politics or partisanship- for even if one is only concerned about the optics of institutional objectivity and impartiality, there is also the deeply disturbing possibility that one may actually lose both.
Plus, it is worth noting that almost without exception in the West, vaccine uptake amongst adults has been highest amongst those countries which have been most reluctant to deploy government force and coercion and lowest amongst those that tried to force people into compliance with State Control. Much as many would like to force people to take their medicine like wilfully disobedient children, it should never be even contemplated, because it doesn’t bloody work!
Lockdowns, mask mandates, social distancing and all the other measures arbitrarily enforced by governments have contributed to positive uptake where deployed by seeking the consent of the governed, and accrued as a population level resistance to vaccination in areas where the heavy hand of government has been felt most, at a national level, or through localised examples. On a positive note, this should have an incredibly positive impetus for policy makers in the future, in terms of deploying behavioural economics units to search for positive ways to seek voluntary consent, provided the right lessons are learned.
The role of international organisations should also be examined. Of course, national public health institutions should speak with one voice in times of crisis, as should national governments, but given the political considerations placed upon supranational organisations such as the WHO, the EU or others, it might be better in future to relegate their role to the provision of advice to governments or national agencies, rather than speaking publicly on such matters. Politics and international diplomacy have been shown to be polluting factors in terms of issuing accurate and up to date advice, designing effective strategies and implementing rapid responses.
The other thing to consider is the Game Theory relating to dissenters. As above, Public Health should speak with one voice, but media should not allow itself to fall into the trap of partisan activism tailored to its audience. Periods of crisis should be above mercenary or vain considerations. Instead, the role of media be to host robust debate amongst the scientific community. Apart from anything else, this more responsible form of journalism is guaranteed to draw in audiences, because, if anything, the pandemic has shown that people are hungry for new information on the crisis, far removed from the monotone repetition of government and media sources, and instead seek out all manner of fringe and discreditable sources, if denied access to more informed dissent.
The better approach would have been to invite in the moderate and reasonable dissenters, and where possible refute them. Apart from making for better science, it reassures people that their institutions are not lying to them. The best example of this for the IDW and America in general would have to be the case of Brett Weinstein. Many of his earlier observations proved highly accurate and predictive. Had he been given access to world leading experts and dissenters like Professor Sunetra Gupta or Professor Carl Heneghan it may well have been the case that he never would have made controversial and, with hindsight, irresponsible errors in judgement in the interests of hosting free and open scientific debate.
It may be the case that in the attention economy, creating open debate, in which dissenting scientists are free to speak out, actually crowds out more harmful elements which use disingenuous or poorly understood maths to make their case. Plus, public trust seems to thrive in an environment in which the sources available are more intellectually diverse and robust. Most of all, if we consider the proven data on voluntary versus compulsory means of tackling vaccine hesitancy, it would appear that people will only trust their government when their government trusts them.
We should also face facts. There are rising concerns that the current vaccines will never deliver herd immunity, regardless of vaccine uptake levels, and given that the health benefits to most healthy children appear to be net negative in terms of their personal health outcomes, there are serious bioethical concerns being raised about the advisability of vaccinating 12 to 15 year olds.
94% of English adults now possess COVID antibodies of one form or another, yet case numbers remain persistent at roughly two-third of their former peak. This may not be as bleak as many might fear. Although case numbers are persistent, hospitalisations and deaths have fallen to a tiny fraction of their former numbers. Crucially, both hospitalisations and deaths are concentrated in older age groups, so it may well be time to implement the Great Barrington Declaration amongst the elderly and vulnerable.
We need to abandon the notion that COVID-19 will ever be anything other than endemic, and begin to welcome the voices of more reputable dissenters back into the fold. By encouraging them back in, we encourage the voices of other privately dissenting scientists and experts to speak out. Because we really need off-the-wall thinking now. Any and every approach to Public Health and Public Policy needs to be considered, investigated and rejected if necessary, studied further if at all plausible. Above all, we need a universal information network in which anyone with a credible idea can bring it to the attention of an expert for further scientific or policy debate.
It might behove us to remember that whilst many celebrate Edward Jenner for his role in tackling small pox, few know the name of John Fewster, and fewer still the name Benjamin Jesty. On a broader note, it may well be the case that the only way to tackle the vaccine hesitancy of sceptics is to give them full and unfettered access to more informed and expert dissenters who might go some way towards reclaiming their trust.
You seem to think that everyone - to some lower age limit you are uncertain about, but acknowledge the need for - should be vaccinated and that "vaccine hesitancy" is a bad thing.
You acknowledge "rising concerns" that even 100% (again, down to what age limit?) vaccination will not lead to herd immunity but this understates the certainty of the situation. On 2021-08-10 the Director of the Oxford Vaccine group (transcript link below) stated unequivocally that the vaccines cannot achieve herd immunity, because they are at best only marginally effective at reducing transmission. So it is reasonable to regard this as a settled fact - even though most people are not aware of this and are still operating according to the assumption that herd immunity can be achieved.
Pathologising those who choose not to accept a poorly tested invasive medical procedure as "vaccine hesitant" is just adding to the crapification of the world.
We absolutely do need free-wheeling, well-informed and well-intentioned debate about alternatives to the current "vaccines and nothing more until you need oxygen in hospital" approach.
In the next few days I may make an expanded version of this for second Substack article, following on from the first which was also a response to a Quillette article. This contains a transcript of Professor Sir Andrew Pollard's evidence to the UK Parliament’s All-Party Group on Coronavirus:
Funnily enough, this essay was inspired by the self-same article. It would seem that those who accuse others of motivated reasoning are the least likely to seem their own glaring motivated reasoning.
Have you been following the JCVI's stubborn refusal to endorse vaccination for 12 to 15 year olds? It would seem that this courageous stand has inspired other notable British scientists to step forward and voice their concerns. There is also a guy at the UEA who has been particularly vocal on the subject.
Yes, indeed. Voluntary interactions are always better than forced ones except when responding to force with force. Nobody likes to be told what to do, but lots of people love to tell others how to behave, love "do as I say not as I do," and many love to submit to authority (it starts with parents, then moves on to teachers and other adults, law enforcement, churches, politicians).
The Quillette bit was childish because it stubbornly never even entertained the notion that some who do not want this novel vaccine is because they, like 99% of all Covid-positive people, got well with their immune response, and if you weren't in the high risk categories (old, poor immune function, obese), the rate is more like 99.9%. That sort of dishonesty in other people's views breeds mistrust as it's wise to distrust dishonesty.
It's like people who think the non-vaccinated must protect the vaccinated rather than the vaccine doing that. Or that you only want to be around other vaccinated people despite the fact that the vaccinated spread the virus all the same.
It's the continued faith in masks and lockdowns despite the CDC claiming a 1-3% improvement from them, the CDC and WHO NEVER recommending these as solutions to pandemics before, as we can all see how people don't actually do these well and few talk about N-95 masks instead and adding air filtering and outside air ventilation.
The forcing of people to return from around the world, stay home, get no exercise, get less quality food, lose their schools and free lunch programs, lose their social life, watch their elderly die alone, miss out on most other medical services, add massive stress/anxiety for losing jobs or their small businesses and not being able to pay your family's daily living, and forcing the sick elderly from hospitals back to nursing homes were the biggest factors that ensured the pandemic's spread and bad outcomes. Of course, the broken CDC test kit didn't help, nor their errors in understanding it spread through the air.
They reject the notions of flattened curves and reasonably short timelines originally presented. They care not about the myriad side harms to nearly all people over a bad health outcome for a small segment of the already unhealthy.
If you get rid of the use of force, we'd have actual discussions. But once you add force, you reject discussions and instead divide people and create more anxiety and hatred.
We're told many are just conspiracy thinking, yet marijuana remains a Schedule 1 Drug in the US, meaning is has no known medical use, while nearly all states allow medical marijuana and the FDA already approved marijuana based medicines. It does seem that propping up a big pharma vaccine rollout paid for by central planners using other people's money and then touting it as "free," while at the same time rejecting that recovery due to your natural immune response has any similar value.
Yes. this is particularly true when it has now been proven by experience that vaccination/immunity will only cut total case numbers by a third and/or lead to a less truncated curve. I did note with some interest that vaccine mandates are having significant impacts on healthcare services: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/13/new-york-hospital-babies-staff-quit-vaccine-mandate-covid . I predicted this, and it has worrying implications for the American economy more broadly, given that nursing is overwhelmingly liberal in political affiliation.
One quarter of all real economy workers walking away, and likely voting Republican in the next election cycle...
People really don't like being told...
Your country needs a better and fairer dialogue, far less partisanship and most of all trust. The fundamental building block of any functional society is trust- power is just a byproduct of the necessity for hierarchies.
Indeed, we do see this. I guess when you force lockdowns and thus decrease the production of needed things in a highly interconnected world, you get worse outcomes. Early, they built field hospitals left and right, and few if any were ever put into real use. Now they claim hospitals are in trouble again, but they won't build field hospitals because they can't find the added healthcare workers anymore. So you stop production, force people to lose their jobs if they refuse to be bullied, and then use that as proof of how bad a disease is. And never-mind that free market healthcare is illegal and you can't build a competing hospital without getting permission first from the government and your competitors.
Have you read Nassim Nicholas Taleb's concept of anti-fragility? Global supply chains, with their just-in-time, shaved to the bone leanness would seem to be yet another candidate for fragility based upon a lack of resilience due to regular small shocks. Hence the container crisis. And that's before one considers the actual physical goods being supplied.
This also used to be a real problem with food-based commodities. Speculative trading used to actually wipe out productive capacities in goods susceptible to weather. A combination of better historical analysis, algorithms and innovations in storage have all helped to solve the problem.
No, I've not read Taleb. Supply chains and most planning can't really take into account highly unusual things or even government reactions that can compound matters. But you need people working to improve production when necessary, and that's the opposite tactic imposed. Like it seems odd now that we have to hear about hospitals rejecting patients when last year they built big field hospitals that they never used, as if they build these when they aren't needed, and then refuse to do so when they are needed (and it requires approvals to offer services since we've rejected free market solutions for healthcare).
I agree on the fact that Western governments made mistakes in managing the pandemic.
Still, the public's lack of trust comes from the combination of several factors that, as far I understand it, are unrelated to and pre-existing governement action and policies.
One factor is the collapse of scientific general culture among Western populations.
Another is the unbelievable power of social media regarding the spread of fake news, "alternative" truths, and rubbish in general, made even worse by algorythms reinforcing people's bogus beliefs.
These form the perfect cocktail for fear, charlatanism, and anti-science.
Add to that the mistake made by the media, which for months broadcast debates on covid between scientists, doctors, researchers who disagreed with each other while not knowing enough on the desease.
The process of scientific research, which inludes contradictory debates, doubt, long term analyses etc, should have remained within research labs and not exposed to the public as it was.
With all the controversies, heated debates fed by the media's pursuit of buzz, people got the impression that they could not trust science and scientists, and that is probably the worst tragedy of all.
I agree with you on social media, it may well end up collapsing the West in general. Russia and China see the danger, but we apparently do not.
On scientific debate in corporate media, my experience was different- I live in the UK, but do manage to get some pretty good dissent material from YouTube providers like UnHerd.
I disagree with you on the giving the public access to scientific debate, but that is probably because the levels of Public Health information from the UK has been just as terrible as it has been in America, from the likes of Dr Faucci and the CDC. The decision to vaccinate 12 to 15 year olds here in the UK as in America, is nothing short a human rights violation worthy of Nuremburg. There is more than sufficient evidence to prove that vaccination harms children more than COVID, at a statistical level.
Vaccination will not significantly reduce case numbers. With hindsight, we probably should have stopped at the over forties. But hindsight is 2020. There is now clear evidence that breakthrough cases are far more likely to lead to superspreader events, given that breakthrough cases generate equal or higher levels of viral load. We have also introduced a selection pressure which will invariably lead to more virulent strains, and ones which will evade the immunity conferred by vaccines. We've spent the most effective weapon we had in protecting our most vulnerable.
Geary, here's your first article on Quillette -- pitch this to Claire and I'll bet she publishes it.
Some comment:
> it should never be even contemplated, because it doesn’t bloody work!
That's what they said about seatbelt laws. People squealed but now almost everybody buckles up. Same with smoking -- they tighten the screws ever tighter and more and more people quit.
> The better approach would have been to invite in the moderate and reasonable dissenters, and where possible refute them.
> actually crowds out more harmful elements
Exactly. I'm a natural rebel myself and my trust in The Establishment approaches negative numbers, but so much utter bullshit is propagated by other contrarians that I find myself clinging to Dr. Fauci's leg. Give me half sane dissenters and I'd be more than interested to hear what they have to say.
> Benjamin Jesty.
Many thanks, never heard of him. Jenner is like Facebook -- once entrenched you can't get rid of him even when better information comes along. It's Jenner and Facebook forever.
The UnHerd YouTube channel has been hosting some pretty great dissenters on COVID-19 and the pandemic. They even managed to score an interview with Richard Thaler, Nobel prize winner, author of 'Nudge' and the father of behavioural economics- and then proceeded to accuse him of creating a Frankenstein's monster, with which governments around the world have been using behavioural economics units to 'Nudge' their citizens into compliance.
I think he is normally used to more adoring interviewers. Generally, his work is exceptional- but give a government a gold bar and they will turn it into a turd.
That's the sort of thing that really does give me pause. It's not that real science might not have cautions to give us regarding vaccines, the question is whether, on balance, we are better with the vaccine or without it and the bet is that we're better with it so that's the call.
For a natural rebel you seem pretty comfortable with seat belt laws. I don't really consider myself a rebel, but it'd be great if folks (like you?) stopped attempting to push their choices on the rest of us. You've been vaccinated? Great. Leave me alone, and if I die that's my problem. (and if you suffer some after effect later - same reasoning) Good luck to us both.
As to seatbelts you miss the point -- laws do modify behavior in time. Cancel the law now and we'd find that most people still use their seatbelt.
As to your dying being your problem, the fact is that many of us have dependents and besides that, the real issue is contagion -- your dying might be your problem, but your infecting other people is my problem and the state's problem. Libertarian thinking is never more invalid than in a pandemic.
"The decision to vaccinate 12 to 15 year olds here in the UK as in America, is nothing short a human rights violation worthy of Nuremburg. There is more than sufficient evidence to prove that vaccination harms children more than COVID, at a statistical level."
"Vaccination will not significantly reduce case numbers. With hindsight, we probably should have stopped at the over forties. But hindsight is 2020. There is now clear evidence that breakthrough cases are far more likely to lead to superspreader events, given that breakthrough cases generate equal or higher levels of viral load. We have also introduced a selection pressure which will invariably lead to more virulent strains, and ones which will evade the immunity conferred by vaccines. We've spent the most effective weapon we had in protecting our most vulnerable."
sound familiar? refer to Geary's post above...
If you're really going to claim that we all need to cede responsibility for our health to the state in the name of reducing risks and costs send me a picture of your six-pack abs - otherwise I will (for a fee) take control of your life and improve your health.
Re your dependents, see the quote above from Geary. Unless they have pre-existing conditions they are less likely to die from Covid than flu. If they catch Covid, the odds are very good they will be ok and then will have broad immunity afterwards. If you in the meantime have been vaccinated, you should be ok - that's what the vaccine was for.
Re infecting other people, prove that I am more likely to do so than you are. Having had Covid, I now have broad immunity. Unless you've actually had Covid - you don't. Elaborating on Geary's earlier point, you are in fact now an incubator for vaccine resistant strains.
I am a fan of seatbelts, btw. Wore them long before they made a law. Given what we've seen recently, everyone, including "natural rebels" such as yourself, should be concerned about government overreach.
Your post is a confection of science and politics and IMHO they should be discussed separately.
> There is more than sufficient evidence to prove that vaccination harms children more than COVID, at a statistical level."
...
We've spent the most effective weapon we had in protecting our most vulnerable.
Arguable points! Points of science, debatable on their objective merits. You maybe quite correct but even if you are, it does not follow that because various authorities have been less than perfect in what they've done, that nothing whatsoever should have been done, does it? Of course mistakes have been made.
> If you're really going to claim that we all need to cede responsibility for our health to the state
Again you evade the point. This isn't about our personal health it is about whether or not we should be free to infect others. Should Typhoid Mary have been free to spread her disease?
> Re your dependents
Again you evade the point. I simply said that your death is not your business only if you have dependents. If you die they might very well become a charge on the state, therefore the state has an interest in keeping you alive. Tho I personally believe we should all be permitted to kill ourselves if we choose, but we are not free to kill others by infecting them.
> I now have broad immunity
Natural immunity is of course best! Does anyone deny it?
My case is simply that in a national health emergency, individual liberties are rightly subject to restrictions. Do you believe that in principle or not? If not, then Mary should have been free to kill a couple of dozen more? (In fact the state locked her up.)
If you do not believe it in principal then you are not civilized as we have nothing to discuss. If you do believe it then it becomes a question of gritty details and I have no dispute with you that this might have been handled better. But the primary point remains that the state can, will and should do what needs to be done to control a pandemic. Bottom line is that I'll get the jab irrespective of my personal feelings about it. And if the state mandates the jab for certain people, that's their duty. I don't question your science -- others might but I don't -- I question only the principle that herd immunity requires herd conformity. It's roughly the same in times of war -- I might be conscripted whether or not I personally support the government's policy. Get it?
Overreach? Sure, probably. But underreach would have been worse.
I agree with your last paragraph, except with the hindsight is 2020 part. Some "dissenters" saw this early on, but were silenced by the authoritarians.
If you're going to begin the article like that, not sure how you can not link to the "CDC" statement in question, especially since to my knowledge one doesn't exist. There was a letter signed by a broad spectrum of "public health" professionals, but I don't remember it including anyone from the CDC and if it had it would've probably been "organizational affiliation for informational purposes only".
It's still not correct, and you still have not linked to the acual statement in question. The whole point of having that kind of discipline as opposed to writing from "memory" is that our memories are highly fallible, and thus you undercut your entire thesis. The "moment" when conservatives lost faith in public health was when 1200 public health professionals, NONE of whom even listed the CDC as their organizational affiliation signed an "open letter" urging participation in the George Floyd protests because of the alleged public health threat of racism. I fail to understand this kind of willful ignorance, especially when your essential point is entirely valid. Here's a link to the letter:
By the way, it's also in my opinion not trivial that it was an open letter coming from "public health professionals" as opposed to the CDC. A lot of the divisiveness in the States during the pandemic, particularly in 2020, came about due to public health positions being falsely attributed to the CDC, generally towards the more alarmist side. This caused two things: liberals tended to overstate what "the science" was requiring, and conservatives tended to entirely dismiss reasonable recommendations coming from the CDC because they were under the false impression that the CDC was issuing unreasonable recommendations.
It's a fair point. But I think there is ample opportunity to place a significant amount of the blame on both Trump and Faucci for lying to the American people. It a repeated error made on the part of Public Health officials that ordinary people cannot be trusted. There are even analogous sentiments expressed in the Parliamentary record, regarding fears of the lower orders rioting in the event of German bombing.
If anything, every crisis reveals that it is far more the case that both the wealthy and the educated are far less worthy of trust than ordinary working people who tend to be more stoic and resilient. There is also a fallacy of superior judgement which comes with intelligence.
Here in the UK we were somewhat more lucky, although the Left was alarmist, and small elements of the Right became increasingly dubious over the evidence for lockdowns (which, it turns out, were quite correct, other than for alleviating medical capacities), nobody with any sense or power questioned masks (indoors) or social distancing until the vaccine program was well underway.
I also understand this being a hot button issue. There are those within the legacy media who don't want to see Substack succeed. Medical misinformation would be exactly the kind of ammunition they would need to discredit you guys, which would be deeply unfair.
As an interesting side note they were somewhat correct in their claims of medical disparities, however only to a small degree. The best way to determine this is from Pakistani/ Bangladeshi Brits vs. Indian (Hindu) Brits who are genetically very similar but enjoy very different educational and socio-economic outcomes.
Around 70% to 80% of difference is genetic and/or can be accounted for on the basis of vitamin D deficiencies, but there are issues relating to socio-economic which could be construed as systemic. The most significant factor by far is the presence of Neanderthal DNA in white and Asian populations. According to German scientists there is one small cluster which is near fatal for many white or Asians, but generally Neanderthal DNA is greatly beneficial to inbuilt coronavirus resistance.
I am very sorry for taking up so much of time, and apologise profusely and unreservedly.
No apologies needed, enjoy the discussion! Yes, Fauci in particular is caught on camera lying repeatedly, and even later acknowledging having done so in many cases, not to mention that he's ridiculously compromised by having surreptitiously and probably illegally funded the exact same research at the exact same laboratory that probably started the whole thing. He certainly didn't contribute to public trust. But the fact remains that if you actually looked only at what the CDC was saying at various points during the pandemic, putting aside what Fauci was saying on TV, or what all kinds of people were saying about what the CDC was saying, they were pretty reasonable and pretty correct on most things. That could've been very helpful if it had mattered a lot more, but it didn't because nobody paid much attention to what they were actually saying.
I have limited interest in trying to draw any conclusions about COVID outcomes at this point, because until the pandemic is well and truly over, or at least declared endemic everywhere, then it's provisional data that keeps changing. I remember when Eastern Europe was a "success story" and now they're among the worst for total deaths. Same with Southeast Asia. Austrialia's had few deaths relatively, but at what costs, on the back of hundreds of days of lockdown? Same with demographics probably . . . just not worth trying to draw conclusions, some groups that "suffered more" may end up with better group-level immunity. I dunno, I'll just wait.
That's why I've been following a lot of the YouTube content generated by UnHerd- they've had some of the most outstanding responsible dissent content throughout the pandemic. This one was particularly prescient: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy6BULyNM5Q&t=3s . It not only predicted where we are today 9 months ago, but argues that many of early more or less positive responses were because of different variants which different countries were facing.
Italy, France, Spain, the UK and the US all got hit by a more virulent strain in the initial phases. Others were more fortunate, it just didn't show for a while because people who were healthy key vectors in the countries which were lucky, possessed natural immunity for at least six months.
Generally UnHerd is high quality. I found this particular piece by Katherine Birbalsingh incredibly balanced and willing to show both sides: https://unherd.com/2021/04/the-trouble-with-american-police/ . She is an incredible woman who really inspired me to dig deep on the topic of education- her attitudes on school autonomy and choice are a lot less brutal than American Charters for both the teachers and the parents.
She spent an entire autumn term ringing parents who wanted to dodge, simply trying to convince them of the necessity of spending a bare minimum of time investing in their child's education. It has to be a communal effort, don't ya know...
One question, why can't authors edit their own comments in thread?
It is difficult given that Google deliberately tries to obscure such matters. Too many people like me I suppose linking to historic NYT articles only found by custom date ranges, questioning the irregularities of mail-in voting when it suited their purposes.
Not that I actually believe in widespread voter fraud, I just dislike the blatant hypocrisy. In order to secure the consent of losing side, cultural institutions might have their biases, but they need to adopt on attitude of fairness.
It's particularly galling here because until quite recently the BBC enjoyed huge public support (myself included). Brexit ruined everything, on a cultural front, exposing clear fault lines based on class and economic privilege. And there was my thinking that class resentments were naturally directed upwards...
OK, but I don't think that's "the moment" that conservatives reacted to, I remember it quite clearly, it was open letter's justification of the street protests by the same exact public health leaders who had only weeks earlier universally condemned as much smaller protests against the lockdowns. This letter was really more about internal dynamics at CDC. But yeah, it was of the same general sentiment.
You can find a more recent statement at cdc.gov/healthequity/racism-disparities/index.html. For the record, there are other reasons for disparate health outcomes including genetics (the primary driver of disparities with COVID-19 in terms of outcomes by case), socio-economics, ingroup preference preventing the retirement out to more rural areas, epigenetics, and a lack of telomere longevity caused by the statistical absence of fathers.
Many of the tropes created by the likes of John Oliver, such as the dissemination of the idea that Black skin is thicker as racism are incorrect. Of course, at face value African American skin is no thicker than any other skin, but it is denser, which is all probability led to the false impression that Black skin is thicker- because empirical observation of the fact that it is more difficult to penetrate would likely lead to the false impression.
Of course, there is a HUGE legacy of mistreatment of African Americans by the medical establishment, and their is also ample evidence to suggest that there is systemic racism at play through the socio-economics and environmental factors which affect African Americans, but the American narrative on racism are having real world consequences in lives lost here in the UK, where vulnerable BAME individuals remain persistent in their vaccine hesitancy.
And this public health disaster is not limited to COVID-19. There is a known group of conditions such as higher rates of miscarriage, low birth weight (premature birth), and a higher rate of maternal death in delivery which urgently require well-funded investigation for genetic or epigenetic root causes- but the Left's answer always seems to be racism and implicit bias training on this, and a whole range of other issues- which ultimately harms Black and Brown people.
However, in the historical context you are correct. It was 1,200 CDC employees who issued the petition, the only article I can see on Google referencing it is from the Baltimore Sun on the 20th July 2020 (which is unfortunately unavailable in my region). It appears that yet again Google is 'curating' the past to support Left-leaning Liberal positions... They must have failed to edit out an incriminating breadcrumb...
Anyway, I will correct the start of my Newsletter and issue a correction at the bottom- is there anything else I need to do? You have to understand that as a British Heterodox and Half-American by birth I am deeply concerned by the partisan forces tearing your country apart, and the legacy media/social media nexus causing the problem.
I don't maintain a substantial presence on social media. I don't even own a mobile phone. But even in Britain, where there have always been more cordial relations between Left and Right, I have noticed a growing climate of mutual antipathy. I voted Remain on the Brexit issue, but thanks to the lucky happenstance of reading The Righteous Mind, I was able to admit defeat with good grace quite quickly and look for reasons why a slim majority of my fellow Brits might have voted differently from me.
Much to my surprise I found that their reasons were not only valid, but also significantly more valid than my own narrow economic considerations. That being said, even I, who consciously tries to retain the position of a heterodox and makes a deliberate effort to stay out of social media, find it difficult to avoid the inexorable gravitational pull of bias on one side or the other, on any given political or cultural issue. In my defence, I did write the article at speed on one draft this morning, and when I do edit, I tend to myopically focus on spelling and grammatical errors.
It may amuse you to know that the heterodox position is a rather lonely one. I had several American Conservative friends accusing me of being a progressive when I wrote my recent Newsletters on housing oligopolies. You guys really need to close the capital depreciation tax rebate on housing, it's causing corporations to invest in housing as a net loss carry forward, and financial groups like Black Rock to move into the market depriving young millennials of the opportunity to buy and start a family.
There really is nothing like it in the rest of West as far as I am aware. A better system would be to do like the Swedes or the Danes and refund 30% of debt interest on loans through tax allowances. It apparently works equally well for mortgages and student loans.
I spend most of my time reading and researching. I should perhaps be more diligent in my writing. I apologise. I hope this won't do anything to derank my Substack contributions. As a family carer living on savings my hopeful ambitions of one day being a successful writer are quite important to my internal equilibrium.
I greatly appreciate the attempt, and good luck in your endeavor. Writing is a tough way to make a living, but so rewarding! I'm being a "stickler" on this because like you I want to get past the partisan divisions, and one way to do that is to be careful about how we characterize opinions with which we disagree. Whenever I see someone on the internet criticizing something or someone else, I always follow the links to see the original, and I think we'd all benefit if we are always careful when we write to provide those links, and then accurately characterize what's there, with the accountability being that people can go there and see for themselves. That's one of the beauties of the internet age, trillions of bytes of data a but a few "clicks" away. I'm not in favor of extremism about this, if you want to reference the fact that 19 hijackers brought down the World Trade Center on 9/11, you don't have to provide a link for that, but when if you base an essay on the "moment" that something happened, I think it's reasonable to expect that you accurately characterize and link to exactly what it is that happened.
I completely agree with your statement especially on strawmanning, which is as clear a sign of bad acting as gaslightinh, and thanks for your well wishes! Speaking of the 9/11 coverage surrounding the anniversary, did you see the recent Breaking Points podcast on the recent discloses re: Saudi involvement? I know their wording was very careful, but to understand that, contrary to the FBI's explicit statements, the consular guy seemed to enjoy quite high status really is quite a shocking revelation, especially given the buckets loads of influential Saudi's quickly bundled onto a plane.
Ever see Brave Heart? Think Robert the Bruce and his father, in the realpolitik scene. I'm sure either the British or the Americans have previously claimed that Saudi Intelligence was instrumental in foiling significant terrorist plots, but this would tend to suggest that there were those within the Saudi ranks whose sympathies ran in entirely different direction...
It was a real coup with you guys winning over Krystal and Saagar- congratulations!
It's American occupations which are the problem, not the wars. Isaiah Berlin was quite clear on the subject that just wars were a fallacy, which considering that he was also the father of the concept of negative liberty, freedom from as opposed to freedom to- it should be a clear indicator to powerful Americans intent on democracy building, who generally tend to find the concept of negative liberty quite useful.
Apparently our former Dear Leader Tony Blair wrote to him asking whether their was an exception to the Just War fallacy. Twat. I can only imagine the reply...
I haven't seen that particular segment yet, but yeah, the Saudi role in 9/11 was clear many years ago. Yes, I've thought that all of the wars that we've fought over the past couple of decades have lacked justification, really going all the way back to Vietnam, which we "lost" supposedly, but why has it seemed that Vietnam has never been a problem for us since? I'm not a pacificist though, I do believe that any country that does not act aggressively to defend itself against its enemies will eventually be reduced to servitude. But we've grown corrupt, and our wars are more based on private mercantile interests and delusional ideologies than on confronting actual enemies, which we do have (radical Islam, China).
I think you're right. Mali and the bloody French is a good example of a war which is justifiable (I used to be one of those guys who gleefully told friends to type in French Military Victories- https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/710678-did-you-mean ). I think if one is defending democracy, defending the sovereign rights of country against an aggressor or trying to prevent a genocide, then war is morally justifiable. It's not that war isn't inherently wrong, it's just that the alternative is occasionally far worse.
I've been thinking about writing an essay on subject drawing on Isaiah Berlin and the Just War Fallacy. I think the American psyche is somewhat incapable of acknowledging that sometimes war needs to be brutally short and swift, with no upside. Instead, there is the myth of building democracy and 'helping' people achieve freedom at the point of a gun.
It almost always snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. Ultimately, it is like trying to polish a turd. I think I might call it 'Afghanistan: A Moratorium for Forever Wars?'
Good stuff. It is worth noting though, many on the left are tired of the double standard asked of them to be the 'side' asked to rise above in debating ideological positions. Climate change denial was tolerated due to both-sidesism for a damagingly long time. Difficult to get one side to listen to the rational positions of the other when said side is going off the deep end - Q-anon, Texas, the California recall - there are so many extreme manifestations of right wing thinking right now. This, to me, dwarfs the threats of the 'woke left ' - hypocrisy, cancelations, language policing. Both sides are bad, but one side is actively trying to game democracy. and I see no self-critique in conservative circles, anywhere. like, please point me towards some, because I have looked for them. and trust me, I am experiencing a lot of pushback against woke orthodoxy as I return to work in person and again traveling in progressive circles. one side is more extreme right now by a significant margin.
I agree with you on the climate change denialism- although I would also argue that in many ways denialism was used a strawman, to prevent the truth that there is every reason to somewhat optimistic on long range predictions: see The Honest Broker on Substack to significantly deflate any alarmist fears you may have.
I don't know what you mean about Texas, unless it's about abortion on which I really have no opinion. QAnon is a conspiracy dreamed up by an obvious groyper- it is almost a direct lift of the blood libel. However, don't believe the less honest surveys on the matter- core support is around 4% (about the level of conspiracy nuts to be found in any population)- most express support in high figures, but when questioned about whether they support specific aspects of it the answer is invariably "of course not". It's pure tribal loyalty in most instances. Gavin Newsom is a tool who is the process of wrecking his State- in every area from education to COVID, from homelessness to policing and crime, he has been an absolute disaster.
Gavin Newson has, as yet, declined to issue a denial to the Rose McGowan allegation, which, to anyone familiar with the inner workings of politics and media, is almost tantamount to an admission. The possibility that his wife may, like so many in the California establishment, have been running interference for Harvey Weinstein, should give us all pause.
On gaming democracy, try lying on the part of Democrats. If it were possible to confiscate all the money and working capital of all the billionaires in America, it would take the American Government roughly six months to run out money. Its power, ability to borrow and budget is an order of magnitude more powerful than all corporations in America and all the private wealth owned in America.
If things are shit in America, it is precisely because of the power of their Permanent State, which is the prevailing domain of the Democrats (other than Conservatives support of police, the courts and the military). They spend more money on publicly healthcare than the UK per citizen, yet still cannot manage universal healthcare. The liberal media are now staunchly proven supporters of Forever Wars, a position which most Americans don't support, as shown by the fact that the principle of withdrawing from Afghanistan is the only thing of substance they've actually criticised Joe Biden on.
I agree with you on the myopia of debate within conservative circles from America. One can try to argue for better government, more effective or efficient government, or government which ultimately saves the taxpayer money, and the vitriol will begin to flyer. Recently, I was accused of being a progressive for arguing that stronger worker protections was one aspect of the Left's portfolio which actually seemed to work.
You are correct the Left is more extreme these days. On the Right, if one compares the attitudes of most Republicans to 10 years ago, then they have largely remained unchanged- with the laudable exception of greater acceptance of gay marriage. In virtually every aspect of the same set of questions, Liberal has become more Left in America.
It has become acceptable for white people to dress up in gorilla masks to throw eggs at Larry Elder, for LA Times journalists to call him a white supremacist, and for white people to call Black people in general all manner of racial epithets if they happen to be a Black conservative or a police officer.
One thing to consider is that academic disciplines become of decreasing public utility if there is an absence of spirited debate and rebuttal from conservatives within the field. You see liberals are responsible for almost all new ideas, innovation and progress within a society- but just as liberals are great at generating good ideas, they are terrible at vetting bad ones. The loyalty oaths to DIE which the sciences now require, will likely lead to result that Western Science will cease to function properly within the next 20 year, or operate at such a reduced capacity as to be a shadow of its former self.
Group think is fatal in the sciences, as the pandemic has clearly demonstrated.
"but just as liberals are great at generating good ideas, they are terrible at vetting bad ones."
Which is exactly why we need both. Progressives to dream up new social engineering experiments and conservatives to warn us why they might not be such a good idea.
"with the laudable exception of greater acceptance of gay marriage"
IMHO it is not laudable that the Queen's English be replaced with correctspeak. 'Marriage' refers to that specific social arrangement that founds the natural family. There are a thousand ways of living with other people and all are wonderful but only one is marriage. That one has a Special Friend is also wonderful but it is not a marriage any more than a boar is a stallion.
thoughtful stuff man. And for sure, I know Q-Anon is a small subset of conservatives. What I have a problem with is the fact that their fellow conservatives aren't calling them, and other extreme types, out. It's making conservatives look bad, from where I sit. There are plenty of issues on which I sympathize with conservatives, and those issues and arguments are weakened when the mainstream of the Republican party are tacitly or explicitly supporting harmful conspiracy theories. thoughtful conservatives should be condemning conservative extremists, not playing political footsies. It's crass, and it goes against the morality so long associated with conservatives.
I don't weigh in on the abortion debate a lot myself, but I certainly object to yet another Republican attempt to game the system. The snitch on your neighbours thing is one of the grossest laws I've ever heard of, tbh. Gerrymandering, 'voter fraud', anti mail-in voting campaigns, etc. You are a data-driven guy, and you know there are strong arguments against all this stuff.
I don't doubt Gavin Newsom is gross. But when a popularity vote alone can launch a recall, you have a nuclear option. And, again, it's Republicans using it first. It's gaming the system.
Anyone accusing you of being a progressive is a dumbass, but that's how divided dialogue has become. The most fervent proponents - on either side - will tolerate no vacillation from the orthodoxy. so calling Elder a 'white supremacist'? that's the shit that makes progressives look bad right there. I see a lost of cost cutting in journalism, and a lot of younger journalists, who are cheaper, and prone to being pretty extreme in their wokeness. I even saw it with a kid in grade 9 as we start up the semester. cool kid, super bright, but so certain of the position she was repeating. this is the kind of kid I want to help avoid ideological certitude.
And for sure, the absence of conservative voices on campuses is a massive problem. I'm telling any conservative who will listen, the left long ago abdicated any claim to the moral high ground, it's there for the taking, but I'm not seeing it - protestors throwing gravel at our PM, yelling at sick patients in front of hospitals.
Moderate, thoughtful, moral conservatives are the majority of conservatives I know personally. We've got a conservative candidate for PM right now that is running as a moderate conservative, the old 'progressive conservative' type we used to have. he's got a legit shot to beat Trudeau - I don't see him pulling it off, but he has a shot - and I think part of that stems from the fact that he is distanced from the extremists, and he is able to position himself as having more integrity than Trudeau.
There is an appetite for this kind of conservatism, I think.
"thoughtful conservatives should be condemning conservative extremists"
And that's why the GOP has my utter contempt. Apart from a very short list of people who have the guts to say that Caligula isn't a god, everyone else is bowing down. This from people who would tell you they hold to the old values.
"We've got a conservative candidate for PM right now"
I find him as woke a Justin and just as evasive. I'm voting for that PPC just to convey my distaste for the establishment.
Ray, I think you will find yourself in good company with the protest vote. Oddly, I think O'Toole has more integrity than Trudeau, I respect him for steering conservatives away from the extremes and acknowledging climate change. but it could be as simple as the fact that Justin is the incumbent with the glaring media spotlight on his inconsistent record - O'Toole just doesn't have the baggage. Happy election day!
I think you're damn right with the first paragraph. Thanks for that insight. Both parties are as bad as each other- it just depends who gets there first. With online cancel mobs it was the Left. But now we have conservatives using the same tactics. Aha though- what about the various grievance studies propagated by the Left? Race is not the primary driver of inequality even though it can play a substantial part, especially through ingroup trapping African Americans in low father communities.
Conservatives are generally less innovative though, so it's to be expected. But they are both equally guilty of not calling out those on the fringes. Conservatives do get very irate with white supremacists though (apart from the obvious media misframing). There is one instance where a groyper asks a question in a Q & A session at a Dan Crenshaw event- he's quite disciplined about it, but you can tell he wants to tear the guys head off. The Ben Shapiro incident was better, because he was able to point out all the anti-Semitic deaths threats he had received.
Well, mail-in ballots are systemically more prone to irregularities, as well as open to organised corruption- the NYT wrote a great series of pieces on it back when it disadvantaged Democrats. I loathe gerrymandering, but both sides do it- ever seen the movie 'Milk'- that was exactly what was happening there. Voter fraud is a myth but it is also misframing- what really concerns Republicans is non-citizen voting- a huge number of non-citizens are mistakenly enrolled on voter rolls, but nobody really knows just how extensive it is.
The recall option has been part of California state law for decades- trying to recast a longstanding option as gaming the system is a deliberate ploy- the Democrats wouldn't hesitate to use it if it went in their favour. They've also been known to question election integrity when it suits them.
Well done on the kid thing! Ideology is toxic. There is even an extent to which free markets and capitalism are unfit for purpose to fix, and ideology can cause harm on this score. A good example would be the sharing of weather prediction across countries- commercialisation would cost lives, because the private sector doesn't like to share. It would be insane to privatise one of the few areas of government which works really, really well. It can even help mitigate insurance costs, in some instances- if people are better prepared.
The Jimmy Kimmel thing was atrocious- calling for people to be denied access to healthcare on the grounds of vaccination status. Good news on the heterodox conservative front, we need more reasonable people going into politics. The problem is it's a bloody tank full of piranhas. Decent people don't survive long- although I would bet money on Katie Porter- she really is The Little Engine That Could- you can tell it from all the preparation she puts into her committees.
You should watch some of her greatest hits on YouTube- it's hilarious watching her make execs who are usually bullet proof squirm.
"the Democrats wouldn't hesitate to use it if it went in their favour"
I myself put that sort of stunt in the same category -- politics and its dirtiest -- as the Brett K spectacle and, not to keep score, but I'd say the Rats are every last bit as dirty as the Reps. The pot and the kettle are both soot black.
Thanks Geary, you are the one that inspired me to re-examine my progressive beliefs, and so any time you think I've written something insightful, I feel like I'm onto something.
Grievance studies are a problem. some of the people I've encountered in the 'industry' seem to only link to and cite each other, and both the evidence and my own personal experience indicate a field that is causing more harm than good, whether driven by cowardice, expedience or positive intentions blinded by ideological certitude.
can't be late for school typing about politics online - so have a great week, and keep writing the good fight.
Geez, Qanon, seriously. Is there a bigger strawman argument in existence. Do you know off one person? If not for CNN you would not even know of it presence.
Thank you. Btwn QAnon, Oath Keepers, and Proud Boys, why there must be 3 dozen or so fringe conservatives! Our sad story is that we have no representation at all: neither fringe groups nor establishment RINOs represent people like myself. I find community in my neighborhood where we proudly fly the flag and work in the trades, and in places like Substack and Quillette (where I go by Possum).
Just to discuss this, I'd say it's like the difference between a mugger who wants your wallet and communist who wants your bank account. The GOP, or at least the Trumpards, are overtly -- one might even say 'honestly' -- trying to wreak democracy whereas Pelosi and friends are quietly trying to create a one-party state.
Regarding the left/woke/Democrat desire to rid the world of parties supported by wrong-thinkers, please see the extremely worrying graph of US public opinion regarding censorship of "misinformation" even if it limits freedom of information:
In 2018 Democrats and the like were slightly more inclined than Republicans and the like to support this pernicious tradeoff. Three years later, the proportion of Reps who support this have dropped significantly and the proportion of Dems who support it have risen still more significantly.
Thanks Robin. Worrying yes, but alas not simple. I find myself longing for Rodger Mudd, you could put some faith in what he reported. At times I feel I'm drowning in the BS -- even if I know it's BS I still want somebody to make it stop.
I long for Christopher Hitchens, and Tom Wolfe. Evelyn Waugh! Hunter Thompson!
There was a charm, a rascally sense of humor and love for humanity that underpinned those writers. We're severely lacking in the humor department these days. Trump while odious to some, has a prankster's sense of timing and he just loved to goose all the uptight people who hated him.
"he just loved to goose all the uptight people who hated him."
Sure, there were lessons there for whatever savior might come forward. It was just beautiful the way he didn't give a shit what the Correct thought of him. While everyone else cowered, Trump stood up on his hind legs. You could admire that. Yes! for those dear, departed gentlemen who could cut thru the bullshit.
Heya Ray, I think that's a fair analogy right there. But I think it is consistent with my position. the stuff the Dems are trying to do, or have done - the corporate cronyism, the dishonesty, faux wokeness, etc - is a lot harder to see than a rioter on January 6. You see it - I see it - but the average person isn't as involved in politics, doesn't pay as much attention. Lot's of people come from countries where that sort of cronyism is endemic. I just think ideological extremism is more alarmingly obvious on the right.
That's one of the reasons I am so critical of liberals. I used to vote liberal democrat here in the UK. They broke my heart when they went woke- I used to love their optimism and belief in helping people (the elderly and students in particular- back when education was still a good investment).
But now they are just as guilty of looking down on ordinary decent people who happen to be white as labour.
"I just think ideological extremism is more alarmingly obvious on the right."
Sure, the rotten egg smell you get from the Trumpards is hard to miss unless you want to miss it, it's the elephant in the room. The Rat's corruption is somehow just slightly easier to disguise as Love. And who is opposed to Love, asked the Ministry of Love?
Hi Geary,
You seem to think that everyone - to some lower age limit you are uncertain about, but acknowledge the need for - should be vaccinated and that "vaccine hesitancy" is a bad thing.
You acknowledge "rising concerns" that even 100% (again, down to what age limit?) vaccination will not lead to herd immunity but this understates the certainty of the situation. On 2021-08-10 the Director of the Oxford Vaccine group (transcript link below) stated unequivocally that the vaccines cannot achieve herd immunity, because they are at best only marginally effective at reducing transmission. So it is reasonable to regard this as a settled fact - even though most people are not aware of this and are still operating according to the assumption that herd immunity can be achieved.
Pathologising those who choose not to accept a poorly tested invasive medical procedure as "vaccine hesitant" is just adding to the crapification of the world.
We absolutely do need free-wheeling, well-informed and well-intentioned debate about alternatives to the current "vaccines and nothing more until you need oxygen in hospital" approach.
I wrote a comment on this horrible new Quillette article which you can see on the main article page: https://quillette.com/2021/09/15/understanding-the-motivated-reasoning-of-anti-vax-refuseniks/
In the next few days I may make an expanded version of this for second Substack article, following on from the first which was also a response to a Quillette article. This contains a transcript of Professor Sir Andrew Pollard's evidence to the UK Parliament’s All-Party Group on Coronavirus:
https://nutritionmatters.substack.com/p/vitamin-d-and-early-treatment-vs
Funnily enough, this essay was inspired by the self-same article. It would seem that those who accuse others of motivated reasoning are the least likely to seem their own glaring motivated reasoning.
Have you been following the JCVI's stubborn refusal to endorse vaccination for 12 to 15 year olds? It would seem that this courageous stand has inspired other notable British scientists to step forward and voice their concerns. There is also a guy at the UEA who has been particularly vocal on the subject.
Articles like that are why I am no longer subscribing to Q. What a bunch of garbage and of course supported by CL.
Yes, indeed. Voluntary interactions are always better than forced ones except when responding to force with force. Nobody likes to be told what to do, but lots of people love to tell others how to behave, love "do as I say not as I do," and many love to submit to authority (it starts with parents, then moves on to teachers and other adults, law enforcement, churches, politicians).
The Quillette bit was childish because it stubbornly never even entertained the notion that some who do not want this novel vaccine is because they, like 99% of all Covid-positive people, got well with their immune response, and if you weren't in the high risk categories (old, poor immune function, obese), the rate is more like 99.9%. That sort of dishonesty in other people's views breeds mistrust as it's wise to distrust dishonesty.
It's like people who think the non-vaccinated must protect the vaccinated rather than the vaccine doing that. Or that you only want to be around other vaccinated people despite the fact that the vaccinated spread the virus all the same.
It's the continued faith in masks and lockdowns despite the CDC claiming a 1-3% improvement from them, the CDC and WHO NEVER recommending these as solutions to pandemics before, as we can all see how people don't actually do these well and few talk about N-95 masks instead and adding air filtering and outside air ventilation.
The forcing of people to return from around the world, stay home, get no exercise, get less quality food, lose their schools and free lunch programs, lose their social life, watch their elderly die alone, miss out on most other medical services, add massive stress/anxiety for losing jobs or their small businesses and not being able to pay your family's daily living, and forcing the sick elderly from hospitals back to nursing homes were the biggest factors that ensured the pandemic's spread and bad outcomes. Of course, the broken CDC test kit didn't help, nor their errors in understanding it spread through the air.
They reject the notions of flattened curves and reasonably short timelines originally presented. They care not about the myriad side harms to nearly all people over a bad health outcome for a small segment of the already unhealthy.
If you get rid of the use of force, we'd have actual discussions. But once you add force, you reject discussions and instead divide people and create more anxiety and hatred.
We're told many are just conspiracy thinking, yet marijuana remains a Schedule 1 Drug in the US, meaning is has no known medical use, while nearly all states allow medical marijuana and the FDA already approved marijuana based medicines. It does seem that propping up a big pharma vaccine rollout paid for by central planners using other people's money and then touting it as "free," while at the same time rejecting that recovery due to your natural immune response has any similar value.
Yes. this is particularly true when it has now been proven by experience that vaccination/immunity will only cut total case numbers by a third and/or lead to a less truncated curve. I did note with some interest that vaccine mandates are having significant impacts on healthcare services: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/13/new-york-hospital-babies-staff-quit-vaccine-mandate-covid . I predicted this, and it has worrying implications for the American economy more broadly, given that nursing is overwhelmingly liberal in political affiliation.
One quarter of all real economy workers walking away, and likely voting Republican in the next election cycle...
People really don't like being told...
Your country needs a better and fairer dialogue, far less partisanship and most of all trust. The fundamental building block of any functional society is trust- power is just a byproduct of the necessity for hierarchies.
Indeed, we do see this. I guess when you force lockdowns and thus decrease the production of needed things in a highly interconnected world, you get worse outcomes. Early, they built field hospitals left and right, and few if any were ever put into real use. Now they claim hospitals are in trouble again, but they won't build field hospitals because they can't find the added healthcare workers anymore. So you stop production, force people to lose their jobs if they refuse to be bullied, and then use that as proof of how bad a disease is. And never-mind that free market healthcare is illegal and you can't build a competing hospital without getting permission first from the government and your competitors.
Have you read Nassim Nicholas Taleb's concept of anti-fragility? Global supply chains, with their just-in-time, shaved to the bone leanness would seem to be yet another candidate for fragility based upon a lack of resilience due to regular small shocks. Hence the container crisis. And that's before one considers the actual physical goods being supplied.
This also used to be a real problem with food-based commodities. Speculative trading used to actually wipe out productive capacities in goods susceptible to weather. A combination of better historical analysis, algorithms and innovations in storage have all helped to solve the problem.
No, I've not read Taleb. Supply chains and most planning can't really take into account highly unusual things or even government reactions that can compound matters. But you need people working to improve production when necessary, and that's the opposite tactic imposed. Like it seems odd now that we have to hear about hospitals rejecting patients when last year they built big field hospitals that they never used, as if they build these when they aren't needed, and then refuse to do so when they are needed (and it requires approvals to offer services since we've rejected free market solutions for healthcare).
I agree on the fact that Western governments made mistakes in managing the pandemic.
Still, the public's lack of trust comes from the combination of several factors that, as far I understand it, are unrelated to and pre-existing governement action and policies.
One factor is the collapse of scientific general culture among Western populations.
Another is the unbelievable power of social media regarding the spread of fake news, "alternative" truths, and rubbish in general, made even worse by algorythms reinforcing people's bogus beliefs.
These form the perfect cocktail for fear, charlatanism, and anti-science.
Add to that the mistake made by the media, which for months broadcast debates on covid between scientists, doctors, researchers who disagreed with each other while not knowing enough on the desease.
The process of scientific research, which inludes contradictory debates, doubt, long term analyses etc, should have remained within research labs and not exposed to the public as it was.
With all the controversies, heated debates fed by the media's pursuit of buzz, people got the impression that they could not trust science and scientists, and that is probably the worst tragedy of all.
I agree with you on social media, it may well end up collapsing the West in general. Russia and China see the danger, but we apparently do not.
On scientific debate in corporate media, my experience was different- I live in the UK, but do manage to get some pretty good dissent material from YouTube providers like UnHerd.
I disagree with you on the giving the public access to scientific debate, but that is probably because the levels of Public Health information from the UK has been just as terrible as it has been in America, from the likes of Dr Faucci and the CDC. The decision to vaccinate 12 to 15 year olds here in the UK as in America, is nothing short a human rights violation worthy of Nuremburg. There is more than sufficient evidence to prove that vaccination harms children more than COVID, at a statistical level.
Vaccination will not significantly reduce case numbers. With hindsight, we probably should have stopped at the over forties. But hindsight is 2020. There is now clear evidence that breakthrough cases are far more likely to lead to superspreader events, given that breakthrough cases generate equal or higher levels of viral load. We have also introduced a selection pressure which will invariably lead to more virulent strains, and ones which will evade the immunity conferred by vaccines. We've spent the most effective weapon we had in protecting our most vulnerable.
Geary, here's your first article on Quillette -- pitch this to Claire and I'll bet she publishes it.
Some comment:
> it should never be even contemplated, because it doesn’t bloody work!
That's what they said about seatbelt laws. People squealed but now almost everybody buckles up. Same with smoking -- they tighten the screws ever tighter and more and more people quit.
> The better approach would have been to invite in the moderate and reasonable dissenters, and where possible refute them.
> actually crowds out more harmful elements
Exactly. I'm a natural rebel myself and my trust in The Establishment approaches negative numbers, but so much utter bullshit is propagated by other contrarians that I find myself clinging to Dr. Fauci's leg. Give me half sane dissenters and I'd be more than interested to hear what they have to say.
> Benjamin Jesty.
Many thanks, never heard of him. Jenner is like Facebook -- once entrenched you can't get rid of him even when better information comes along. It's Jenner and Facebook forever.
The UnHerd YouTube channel has been hosting some pretty great dissenters on COVID-19 and the pandemic. They even managed to score an interview with Richard Thaler, Nobel prize winner, author of 'Nudge' and the father of behavioural economics- and then proceeded to accuse him of creating a Frankenstein's monster, with which governments around the world have been using behavioural economics units to 'Nudge' their citizens into compliance.
I think he is normally used to more adoring interviewers. Generally, his work is exceptional- but give a government a gold bar and they will turn it into a turd.
That's the sort of thing that really does give me pause. It's not that real science might not have cautions to give us regarding vaccines, the question is whether, on balance, we are better with the vaccine or without it and the bet is that we're better with it so that's the call.
For a natural rebel you seem pretty comfortable with seat belt laws. I don't really consider myself a rebel, but it'd be great if folks (like you?) stopped attempting to push their choices on the rest of us. You've been vaccinated? Great. Leave me alone, and if I die that's my problem. (and if you suffer some after effect later - same reasoning) Good luck to us both.
As to seatbelts you miss the point -- laws do modify behavior in time. Cancel the law now and we'd find that most people still use their seatbelt.
As to your dying being your problem, the fact is that many of us have dependents and besides that, the real issue is contagion -- your dying might be your problem, but your infecting other people is my problem and the state's problem. Libertarian thinking is never more invalid than in a pandemic.
"The decision to vaccinate 12 to 15 year olds here in the UK as in America, is nothing short a human rights violation worthy of Nuremburg. There is more than sufficient evidence to prove that vaccination harms children more than COVID, at a statistical level."
"Vaccination will not significantly reduce case numbers. With hindsight, we probably should have stopped at the over forties. But hindsight is 2020. There is now clear evidence that breakthrough cases are far more likely to lead to superspreader events, given that breakthrough cases generate equal or higher levels of viral load. We have also introduced a selection pressure which will invariably lead to more virulent strains, and ones which will evade the immunity conferred by vaccines. We've spent the most effective weapon we had in protecting our most vulnerable."
sound familiar? refer to Geary's post above...
If you're really going to claim that we all need to cede responsibility for our health to the state in the name of reducing risks and costs send me a picture of your six-pack abs - otherwise I will (for a fee) take control of your life and improve your health.
Re your dependents, see the quote above from Geary. Unless they have pre-existing conditions they are less likely to die from Covid than flu. If they catch Covid, the odds are very good they will be ok and then will have broad immunity afterwards. If you in the meantime have been vaccinated, you should be ok - that's what the vaccine was for.
Re infecting other people, prove that I am more likely to do so than you are. Having had Covid, I now have broad immunity. Unless you've actually had Covid - you don't. Elaborating on Geary's earlier point, you are in fact now an incubator for vaccine resistant strains.
I am a fan of seatbelts, btw. Wore them long before they made a law. Given what we've seen recently, everyone, including "natural rebels" such as yourself, should be concerned about government overreach.
Your post is a confection of science and politics and IMHO they should be discussed separately.
> There is more than sufficient evidence to prove that vaccination harms children more than COVID, at a statistical level."
...
We've spent the most effective weapon we had in protecting our most vulnerable.
Arguable points! Points of science, debatable on their objective merits. You maybe quite correct but even if you are, it does not follow that because various authorities have been less than perfect in what they've done, that nothing whatsoever should have been done, does it? Of course mistakes have been made.
> If you're really going to claim that we all need to cede responsibility for our health to the state
Again you evade the point. This isn't about our personal health it is about whether or not we should be free to infect others. Should Typhoid Mary have been free to spread her disease?
> Re your dependents
Again you evade the point. I simply said that your death is not your business only if you have dependents. If you die they might very well become a charge on the state, therefore the state has an interest in keeping you alive. Tho I personally believe we should all be permitted to kill ourselves if we choose, but we are not free to kill others by infecting them.
> I now have broad immunity
Natural immunity is of course best! Does anyone deny it?
My case is simply that in a national health emergency, individual liberties are rightly subject to restrictions. Do you believe that in principle or not? If not, then Mary should have been free to kill a couple of dozen more? (In fact the state locked her up.)
If you do not believe it in principal then you are not civilized as we have nothing to discuss. If you do believe it then it becomes a question of gritty details and I have no dispute with you that this might have been handled better. But the primary point remains that the state can, will and should do what needs to be done to control a pandemic. Bottom line is that I'll get the jab irrespective of my personal feelings about it. And if the state mandates the jab for certain people, that's their duty. I don't question your science -- others might but I don't -- I question only the principle that herd immunity requires herd conformity. It's roughly the same in times of war -- I might be conscripted whether or not I personally support the government's policy. Get it?
Overreach? Sure, probably. But underreach would have been worse.
I agree with your last paragraph, except with the hindsight is 2020 part. Some "dissenters" saw this early on, but were silenced by the authoritarians.
If you're going to begin the article like that, not sure how you can not link to the "CDC" statement in question, especially since to my knowledge one doesn't exist. There was a letter signed by a broad spectrum of "public health" professionals, but I don't remember it including anyone from the CDC and if it had it would've probably been "organizational affiliation for informational purposes only".
I have added the correction as an update. I hope it is adequate.
It's still not correct, and you still have not linked to the acual statement in question. The whole point of having that kind of discipline as opposed to writing from "memory" is that our memories are highly fallible, and thus you undercut your entire thesis. The "moment" when conservatives lost faith in public health was when 1200 public health professionals, NONE of whom even listed the CDC as their organizational affiliation signed an "open letter" urging participation in the George Floyd protests because of the alleged public health threat of racism. I fail to understand this kind of willful ignorance, especially when your essential point is entirely valid. Here's a link to the letter:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jyfn4Wd2i6bRi12ePghMHtX3ys1b7K1A/view
By the way, it's also in my opinion not trivial that it was an open letter coming from "public health professionals" as opposed to the CDC. A lot of the divisiveness in the States during the pandemic, particularly in 2020, came about due to public health positions being falsely attributed to the CDC, generally towards the more alarmist side. This caused two things: liberals tended to overstate what "the science" was requiring, and conservatives tended to entirely dismiss reasonable recommendations coming from the CDC because they were under the false impression that the CDC was issuing unreasonable recommendations.
It's a fair point. But I think there is ample opportunity to place a significant amount of the blame on both Trump and Faucci for lying to the American people. It a repeated error made on the part of Public Health officials that ordinary people cannot be trusted. There are even analogous sentiments expressed in the Parliamentary record, regarding fears of the lower orders rioting in the event of German bombing.
If anything, every crisis reveals that it is far more the case that both the wealthy and the educated are far less worthy of trust than ordinary working people who tend to be more stoic and resilient. There is also a fallacy of superior judgement which comes with intelligence.
Here in the UK we were somewhat more lucky, although the Left was alarmist, and small elements of the Right became increasingly dubious over the evidence for lockdowns (which, it turns out, were quite correct, other than for alleviating medical capacities), nobody with any sense or power questioned masks (indoors) or social distancing until the vaccine program was well underway.
I also understand this being a hot button issue. There are those within the legacy media who don't want to see Substack succeed. Medical misinformation would be exactly the kind of ammunition they would need to discredit you guys, which would be deeply unfair.
As an interesting side note they were somewhat correct in their claims of medical disparities, however only to a small degree. The best way to determine this is from Pakistani/ Bangladeshi Brits vs. Indian (Hindu) Brits who are genetically very similar but enjoy very different educational and socio-economic outcomes.
Around 70% to 80% of difference is genetic and/or can be accounted for on the basis of vitamin D deficiencies, but there are issues relating to socio-economic which could be construed as systemic. The most significant factor by far is the presence of Neanderthal DNA in white and Asian populations. According to German scientists there is one small cluster which is near fatal for many white or Asians, but generally Neanderthal DNA is greatly beneficial to inbuilt coronavirus resistance.
I am very sorry for taking up so much of time, and apologise profusely and unreservedly.
No apologies needed, enjoy the discussion! Yes, Fauci in particular is caught on camera lying repeatedly, and even later acknowledging having done so in many cases, not to mention that he's ridiculously compromised by having surreptitiously and probably illegally funded the exact same research at the exact same laboratory that probably started the whole thing. He certainly didn't contribute to public trust. But the fact remains that if you actually looked only at what the CDC was saying at various points during the pandemic, putting aside what Fauci was saying on TV, or what all kinds of people were saying about what the CDC was saying, they were pretty reasonable and pretty correct on most things. That could've been very helpful if it had mattered a lot more, but it didn't because nobody paid much attention to what they were actually saying.
I have limited interest in trying to draw any conclusions about COVID outcomes at this point, because until the pandemic is well and truly over, or at least declared endemic everywhere, then it's provisional data that keeps changing. I remember when Eastern Europe was a "success story" and now they're among the worst for total deaths. Same with Southeast Asia. Austrialia's had few deaths relatively, but at what costs, on the back of hundreds of days of lockdown? Same with demographics probably . . . just not worth trying to draw conclusions, some groups that "suffered more" may end up with better group-level immunity. I dunno, I'll just wait.
That's why I've been following a lot of the YouTube content generated by UnHerd- they've had some of the most outstanding responsible dissent content throughout the pandemic. This one was particularly prescient: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy6BULyNM5Q&t=3s . It not only predicted where we are today 9 months ago, but argues that many of early more or less positive responses were because of different variants which different countries were facing.
Italy, France, Spain, the UK and the US all got hit by a more virulent strain in the initial phases. Others were more fortunate, it just didn't show for a while because people who were healthy key vectors in the countries which were lucky, possessed natural immunity for at least six months.
Generally UnHerd is high quality. I found this particular piece by Katherine Birbalsingh incredibly balanced and willing to show both sides: https://unherd.com/2021/04/the-trouble-with-american-police/ . She is an incredible woman who really inspired me to dig deep on the topic of education- her attitudes on school autonomy and choice are a lot less brutal than American Charters for both the teachers and the parents.
She spent an entire autumn term ringing parents who wanted to dodge, simply trying to convince them of the necessity of spending a bare minimum of time investing in their child's education. It has to be a communal effort, don't ya know...
One question, why can't authors edit their own comments in thread?
OK, we were talking at cross purposes. There were two separate letters. I've finally managed to find a link to an NPR article and have linked it into the opening paragraph https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/07/13/889769017/cdc-employees-call-out-agencys-toxic-culture-of-racial-aggression?t=1631820920082 .
It is difficult given that Google deliberately tries to obscure such matters. Too many people like me I suppose linking to historic NYT articles only found by custom date ranges, questioning the irregularities of mail-in voting when it suited their purposes.
Not that I actually believe in widespread voter fraud, I just dislike the blatant hypocrisy. In order to secure the consent of losing side, cultural institutions might have their biases, but they need to adopt on attitude of fairness.
It's particularly galling here because until quite recently the BBC enjoyed huge public support (myself included). Brexit ruined everything, on a cultural front, exposing clear fault lines based on class and economic privilege. And there was my thinking that class resentments were naturally directed upwards...
OK, but I don't think that's "the moment" that conservatives reacted to, I remember it quite clearly, it was open letter's justification of the street protests by the same exact public health leaders who had only weeks earlier universally condemned as much smaller protests against the lockdowns. This letter was really more about internal dynamics at CDC. But yeah, it was of the same general sentiment.
Fair point, I've changed it again. Thanks for all the help!
You can find a more recent statement at cdc.gov/healthequity/racism-disparities/index.html. For the record, there are other reasons for disparate health outcomes including genetics (the primary driver of disparities with COVID-19 in terms of outcomes by case), socio-economics, ingroup preference preventing the retirement out to more rural areas, epigenetics, and a lack of telomere longevity caused by the statistical absence of fathers.
Many of the tropes created by the likes of John Oliver, such as the dissemination of the idea that Black skin is thicker as racism are incorrect. Of course, at face value African American skin is no thicker than any other skin, but it is denser, which is all probability led to the false impression that Black skin is thicker- because empirical observation of the fact that it is more difficult to penetrate would likely lead to the false impression.
Of course, there is a HUGE legacy of mistreatment of African Americans by the medical establishment, and their is also ample evidence to suggest that there is systemic racism at play through the socio-economics and environmental factors which affect African Americans, but the American narrative on racism are having real world consequences in lives lost here in the UK, where vulnerable BAME individuals remain persistent in their vaccine hesitancy.
And this public health disaster is not limited to COVID-19. There is a known group of conditions such as higher rates of miscarriage, low birth weight (premature birth), and a higher rate of maternal death in delivery which urgently require well-funded investigation for genetic or epigenetic root causes- but the Left's answer always seems to be racism and implicit bias training on this, and a whole range of other issues- which ultimately harms Black and Brown people.
However, in the historical context you are correct. It was 1,200 CDC employees who issued the petition, the only article I can see on Google referencing it is from the Baltimore Sun on the 20th July 2020 (which is unfortunately unavailable in my region). It appears that yet again Google is 'curating' the past to support Left-leaning Liberal positions... They must have failed to edit out an incriminating breadcrumb...
Anyway, I will correct the start of my Newsletter and issue a correction at the bottom- is there anything else I need to do? You have to understand that as a British Heterodox and Half-American by birth I am deeply concerned by the partisan forces tearing your country apart, and the legacy media/social media nexus causing the problem.
I don't maintain a substantial presence on social media. I don't even own a mobile phone. But even in Britain, where there have always been more cordial relations between Left and Right, I have noticed a growing climate of mutual antipathy. I voted Remain on the Brexit issue, but thanks to the lucky happenstance of reading The Righteous Mind, I was able to admit defeat with good grace quite quickly and look for reasons why a slim majority of my fellow Brits might have voted differently from me.
Much to my surprise I found that their reasons were not only valid, but also significantly more valid than my own narrow economic considerations. That being said, even I, who consciously tries to retain the position of a heterodox and makes a deliberate effort to stay out of social media, find it difficult to avoid the inexorable gravitational pull of bias on one side or the other, on any given political or cultural issue. In my defence, I did write the article at speed on one draft this morning, and when I do edit, I tend to myopically focus on spelling and grammatical errors.
It may amuse you to know that the heterodox position is a rather lonely one. I had several American Conservative friends accusing me of being a progressive when I wrote my recent Newsletters on housing oligopolies. You guys really need to close the capital depreciation tax rebate on housing, it's causing corporations to invest in housing as a net loss carry forward, and financial groups like Black Rock to move into the market depriving young millennials of the opportunity to buy and start a family.
There really is nothing like it in the rest of West as far as I am aware. A better system would be to do like the Swedes or the Danes and refund 30% of debt interest on loans through tax allowances. It apparently works equally well for mortgages and student loans.
I spend most of my time reading and researching. I should perhaps be more diligent in my writing. I apologise. I hope this won't do anything to derank my Substack contributions. As a family carer living on savings my hopeful ambitions of one day being a successful writer are quite important to my internal equilibrium.
I greatly appreciate the attempt, and good luck in your endeavor. Writing is a tough way to make a living, but so rewarding! I'm being a "stickler" on this because like you I want to get past the partisan divisions, and one way to do that is to be careful about how we characterize opinions with which we disagree. Whenever I see someone on the internet criticizing something or someone else, I always follow the links to see the original, and I think we'd all benefit if we are always careful when we write to provide those links, and then accurately characterize what's there, with the accountability being that people can go there and see for themselves. That's one of the beauties of the internet age, trillions of bytes of data a but a few "clicks" away. I'm not in favor of extremism about this, if you want to reference the fact that 19 hijackers brought down the World Trade Center on 9/11, you don't have to provide a link for that, but when if you base an essay on the "moment" that something happened, I think it's reasonable to expect that you accurately characterize and link to exactly what it is that happened.
I completely agree with your statement especially on strawmanning, which is as clear a sign of bad acting as gaslightinh, and thanks for your well wishes! Speaking of the 9/11 coverage surrounding the anniversary, did you see the recent Breaking Points podcast on the recent discloses re: Saudi involvement? I know their wording was very careful, but to understand that, contrary to the FBI's explicit statements, the consular guy seemed to enjoy quite high status really is quite a shocking revelation, especially given the buckets loads of influential Saudi's quickly bundled onto a plane.
Ever see Brave Heart? Think Robert the Bruce and his father, in the realpolitik scene. I'm sure either the British or the Americans have previously claimed that Saudi Intelligence was instrumental in foiling significant terrorist plots, but this would tend to suggest that there were those within the Saudi ranks whose sympathies ran in entirely different direction...
It was a real coup with you guys winning over Krystal and Saagar- congratulations!
It's American occupations which are the problem, not the wars. Isaiah Berlin was quite clear on the subject that just wars were a fallacy, which considering that he was also the father of the concept of negative liberty, freedom from as opposed to freedom to- it should be a clear indicator to powerful Americans intent on democracy building, who generally tend to find the concept of negative liberty quite useful.
Apparently our former Dear Leader Tony Blair wrote to him asking whether their was an exception to the Just War fallacy. Twat. I can only imagine the reply...
I haven't seen that particular segment yet, but yeah, the Saudi role in 9/11 was clear many years ago. Yes, I've thought that all of the wars that we've fought over the past couple of decades have lacked justification, really going all the way back to Vietnam, which we "lost" supposedly, but why has it seemed that Vietnam has never been a problem for us since? I'm not a pacificist though, I do believe that any country that does not act aggressively to defend itself against its enemies will eventually be reduced to servitude. But we've grown corrupt, and our wars are more based on private mercantile interests and delusional ideologies than on confronting actual enemies, which we do have (radical Islam, China).
I think you're right. Mali and the bloody French is a good example of a war which is justifiable (I used to be one of those guys who gleefully told friends to type in French Military Victories- https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/710678-did-you-mean ). I think if one is defending democracy, defending the sovereign rights of country against an aggressor or trying to prevent a genocide, then war is morally justifiable. It's not that war isn't inherently wrong, it's just that the alternative is occasionally far worse.
I've been thinking about writing an essay on subject drawing on Isaiah Berlin and the Just War Fallacy. I think the American psyche is somewhat incapable of acknowledging that sometimes war needs to be brutally short and swift, with no upside. Instead, there is the myth of building democracy and 'helping' people achieve freedom at the point of a gun.
It almost always snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. Ultimately, it is like trying to polish a turd. I think I might call it 'Afghanistan: A Moratorium for Forever Wars?'
Good stuff. It is worth noting though, many on the left are tired of the double standard asked of them to be the 'side' asked to rise above in debating ideological positions. Climate change denial was tolerated due to both-sidesism for a damagingly long time. Difficult to get one side to listen to the rational positions of the other when said side is going off the deep end - Q-anon, Texas, the California recall - there are so many extreme manifestations of right wing thinking right now. This, to me, dwarfs the threats of the 'woke left ' - hypocrisy, cancelations, language policing. Both sides are bad, but one side is actively trying to game democracy. and I see no self-critique in conservative circles, anywhere. like, please point me towards some, because I have looked for them. and trust me, I am experiencing a lot of pushback against woke orthodoxy as I return to work in person and again traveling in progressive circles. one side is more extreme right now by a significant margin.
I agree with you on the climate change denialism- although I would also argue that in many ways denialism was used a strawman, to prevent the truth that there is every reason to somewhat optimistic on long range predictions: see The Honest Broker on Substack to significantly deflate any alarmist fears you may have.
I don't know what you mean about Texas, unless it's about abortion on which I really have no opinion. QAnon is a conspiracy dreamed up by an obvious groyper- it is almost a direct lift of the blood libel. However, don't believe the less honest surveys on the matter- core support is around 4% (about the level of conspiracy nuts to be found in any population)- most express support in high figures, but when questioned about whether they support specific aspects of it the answer is invariably "of course not". It's pure tribal loyalty in most instances. Gavin Newsom is a tool who is the process of wrecking his State- in every area from education to COVID, from homelessness to policing and crime, he has been an absolute disaster.
Gavin Newson has, as yet, declined to issue a denial to the Rose McGowan allegation, which, to anyone familiar with the inner workings of politics and media, is almost tantamount to an admission. The possibility that his wife may, like so many in the California establishment, have been running interference for Harvey Weinstein, should give us all pause.
On gaming democracy, try lying on the part of Democrats. If it were possible to confiscate all the money and working capital of all the billionaires in America, it would take the American Government roughly six months to run out money. Its power, ability to borrow and budget is an order of magnitude more powerful than all corporations in America and all the private wealth owned in America.
If things are shit in America, it is precisely because of the power of their Permanent State, which is the prevailing domain of the Democrats (other than Conservatives support of police, the courts and the military). They spend more money on publicly healthcare than the UK per citizen, yet still cannot manage universal healthcare. The liberal media are now staunchly proven supporters of Forever Wars, a position which most Americans don't support, as shown by the fact that the principle of withdrawing from Afghanistan is the only thing of substance they've actually criticised Joe Biden on.
I agree with you on the myopia of debate within conservative circles from America. One can try to argue for better government, more effective or efficient government, or government which ultimately saves the taxpayer money, and the vitriol will begin to flyer. Recently, I was accused of being a progressive for arguing that stronger worker protections was one aspect of the Left's portfolio which actually seemed to work.
You are correct the Left is more extreme these days. On the Right, if one compares the attitudes of most Republicans to 10 years ago, then they have largely remained unchanged- with the laudable exception of greater acceptance of gay marriage. In virtually every aspect of the same set of questions, Liberal has become more Left in America.
It has become acceptable for white people to dress up in gorilla masks to throw eggs at Larry Elder, for LA Times journalists to call him a white supremacist, and for white people to call Black people in general all manner of racial epithets if they happen to be a Black conservative or a police officer.
One thing to consider is that academic disciplines become of decreasing public utility if there is an absence of spirited debate and rebuttal from conservatives within the field. You see liberals are responsible for almost all new ideas, innovation and progress within a society- but just as liberals are great at generating good ideas, they are terrible at vetting bad ones. The loyalty oaths to DIE which the sciences now require, will likely lead to result that Western Science will cease to function properly within the next 20 year, or operate at such a reduced capacity as to be a shadow of its former self.
Group think is fatal in the sciences, as the pandemic has clearly demonstrated.
"but just as liberals are great at generating good ideas, they are terrible at vetting bad ones."
Which is exactly why we need both. Progressives to dream up new social engineering experiments and conservatives to warn us why they might not be such a good idea.
"with the laudable exception of greater acceptance of gay marriage"
IMHO it is not laudable that the Queen's English be replaced with correctspeak. 'Marriage' refers to that specific social arrangement that founds the natural family. There are a thousand ways of living with other people and all are wonderful but only one is marriage. That one has a Special Friend is also wonderful but it is not a marriage any more than a boar is a stallion.
thoughtful stuff man. And for sure, I know Q-Anon is a small subset of conservatives. What I have a problem with is the fact that their fellow conservatives aren't calling them, and other extreme types, out. It's making conservatives look bad, from where I sit. There are plenty of issues on which I sympathize with conservatives, and those issues and arguments are weakened when the mainstream of the Republican party are tacitly or explicitly supporting harmful conspiracy theories. thoughtful conservatives should be condemning conservative extremists, not playing political footsies. It's crass, and it goes against the morality so long associated with conservatives.
I don't weigh in on the abortion debate a lot myself, but I certainly object to yet another Republican attempt to game the system. The snitch on your neighbours thing is one of the grossest laws I've ever heard of, tbh. Gerrymandering, 'voter fraud', anti mail-in voting campaigns, etc. You are a data-driven guy, and you know there are strong arguments against all this stuff.
I don't doubt Gavin Newsom is gross. But when a popularity vote alone can launch a recall, you have a nuclear option. And, again, it's Republicans using it first. It's gaming the system.
Anyone accusing you of being a progressive is a dumbass, but that's how divided dialogue has become. The most fervent proponents - on either side - will tolerate no vacillation from the orthodoxy. so calling Elder a 'white supremacist'? that's the shit that makes progressives look bad right there. I see a lost of cost cutting in journalism, and a lot of younger journalists, who are cheaper, and prone to being pretty extreme in their wokeness. I even saw it with a kid in grade 9 as we start up the semester. cool kid, super bright, but so certain of the position she was repeating. this is the kind of kid I want to help avoid ideological certitude.
And for sure, the absence of conservative voices on campuses is a massive problem. I'm telling any conservative who will listen, the left long ago abdicated any claim to the moral high ground, it's there for the taking, but I'm not seeing it - protestors throwing gravel at our PM, yelling at sick patients in front of hospitals.
Moderate, thoughtful, moral conservatives are the majority of conservatives I know personally. We've got a conservative candidate for PM right now that is running as a moderate conservative, the old 'progressive conservative' type we used to have. he's got a legit shot to beat Trudeau - I don't see him pulling it off, but he has a shot - and I think part of that stems from the fact that he is distanced from the extremists, and he is able to position himself as having more integrity than Trudeau.
There is an appetite for this kind of conservatism, I think.
"thoughtful conservatives should be condemning conservative extremists"
And that's why the GOP has my utter contempt. Apart from a very short list of people who have the guts to say that Caligula isn't a god, everyone else is bowing down. This from people who would tell you they hold to the old values.
"We've got a conservative candidate for PM right now"
I find him as woke a Justin and just as evasive. I'm voting for that PPC just to convey my distaste for the establishment.
Ray, I think you will find yourself in good company with the protest vote. Oddly, I think O'Toole has more integrity than Trudeau, I respect him for steering conservatives away from the extremes and acknowledging climate change. but it could be as simple as the fact that Justin is the incumbent with the glaring media spotlight on his inconsistent record - O'Toole just doesn't have the baggage. Happy election day!
I think you're damn right with the first paragraph. Thanks for that insight. Both parties are as bad as each other- it just depends who gets there first. With online cancel mobs it was the Left. But now we have conservatives using the same tactics. Aha though- what about the various grievance studies propagated by the Left? Race is not the primary driver of inequality even though it can play a substantial part, especially through ingroup trapping African Americans in low father communities.
Conservatives are generally less innovative though, so it's to be expected. But they are both equally guilty of not calling out those on the fringes. Conservatives do get very irate with white supremacists though (apart from the obvious media misframing). There is one instance where a groyper asks a question in a Q & A session at a Dan Crenshaw event- he's quite disciplined about it, but you can tell he wants to tear the guys head off. The Ben Shapiro incident was better, because he was able to point out all the anti-Semitic deaths threats he had received.
Well, mail-in ballots are systemically more prone to irregularities, as well as open to organised corruption- the NYT wrote a great series of pieces on it back when it disadvantaged Democrats. I loathe gerrymandering, but both sides do it- ever seen the movie 'Milk'- that was exactly what was happening there. Voter fraud is a myth but it is also misframing- what really concerns Republicans is non-citizen voting- a huge number of non-citizens are mistakenly enrolled on voter rolls, but nobody really knows just how extensive it is.
The recall option has been part of California state law for decades- trying to recast a longstanding option as gaming the system is a deliberate ploy- the Democrats wouldn't hesitate to use it if it went in their favour. They've also been known to question election integrity when it suits them.
Well done on the kid thing! Ideology is toxic. There is even an extent to which free markets and capitalism are unfit for purpose to fix, and ideology can cause harm on this score. A good example would be the sharing of weather prediction across countries- commercialisation would cost lives, because the private sector doesn't like to share. It would be insane to privatise one of the few areas of government which works really, really well. It can even help mitigate insurance costs, in some instances- if people are better prepared.
The Jimmy Kimmel thing was atrocious- calling for people to be denied access to healthcare on the grounds of vaccination status. Good news on the heterodox conservative front, we need more reasonable people going into politics. The problem is it's a bloody tank full of piranhas. Decent people don't survive long- although I would bet money on Katie Porter- she really is The Little Engine That Could- you can tell it from all the preparation she puts into her committees.
You should watch some of her greatest hits on YouTube- it's hilarious watching her make execs who are usually bullet proof squirm.
"the Democrats wouldn't hesitate to use it if it went in their favour"
I myself put that sort of stunt in the same category -- politics and its dirtiest -- as the Brett K spectacle and, not to keep score, but I'd say the Rats are every last bit as dirty as the Reps. The pot and the kettle are both soot black.
Thanks Geary, you are the one that inspired me to re-examine my progressive beliefs, and so any time you think I've written something insightful, I feel like I'm onto something.
Grievance studies are a problem. some of the people I've encountered in the 'industry' seem to only link to and cite each other, and both the evidence and my own personal experience indicate a field that is causing more harm than good, whether driven by cowardice, expedience or positive intentions blinded by ideological certitude.
can't be late for school typing about politics online - so have a great week, and keep writing the good fight.
Geez, Qanon, seriously. Is there a bigger strawman argument in existence. Do you know off one person? If not for CNN you would not even know of it presence.
Thank you. Btwn QAnon, Oath Keepers, and Proud Boys, why there must be 3 dozen or so fringe conservatives! Our sad story is that we have no representation at all: neither fringe groups nor establishment RINOs represent people like myself. I find community in my neighborhood where we proudly fly the flag and work in the trades, and in places like Substack and Quillette (where I go by Possum).
"one side is actively trying to game democracy"
Just to discuss this, I'd say it's like the difference between a mugger who wants your wallet and communist who wants your bank account. The GOP, or at least the Trumpards, are overtly -- one might even say 'honestly' -- trying to wreak democracy whereas Pelosi and friends are quietly trying to create a one-party state.
Hi Ray,
Regarding the left/woke/Democrat desire to rid the world of parties supported by wrong-thinkers, please see the extremely worrying graph of US public opinion regarding censorship of "misinformation" even if it limits freedom of information:
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/18/more-americans-now-say-government-should-take-steps-to-restrict-false-information-online-than-in-2018/
In 2018 Democrats and the like were slightly more inclined than Republicans and the like to support this pernicious tradeoff. Three years later, the proportion of Reps who support this have dropped significantly and the proportion of Dems who support it have risen still more significantly.
Well, that's because they realise it will ultimately be their camp who will be in charge of the information flow...
Thanks Robin. Worrying yes, but alas not simple. I find myself longing for Rodger Mudd, you could put some faith in what he reported. At times I feel I'm drowning in the BS -- even if I know it's BS I still want somebody to make it stop.
I long for Christopher Hitchens, and Tom Wolfe. Evelyn Waugh! Hunter Thompson!
There was a charm, a rascally sense of humor and love for humanity that underpinned those writers. We're severely lacking in the humor department these days. Trump while odious to some, has a prankster's sense of timing and he just loved to goose all the uptight people who hated him.
"he just loved to goose all the uptight people who hated him."
Sure, there were lessons there for whatever savior might come forward. It was just beautiful the way he didn't give a shit what the Correct thought of him. While everyone else cowered, Trump stood up on his hind legs. You could admire that. Yes! for those dear, departed gentlemen who could cut thru the bullshit.
please define Trumpards.
The devotees of Mr. Trump. The people who really like him and believe what he says and who honestly think he was ever serving anyone but himself.
FFS,oK raY. About what i thought.
GJohansen, you have a gift- Best of luck to you.
Heya Ray, I think that's a fair analogy right there. But I think it is consistent with my position. the stuff the Dems are trying to do, or have done - the corporate cronyism, the dishonesty, faux wokeness, etc - is a lot harder to see than a rioter on January 6. You see it - I see it - but the average person isn't as involved in politics, doesn't pay as much attention. Lot's of people come from countries where that sort of cronyism is endemic. I just think ideological extremism is more alarmingly obvious on the right.
That's one of the reasons I am so critical of liberals. I used to vote liberal democrat here in the UK. They broke my heart when they went woke- I used to love their optimism and belief in helping people (the elderly and students in particular- back when education was still a good investment).
But now they are just as guilty of looking down on ordinary decent people who happen to be white as labour.
"I just think ideological extremism is more alarmingly obvious on the right."
Sure, the rotten egg smell you get from the Trumpards is hard to miss unless you want to miss it, it's the elephant in the room. The Rat's corruption is somehow just slightly easier to disguise as Love. And who is opposed to Love, asked the Ministry of Love?