Center For InquiryAs America enters its second fall under the pall of the pandemic, there’s mixed news. 
On one hand, most Americans are vaccinated against Covid-19; as of this week about 210 million have gotten at least one vaccine shot. On the other hand the Delta variant is surging—unsurprisingly, almost exclusively among the unvaccinated — cases among children spiking. Making matters worse, complaints about both masking and vaccinations are coming to the fore, with protests and threats of lawsuits over government and/or employers requiring their employees be vaccinated.

Roots of Anti-Vaccination Beliefs

Why do some people doubt vaccine safety and efficacy? One reason is that their effectiveness cannot be proven on an individual basis. For example even people who are effectively vaccinated against a specific disease can still catch it (no vaccination is completely effective, and you might catch a different virus strain than the one you were inoculated against). This can lead people to doubt the usefulness of vaccines: if it’s possible to catch a disease with or without a vaccination, then what’s the point?

Continue reading @ Center For Inquiry.

The Myth Of ‘Forced Vaccination’

Center For InquiryAs America enters its second fall under the pall of the pandemic, there’s mixed news. 
On one hand, most Americans are vaccinated against Covid-19; as of this week about 210 million have gotten at least one vaccine shot. On the other hand the Delta variant is surging—unsurprisingly, almost exclusively among the unvaccinated — cases among children spiking. Making matters worse, complaints about both masking and vaccinations are coming to the fore, with protests and threats of lawsuits over government and/or employers requiring their employees be vaccinated.

Roots of Anti-Vaccination Beliefs

Why do some people doubt vaccine safety and efficacy? One reason is that their effectiveness cannot be proven on an individual basis. For example even people who are effectively vaccinated against a specific disease can still catch it (no vaccination is completely effective, and you might catch a different virus strain than the one you were inoculated against). This can lead people to doubt the usefulness of vaccines: if it’s possible to catch a disease with or without a vaccination, then what’s the point?

Continue reading @ Center For Inquiry.

31 comments:

  1. These sort of articles are propaganda. The stockpile cherry picked information to reinforce existing beliefs, they are pointless. It almost preachy, who defines what's the difference between a right and a privilege? To say they are not forced is disingenuous, people are being forced to chose between keeping their job or getting a jab they feel unnecessary. Coercion is coercion. These people are supposed to be versed in political science and yet they willingly create an underclass, when does that ever end peacefully.
    Deliberately labelling anyone who questions the vaccine as a conspiracy theorist or loony is intellectually lazy and a ego inflating point scoring waste of time. Dr Robert Malone one of the inventors of mrna vaccines, a champion of vaccines argues vaccinating healthy people is not only unproven but robs those who need it globally, the obese, old, those with underlying health issues from receiving it. It also enhances the chance of a super bug.
    Why is left to Dr Malone, Glen Greenwald and a few others to point out the cooperation of the US media and big pharma. Why do these main stream 'journalists' not follow the money, I thought was a golden rule? Why is the death rate of this disease not discussed more? You take away the vulnerable, for the vast, vast majority of us the death rate is miniscule, tiny.
    To argue covid restrictions and vaccination mandates don't infringe civil liberties is idiotic.

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    1. The right to health and informed access to health care trumps any spurious rights that the anti-vaccine lobby comes up with.

      Over 40% of people currently hospitalised with Covid did not receive the jab. Of the millions of vaccinations carried just over 1% have resulted in death.

      The amount of people who died in care homes last year after being released from hospital were hardly minimal as were the hundreds of thousands of deaths in the USA and Brazil under superspreaders Trump and Bolisanario.

      I do not support compulsory vaccination myself but if I was a patient in a health care setting, I would feel more secure if the staff treating me were vaccinated.

      All the scientific evidence points to the safety and benefits of vaccination e.g. the eradication of smallpox, polio, diptheria. it has been the discredited claims from antivaxxers about links between the MMR vaccine and childhood autism that has sadly led to the reemergence of measles in certain parts of the world.

      If antivaxxers wish to promulgate such fairy stories as the Great Reset, the vaccine as a mind altering microchip implant or as an alliance between Big Pharma and global elites to control the world with no empirical evidence to support such outlandish claims, then they earn the epithets of conspiracist myth spreaders or Covidiots.

      Lastly during a global pandemic such as we are experiencing most of us are happy to accept temporary restrictions on civil liberties such as lockdowns and compulsory mask wearing for the greater good of global health.

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  2. David

    For most people it's a balancing act on the numbers. The vaccine was targeted at the most vulnerable and there was a marked reduction in deaths and serious illnesses. I was undecided and anxious for a long time about taking it. There came a point when I had to make decision and on the balance of the state of play at the time my odds looked better taking the vaccine. I am glad I did.

    You play on the virus being of greater threat to the vulnerable but so far any adverse results from the vaccine appears to be almost negligent. No doubt a lot of money is being made but that is not evidence of the vaccine being a greater danger than the virus. If you are more concerned about the rich getting richer in might be a case of you being at risk of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

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    1. I have little doubt that the vaccine works for most people. The history of vaccinations supports the view that they are better for public health but might not work in some individual cases. Given time, I would listen to arguments for and against but when time is sparse I follow the science. When someone suggests anti-Vax I consider what else they believe. Recently I asked a guy who approached me if he believed the earth was 6000 years old. What's that got to do with anything? was the response. I am never going to consider suggestions from people like that. It is a useful rule of thumb in a world where time in which to master the detail is severely limited.

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  3. Barry,
    You talk about anti vaxxers that's not the point I'm making, I'm talking about unnecessary vaccinations and the suspension of civil liberties of those who don't want them. There are studies from Israel and Britain suggesting hospitalisations between vaccinated and unvaccinated are almost fifty fifty. That's not my point either, there's no empirical evidence suggesting vaccinating those not at risk helps and on the strength of this vaccinated people behave as moral arbiters and some want a caste system, a medical apartheid. There's a reason why Republics and democracies enshrine individual rights, saying most people would go along with it misses the point. If you don't get it, you don't get it.
    Christy,
    I never said vaccinations would be worse than the virus, there is a small chance you create a super bug which would wipe out those at risk, rendering the vaccinations, pointless. The vast, vast majority of people will be fine vaccinated or not.
    Anthony,
    What do you mean by the vaccine works for most people? That it creates resistance? I agree, why wouldn't it? That's not the point either. The point is for the overwhelming majority they'll be fine either way, so why aren't we vaccinating those that need it globally, why are we coercing people who don't need it, why are we pretending there is no danger from vaccines, isn't that a betrayal of the Hippocratic oath? Why are they mandated? Why don't we trust our fellow citizens to put what they want in their body, why create further divison. Following the science is almost a religious statement, there are loads of scientists who don't agree with vaccinating healthy people, including the inventor of the mrna vaccine, there is no undisputed scientific fact on this, because it has never been done before.

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    1. David - it seems self evident - the vaccine works for most people, in fact the vast bulk of people. It protects them and minimises the risk to them as well as the ability to transmit it to others.
      I don't think we can coerce people into taking it just like we can't coerce people into not smoking. But we can limit the access points for people who smoke so that they are restricted in their ability to pollute others with it. I haven't heard anybody yet say there is no danger from vaccines. I read regularly that no vaccine is risk free. That has been the history of vaccines. So, I see no breach of the Hippocratic oath.
      Society does not permit people to put into their bodies what they want. Hence the ban on so many substances. We might wish it were some other way but it isn't.
      Following the science is anything but a religious statement. We always allow for the possibility of science erring and then amending. It has been the history of science. As Brian Cox says, science is the enemy of certainty. Following the science is a simple statement that there is nothing better to follow, not that we can follow with 100% conviction, the science.

      There are scientists who will tell us that there is no link between tobacco and cancer or that smoking can prevent lung cancer. But we follow the science not each individual scientist. The science community's support for vaccination is overwhelming.

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    2. AM- I agree, it's not easy to stay on top of everything, but I've read recently that we're equally vulnerable to infection from those vaccinated as we are from those not. The viral loads in swabs taken from those vaccinated was more or less the same as those taken from the unvaccinated.
      Based on that, and whatever about vaccination there's still a need to keep with the basics of social distancing, hand hygiene and mask wearing.

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    3. Anthony, I agree vaccines work, I think everyone does, more or less. My concern is the motive. The scientist I cite is a champion of vaccines, he was a key inventor. His argument is that if this was purely about public health then the vulnerable in Dakar, the slums of Rio, etc would take priority over healthy people in Belfast or New York, the reason the don't is financial, plain and simple. This sort of money, this sort of power should be critically examined at every turn, it's negligent not to, I don't see it happening.
      I don't know the Hippocratic oath, but when you get a procedure the explain the risk, then you agree to it or don't. With this tv doctors are lecturing people, telling them the long term risk is miniscule, my query is, how do they know this without clinical trials? They are probably right, but to say it with such certainty is disingenuous.
      What I mean with follow the science being almost religious is people use it to win arguments and with new technology like this we just don't know. It would be incredibly remiss not to go with the overwhelming majority of scientists, it's also incredibly remiss to presuppose they can be so accurate on a new style of testing.
      I'm not anti vaccination, I would have got it only I couldn't be arsed, lazy. I'm only not getting it now because I'm anti restrictions the threat level doesn't justify it. The potential ramifications are too great.

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    4. David - the task of the scientist you cite is to persuade his colleagues in the scientific community of the merits of the case. Science is not religion, where everything is evidence resistant.
      There is that power balance within the world you refer to but that has much wider application than the Covid vaccine. It is a question of inequality and massive wealth disparity.
      I hear regularly questions getting raised about the vaccine. Admittedly I don't much watch TV doctors. I think for the citizen to make the best decision they have to be informed. And your scientist should get more exposure if he is not getting enough already, which I presume from your comments he is not.
      I think scientists are more more confident about their expectations from the vaccine than they are dogmatic about about their accuracy. I don't see them saying it with the certainty that you do. Then, I don't watch it that closely. Even some of the things Henry Joy was saying this morning was new to me. I can't be dogmatic about it. I have a layperson's grasp.
      I don't think we will win many arguments here by claiming to follow the science. In some respects it it is just a statement proclaiming I don't know so I am gonna follow the science I might be able to get good contact lenses made in a shed in South Armagh but I am going to follow the optician.
      I see reflections of the issue right across the climate change debate.
      I am never anti vaccination, much like I am never anti-medicine. But I know that medicine doesn't always work and in some cases can be disastrous.

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    5. Anthony,
      To clarify what I mean by the follow the science comment is not that science and religion are complicit or equally misleading, obviously they are not. What I mean is people who are not any better versed than myself on a subject, Will dismiss my logic by saying the science says this or that as if it's singular, the glory of science is that can and should be challenged. People refusing to listen to a certain scientist because he goes against the grain, it reminds me of my Granny saying 'it's in the bible' as if that was case closed. I am not saying people on here are using it to win arguments, it's a broader context, I hear it regularly now.
      The scientist I cite is a guy called Robert Malone, I stumbled on to him on the Jimmy Dore show. He was key in inventing mrna vaccine. Let me be clear, I'm not saying this guy is right, he's certainly interesting. He's heavily involved in pharmaceuticals and people say he would benefit financially if hydroxycloroquine and Ivermectin were greatly used. Maybe he would, but he claims to be shunned by main stream media because of big pharmaceutical influence with his track record, if true, it's outrageous. To deem everything that goes against the majority in the field as misinformation is very misleading especially when it's as thought out as his is.
      The financial injustice is much bigger than covid agreed. But if the pharmaceutical industry and the spokesmen in media are not routinely asked why they only want to save lives in countries that can make them rich and powerful then media aren't doing their job, which is a big part of the problem.

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  4. Needless to say, I agree with David on this, I don't know him but his points, to me are valid. My only point here at this time, on this, is that I think there is a gross underestimate on just how many medical and scientific experts would agree with most of David's points. I know it's a tiresome subject but it's not going away soon and so much is changing on the back of it and precedent tells us that government rarely relinquishes new found power. I also trust the science but that which is currently viewed as sceptical. I respect the opposing opinion too when it's respectful, almost universally people just follow what they think is right, we the sceptics, are no different.

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    1. David always brings something useful to the discussion, whether we agree with him or not.
      Nobody relinquishes new found power - not just governments. And a certain power accrues from being a dissenting voice which the dissenters if they are to be of public service need
      to keep a watchful eye on.
      Vaccines work - that's the history in a nutshell. A government not in pursuit of a vaccine that has taken so many lives should be out on trail. The issue seems to be one whether to make it compulsory. If someone chooses not to have the vaccination then what rights do others have against them? Public health culture suggests the balance is going to favour those who have been vaccinated.
      Science being the purview of a certain expertise, puts it beyond the grasp of most of us. That much is evident from reading a popular science book which still seems incomprehensible. What we tend to do is go with the prevailing strain of science, the most organised, the most articulate. And we in part draw our conclusions on what else they believe. If somebody claims to be a scientist and at the same believes in talking donkeys, well they are straight into the rubbish chute. Likewise people like Dolores Cahill - even her own party ditched her. Although it would be wholly wrong to reduce the critique to the nut case element that might happen to agree with it.
      We will never half certainty, merely probability. The science has in all probability got it right.

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    2. AM- yes some vaccines work, but not all to the same extent. They don't all work in all circumstances. Effectiveness of any vaccine depends on the stability of the virus. Polio for example is inherently stable and the vaccine almost bulletproof, but Covid 19 is a flu variant and as such is most likely inherently unstable. In the same way as the seasonal flu vaccine is only specifically a vaccination against last years dominant strain so too are the vaccinations limited that we all received for the original strain of Covid !9. Yes, the vaccinations we received for it affords protection too against subsequent evolutions such as 'Delta' but with somewhat reduced potency. So to claim that 'in a nutshell vaccines work is somewhat, as in this particular case, a good way off the mark.
      Not everyone who's availed of a 'flu-jab' can be guaranteed they won't catch another variant.

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    3. Henry Joy - I guess there is much in that - they work to different degrees. While not been an avid follower of vaccines, having basically listened to discussions and podcasts along with some casual reading, it seems the argument that vaccines work is pretty close to the mark in a way that the statement vaccines don't work is not in any way close to the mark. It's like claiming doctors are good for health - all the same type of qualifications you outline would kick into play. So, all the caveats aside I am still going to claim vaccines work!!
      That will still apply even if I die from Covid - and I have been double dosed!

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    4. AM- Indeed vaccines do work and the Covid 19 ones are a welcome achievement. They lessened the intensity of the disease for most and have saved countless lives of those with underlying conditions.
      Having been vaccinated does NOT mitigate against transmission though. Those who are young or in rude good health, who have been vaccinated can still contract the virus. Though they are carrying the virus they will most likely be asymptomatic. They will carry the virus and shed the virus too. This is potentially a challenge for many of us.
      People with an underlying condition and those with a compromised immune system either through simple aging or hard living are best to keep this in mind. They'd be well advised to keep up the simple measures of handwashing, mask-wearing and appropriate distancing.
      To my mind the vaccination cert requirements here in the 26 are somewhat irrelevant at this stage. Those that haven't availed of the vaccine will eventually all become naturally inoculated through infection. Some will need hospitalisation and some will die but because of the high uptake of the vaccine in general our health service will most likely cope. Tough on the frontline staff but most of the anti-vaccers and anti-maskers won't give anyone's plight but their own much consideration.

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  5. Too much time is spent debating vaccines and not enough on the need for passports and the social consequences they bring. Vaccines generally have improved the outcome of humanity over disease.

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  6. Anthony the scientist who David and Patrick talk about is Kary Mullis. He got a Nobel Laureate for coming up with the PCR test and his work on the HIV virus.

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    1. Kary Mullis denied that humans cause climate change and that HIV causes aids

      A 2007 New York Times article listed Mullis as one of several scientists who, after success in their area of research, go on to make unfounded, sometimes bizarre statements in other areas.[46] In his 1998 humorous autobiography proclaiming his maverick viewpoint, Mullis expressed disagreement with the scientific evidence supporting climate change and ozone depletion, the evidence that HIV causes AIDS, and asserted his belief in astrology.[19][47] Mullis claimed climate change and HIV/AIDS theories were promulgated as a form of racketeering by environmentalists, government agencies, and scientists attempting to preserve their careers and earn money, rather than scientific evidence.[19] The medical and scientific consensus considers these hypotheses as pseudoscience, HIV having been conclusively proven to be the cause of AIDS[48][49] and global warming strongly shown to be caused by human activities.[5

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    2. once they believe in astrology - I just close the book!

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  7. Many good points on here. Maybe we are suspicious because these so called experts have been proven so wrong so many times about this. Masks don't work, oh yes they do, maybe they don't. Covid came from a pangolin in a wet market. Or maybe it was the Wuhan lab. Maybe we don't know. 6 feet social distancing is necessary. Where did they come up with that? Former FDA head Scott Gottlieb said last week someone just randomly pulled that out of their ass. They say vaccines are safe. Who is to say they won't change their mind about that a few years from now. I am not anti vax I just do not feel the need to get this thing. I am under 40, have had covid and had barely any symptoms. Why do so many vaccinated feel that I am a threat to them. Why am I not allowed to sit and enjoy a beer in a New York City pub? Already some whom I thought were friends have cut me off. They are vaxxed, I am no threat to them because I have not gotten a vaccine for a disease that has a 99.6% survival rate. But oh well. If you have had it you have many more antibodies than the vaccine but that never gets discussed.

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    1. People don't want others polluting them with their toxins as they see it. I can't imagine me refusing a beer with you because you have not been vaccinated, much like I would not banish you from my company were you having a smoke. Maybe pubs will have a non-vaccination section. Yesterday in Dublin the bar staff asked us for our vaccination certs: then it was a great day after that.

      There is always the question of who has the rights. Have the vaccinated no rights to keep from their company the non-vaccinated? Or do the Non Vax have all the rights?

      Many people take the view that the vaccination policy is a public mobilisation against the effect of the virus and that others not getting the vax are simply refusing to pull their weight but will want to free ride the treatment if they catch the virus.

      Then the negative view of the non vaccinated is reinforced by the type of people frequently seen promoting anti-Vax - the deranged religious right, conspiracy theorists and others who are easily caricatured. But in the end we get a caricature of the entire critique of public health policy and do not get to see where aspects of it might actually make sense.

      I tend to think that the discussion on TPQ has been largely free from caricaturing and has facilitated as wide a range of views as possible.

      Paddy Mooney, whether we agree with him or not, made a vary valuable contribution to the wider discussion a while back. And hopefully, he will not rest his pen for too long. A well reasoned critique of the hegemonic perspective is as David suggests a necessary endeavour.

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    2. On the question of rights, they were preexisting, now non vaccinated are having their civil liberties suspended. How then can they have all the rights. It's almost universally accepted that both vaccinated and anti vaccinated spread the disease so saying vaccinated are shielding themselves from toxins isn't based on reason or science.
      Non vaccination areas are discriminatory and unworkable, all people have to do for a cigarette is go outside and come back in, not separate all day/night. So, eight lads, late teens, early twenties come in to a pub and you say ' right you six over there, you two over there", good luck with that. They work or sit together all day but are separated once full of alcohol, that sounds like a disaster.

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    3. People don't need to have their right to choose what company to be in to be based on science or reason. It is enough for people to have a belief and then on the basis of it to make their decision. And we can't force them into associating with people they choose not to. Here, your employer has no right to know whether you have been vaccinated. The state is not suspending civil liberties in those cases where individuals opt not to work or associate with people who have not been vaccinated. Whether it works or not, I do not rule out the possibility of the vax / non vax sections being put in place. I would not see much merit in it but hey when did what I think ever matter to how people do business?!! And the rights don't really preexist. Just look at many signs in shops which say customers permitted at manager's discretion.
      If someone came to the house not vaccinated, they would not get in. If I lived on my own they would but other people's views have to be taken into consideration.

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    4. it's not a matter of it being permissible (a bit different from being ok) to exclude people on the basis of their beliefs but on their practice. People can believe whatever they want but they can't practice that belief on others.

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  8. By that reasoning, is it ok to exclude people based on other's beliefs? I'm not talking about forcing people to associate, they have a choice to go or not. Excluding people from shared spaces is , in my view, discriminatory.
    Technically, you're right about manager's discretion, but we all know the social contract means people being unreasonable, while unreasonable throws up all sorts of definitions, if we start saying people who don't take medical treatment they neither need nor want are unreasonable then I feel we've lost the plot. That's just my take on it, other people might think I've lost the plot opposing restrictions they think save lives, that's fine. I fear we're embracing authoritarianism. Very diluted and softly softly authoritarianism but still a version of it.

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    1. excluding people from shared spaces is permissible if they are deemed to pose a risk. It is discriminatory but discrimination is not always a negative. It could be rationalised as discriminating in favour of health policy. Whether we should be ok with it is another matter even if it is permissible.
      People have a choice to go or not but that choice is restricted by the presence of others who are perceived as a threat. I have a choice to walk up the Shankill waving the tricolour but the presence of the residents would restrict my choice.
      Not that I am in disagreement with what you are saying. Much of it chimes with me and I am trying to look at it from a range of angles. I worry about an authoritarian trend developing. Authoritarianism can develop in a situation where people prefer security to civil liberties, order to chaos.
      I think that is is important that this issue not be allowed to settle - because then dissent is further marginalised. And if we do not have a society that embraces dissent, it will be anything the government says goes.

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  9. thank you Anthony. I can't see you or any working class Belfast person banishing people from their presence due to vaccination status. It is more of the far left Harvard faculty lounge woke liberal types who see themselves as morally superior. Most unvaccinated I believe are not the far right fringe type but just average people who want to make the decision on their own timeline. Not have your employer say get it by such and such a date or you will be fired. Or have the mayor of NYC say get it or you will not be allowed in any restaurant or pub. My body my choice I guess only applies to the abortion debate.

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  10. My body my choice is not a universally acknowledged position. Look at heroin, right to die to name two areas. It is how our choices impact on other people is probably what we should be looking at. A cancer patient who refuses Chemo - there is no real debate about it because the cancer is not transmissible.

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  11. I know you look at things from a range of angles, you always do, that's why I enjoy these exchanges. I always have to rethink my position when debating with you and that's the whole point, what's the point otherwise? I'm not concerned about people agreeing with the establishment, or even thinking non vaccinated people shouldn't enjoy the same privileges as vaccinated as they have played the game, so to speak, I disagree, but it doesn't concern me. What concerns me is the lack of debate, the vitriol and disdain labelled against anyone raising concerns. Casting everyone as a conspiracy theorist is a bugbear of mine, we all know a conspiracy theorist, work mate the other day said in front of the whole tea hut, that vaccinated people will be zombies within a decade , he was serious, everyone just said' I mate that's smashing' nobody takes these people serious and yet well thought out arguments are lumped in with these science fiction rip offs. it irritates me , to me it's transparent attempts at belittling arguments the can't intellectually suppress. I don't want to go back to the days when you could get people on the street for the slightest thing, but I do feel we're too compliant nowadays. Anyway I've said all I can here, thanks for the responses.

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    1. I get a lot out of them too. The comments section is a place where we practice our ideas. If they are wrong so be it. I regard comments as unsworn testimony and don't hold people to what they say forever and a day.
      The conspiracy theorist characterisation is replicated in ways in the debate with religious people. Not all believers are wack jobs. But once the Young Earth Creationists appear on the scene they feed the caricature and then all people of faith are dismissed as nutters. I would listen to any reasoned argument (to the extent I have time) against vaccinations or lockdowns in the same way I listen to reasoned arguments against abortion. I would never listen to a religious argument against abortion whether made by a wack job or not. I would listen to an argument from a religious person if they are not arguing on religious grounds. What Spiderman might think of abortion or vaccinations is of no interest to me.

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