How bad was the gaslighting?

Most people have blotted out just how vile the gaslighting during COVID was.

The political, cultural, academic, and media Elite literally promoted the idea that anybody who was skeptical about the safety and effectiveness of the COVID vaccine was a murderer and deserved to die.

Deserved to die. Not just that they were placing themselves at risk, but that their failure to comply with the diktats of others made them worthy of death.

It is impossible to overstate the level of evil involved. And yes, it was not just wrong, but evil. The primary justifications behind the propaganda effort were manifestly false: unvaccinated people somehow magically endanger people who themselves are totally incapable of either getting or transmitting the virus itself.

This idea is absolutely irrational. If the vaccine worked as advertised, nobody who chose to be unvaccinated presented a moment’s danger to anybody who was vaccinated. After all, if you were vaccinated you were protected, right? That was the point. You could neither get nor spread the virus.

Of course, that claim was untrue. The COVID-19 vaccine was simply a form of “pre-treatment” for a virus that you would inevitably contract. Ironically, a Cleveland Clinic study confirmed what other studies already had detected: you are in fact MORE likely to contract COVID if you are vaccinated than if you are not. The more vaccinated the patient, the higher the incidence of COVID infections. More than 3x as likely, in fact.

This doesn’t mean that for a certain cohort of the population–those most likely to be killed by the virus–it was irrational to get the vaccine. It does appear to work as a pre-treatment for severe disease. What it doesn’t do is prevent infection or transmission.

Based on this simple and, by 2021 obvious fact, the push to vaccinate everybody with an experimental vaccine of an entirely novel construction was not just unnecessary, but itself harmful. Most vaccines have serious complication rates of about 1 in a million; the COVID vaccine is closer to 1 in 800, and for younger people, the risk/reward profile is entirely negative. The vaccine will much more likely harm them than help them.

None of those facts mattered. There was a full-blown campaign to destroy anybody who decided that the risk/reward profile wasn’t favorable.

The Elite deployed lies, demonized people, and longed for the death–yes, the literal DEATH–of skeptics. They demanded that people actively remain ignorant of the facts: “DON’T RESEARCH!”

Matt Taibbi has a wonderful piece that accompanies Matt Orfalea’s video. In it he notes that every single person screaming at you to remain ignorant was, in fact, utterly ignorant themselves–and proudly so. Journalists who insisted you don’t do your research did not, in fact, do any research themselves. Upon what basis did they decide that you should die? That you were a dirty, infectious virus spreader?

None at all.

I got the shot and never advised people not to get vaccinated. I couldn’t imagine an area where I was less qualified to give advice. But this is the point: the same people Orf shows picking up torches and railing with bloodcurdling certainty against “the unvaccinated” are nearly all people who knew as little as me, and whose beliefs about the vaccine were at best secondhand.

You’re disgusted at those who “do their own research”? What do you think journalism is? None of us do lab experiments. The job is always an imperfect effort to figure out which sources are most trustworthy, and because even the most credentialed often screw up, we always need to leave room for consensus proving wrong.

In this case one didn’t need a microbiology degree to recognize something about Covid-19 messaging was off. From flip-flops about masks (an “evolving situation,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said) to unwillingness to be frank in discussing natural immunity or risks to children, even casual news-readers saw confusion in the ranks of senior officials. Later, a series of reversals on key questions — first about whether the vaccine prevented contraction, then about whether it prevented transmission — left even people who wanted to follow official advice unsure of what to do.

Elites made an appeal to authority, not facts or reason. Given that basically everything that was known about the vaccine was from very incomplete research from the vaccine manufacturers–nobody else had done any studies, and the studies done by the vaccine manufacturers never even tested for transmission–anybody who relied upon these studies and made claims that infection and transmission were prevented either misread the actual science, or just lied about it.

The Tobacco Institute was filled with scientists who claimed to prove that cigarettes don’t cause cancer. Should we have “trusted the science?” Or are Pfizer and Moderna scientists somehow magically different from every other type? They are neither influenced by their employment nor fallible?

People who once prided themselves on empathy, patience, and forgiveness in recent years have embraced public displays of sadism. In the video it starts with little things, like profanity: “Grow the fuck up and get the vaccine!” “Screw your freedom!” “Fuck their freedom!” Then it was displays of anger at people trying to engage in calm tones, e.g. The View hosts Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin railing against former colleague Jededia Bila for saying true things about natural immunity.

From there there were suggestions the unvaccinated shouldn’t be allowed to travel, or receive medical care (Jimmy Kimmel cheerfully sending “wheezy” to the afterlife in a hypothetical E.R. scene was choice), and bizarre stories like Jennifer Anniston announcing the cutoff of unvaccinated friends from her “weekly routine.” There were ever-more extreme campaigns describing those who didn’t get the shot as being another, dumber species (residents of “Earth Two,” as Ali Velshi put it). All this was propped up at each stage by corresponding campaigns of absolutist official messaging: “The only pandemic is among the unvaccinated,” “When you get the vaccine, you will not die,” and my favorite, from Fauci: “If you’re vaccinated, you don’t have a risk. It’s as simple as black and white.”

The very kindest thing you can say about the people who were pushing these evil narratives is that they were stupid and sadistic.

That is the KINDEST thing you can say. The more likely explanation is that they were fascistic–desperate to force people to comply with irrational diktats, the irrationality itself being part of the point. Turning people into dancing monkeys ensures enduring power in a way that persuading them doesn’t. 

COVID policies were about training the public to give up their freedom and their ability to think for themselves. You are neither free, nor even able to discern how unfree you are.

Dissenters must be crushed, in the way that Mao’s cultural revolution created a society of mindless compliant sadists and cultural outcasts who were literally sent out into the countryside to force repentence. Comply or die, or at the very least be cast out.

It is telling that the COVID fascists are if anything more elevated than ever. Not only have they not apologized, but they remain lionized. They are prepared to do it again, too.

Expect the climate “emergency” to repeat the process, complete with similar irrationalities.

John Kerry just explained that we must close farms to reduce climate change, or else people will starve. The Dutch have been actually closing the farms, to the delight of the Elite and the horror of the Dutch farmers, who are among the most productive in the world. The court battles and protests have been epic.

Make of that what you will.

Some of you think I am a conspiracy theorist, because no exalted group of people could be so cruel and destructive. Watch the video above and tell me what you see. Is anything they said to justify their cruelty and destruction actually true? Was wishing for the death of the unvaccinated justified?

If not, rethink your skepticism.