Category Archives: Death of Truth

From Election Fraud to riot

Death of Truth, Domestic Terrorism, Right-wing Extremism

 

In the election of 2020 American presidential election  there was fraud about voter fraud. Namely many lied that there was widespread voter fraud in the 2220 presidential election. This alleged fraud was not based on evidence. It was based on unsubstantiated claims made by the president and his henchmen. This lie is now threatening to undermine American democracy. As Ling said just before the 2020 election, “Dozens of American states are introducing laws to restrict voting rights of millions of people, particularly people of color. And it is all based on a supposed fraud that never happened.” That is voter fraud! To claim fraud where one knows there was no fraud, is fraud.

 

Trump was told repeatedly by his own people led by his own Attorney General William Barr that there was no significant fraud in the 2020 presidential election that Trump lost. Trump hated the thought of losing the election so much that he preferred believing a lie, which he knew to be a lie.

According to Justin Ling,

“Right-wing radio has been laying the ground work for this for years. In the days and weeks before the 2020 election they begin watering that lie. And after the votes are counted, it becomes one of the biggest lies in American history. An allegation that a deep state conspiracy rigged the presidential election. It alleges the states were involved, the Democrats were involved, the company that makes the voting machines was involved, the media was involved and they all conspired to install Joe Biden as president.  ”

 

Of course, the man who never saw a conspiracy theory that he did not like, Alex Jones jumped onto this wagon with startling enthusiasm. He said,

 

“The evidence overwhelmingly shows now, and I have a giant stack that confirms it, law enforcement is investigating that Dominion  illegally called the servers and covered up the paper trail, and of course, we knew that. Now by the hand counts they found that Trump won by a giant landslide. The same tactics were used in every other state. They stole the election.”

These were al lies.

Many Trumpsters believed, and many still believe, that the election was rigged but they could not overturn the results. Because they had no evidence of fraud.  It doesn’t matter that Republicans investigated the claims and universally dismissed them. It doesn’t matter because their belief in their leader is a theological belief not amendable to contrary facts. Religious beliefs work that way.

 

Even on and after January 6, 2021 many of the Trumpsters were firm in their belief that Donald Trump would not be removed from office. It just could not happen. Some believed that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would be facing treason charges.

 

January 6th saw the explosion of the hyper believers led by people like the Oath Keepers and Alex Jones.  Jones made a stirring speech to the crowd that was on its way to the Capitol. He shouted through his megaphone in his typical growly bombastic style:

“We are not just going to take the country back, but the whole world back from Communist Chinese. USA. USA.USA. We’re not giving in to the grabbers. We’re never surrendering. The Great Reset is triggering the Great Awakening. And the Great Awakening will trigger the Great Rebellion and the Destruction of the New World Order.”

 

And there were cries to “take back our country,” and “Hang Mike Pence. Hang Mike Pence.” Another said, “We’ve got the gallows set up outside this Capitol, now it’s time to start fucking using them.”  Another said, “This is now effectively a riot.”  That last one was right! One said, “At 1349 hours declaring it a riot.” Again, that one was right.

 

America had entered a period of insurrection ushered in by decades of lies on American talk radio,.

 

The Land of Fantasies

Death of Truth, Epidemics/Pandemics, Health, Mennonites, reason, The Sleep of Reason, Trust and Distrust

 

I thought I was done with posting about vaccines, measles, and Mennonites in Canada. It turns out that was not quite the case.

I just read yesterday in CBC News that Alberta has confirmed that it now has more measles cases than the entire United States even though it is 60 times larger than Alberta! How is that possible?

 By now you know my theory. Alberta is home to a stupendous number of true believers–credulous people who don’t need evidence to support their beliefs.  The funny thing is that Alberta has always been that as long as I have known about it.

In the 50s the big craze was Social Credit.  Albertans believed the whacky political leaders who came up with crackpot economic theories. They believed them wholeheartedly. And of course, many of those believers were Mennonites. Social Credit ruled in Alberta for decades as a result of the devotion of Albertans. Many Mennonites in Manitoba espoused those theories too.  I remember Social Credit rallies in Steinbach when I was growing up.

In the last couple of years Alberta has given birth to the truckers convoy and their fantasies.

In the entire United States they have had 1,288 measles cases. That’s a lot for a disease that was considered eradicated. Alberta has now had 1,314 cases. That is an astounding comparison given that the US has more than 60 times as many people.

 

I know some people think measles is a pipsqueak disease but of those cases, Dr. Lynora Saxinger, an infectious disease specialist, told CBC News, “there have been 102 hospitalizations, including 15 ICU admissions, as of July 5. No deaths have been reported.” And this is all for a disease that should be eradicated, except for the vaccine deniers who refuse to take the available treatment.  There is no good reason for that to happen, but too many people in Alberta have not been listening to the health experts but instead have been “doing their own research.”

 Is it really a good idea to do your own research?

We don’t always have the time or ability to test scientific ideas. Can you imagine going to make an appointment to see a dentist and then insisting he or she tell you in advance what anesthetic they use so you can do your own research on line to determine whether your dentist was right or wrong? How could I possibly do better research than my dentist who has gone to many years of university to learn things like that.

 

I know experts are not always right, but is it likely that we will do a better job of choosing the right anesthetic? Or the right treatment for measles? Or polio? I really can’t match that expertise. Expertise is important. We should never be slaves to experts, but unless we have good reasons, and by that I mean rational reasons, based on evidence, to the contrary, we should believe them.

 

It is the same with vaccines. How can I know which vaccines are good for me or not?  That is not an easy job. Most of us, I would submit, are not qualified to do the research ourselves on line. Rather, I would submit, get a physician you know and trust, and follow the advice you get. That’s what I do.  Now if I have carefully researched an issue and rationally concluded my doctor was wrong and I was right I should not follow the physician’s  advice, but I would say this won’t happen often. If I am entrusting my child’s health to my own “research” rather than my doctor’s research I had better be awfully sure I am right and she or he is wrong. Otherwise would I not I be guilty of child abuse in not following the good advice if my child was harmed?

We should not be a slave to experts; nor should we be blind to their benefits.

 

Evidence not Faith

Death of Truth, Epidemics/Pandemics, Health, Mennonites, The Sleep of Reason, Trust and Distrust, Vaccines

 

That respected American philosopher Archie Bunker  proudly claimed to have robust faith. In fact, it was so robust, he said, that “faith is something that you believe that no one in his right mind would believe.”

 

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche did not go quite so far as Bunker did. He did not value faith. He challenged it. He said, “Faith” means not wanting to know what is true.”

 

Because faith or even belief can interfere with the search for truth, we have to be constantly vigilant against pre-conceived beliefs and their pernicious effect.  Nietzsche says that “great spirits are skeptics.” Nietzsche also had nothing but contempt for people of faith, because they believe what they want to be true, not what the evidence convinces them is true. I know many of my readers will strongly disagree with that. He also said, “Men of conviction are not worthy of the least consideration in fundamental questions of value and disvalue. Convictions are prisons.”

 

Of course, it is not easy to keep our minds free from our wants, interests, and preconceptions—convictions in other words.  That takes great work. We have to sculpt ourselves as the ideal observer. The ideal observer is the one who knows everything relevant, is free from animus, and free from bias. In other words, we have to recognize our interests and keep them at bay. Bias and prejudice are extreme barriers to finding the truth. It is never easy to be unbiased. It is always extremely difficult. We also need the best information and must not let hatred interfere with our judgment. We will never achieve the status of the ideal observer but we must come as close as we can. Then we can be satisfied that our judgements are valid. Only the best and strongest can do it well. That is why Nietzsche said “Freedom from all kinds of convictions, to be able to see freely, is part of strength.” And also, only the great-souled person can accomplish it.

 

Attacking one’s own convictions is the basis of critical thinking. No truths must be seen as sacred.  We must be willing to challenge them all.   Nietzsche also said, “Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.” That is why Nietzsche asks, “Is there any contrast at all between a lie and a conviction?” Or, “in the son that becomes conviction which in the father still was a lie.”

 

For exactly the same reasons Nietzsche rejected all parties. He was always an independent thinker. He was never a party man, because then he would have to subordinate his free search for the truth to the platform of the party. He refused to do that, just as he refused to have faith. That is why he said, “Now this wishing-not-to-see what one does see, is almost the first condition for all who are party in any sense. Of necessity the party man becomes a liar.” Members of the party believe what they are told to believe, whether there is evidence to support the belief or not.

 

Parties in this sense can be very informal too. For example, there is the party of those who believe in the efficacy of vaccines.  They automatically believe vaccines are good. I have to admit I am close to this. I remember as a wee lad fearing the deadly disease of polio. When a vaccine was discovered and made available, I was overjoyed. It was a miracle I thought. And it was—a scientific miracle. But that was not faith either. As a result, I tend to automatically think vaccines are good for me. But if I find credible evidence that my belief in the efficacy of a vaccine is wrong, I must be willing to change. If we have faith, we stick to it, even if the evidence suggests otherwise. That is not something I want to do in important matters that require my attention to make a decision. I don’t want faith. I want the evidence.

 

I don’t really want to have faith to make such a decision. I want evidence evidence available, which is usually scientific evidence. That is not faith.  Faith is what we use when there is insufficient evidence to make a decision.  Then we must make the decision in favor of what is most likely. That means, we make the best decision we can in the light of that evidence. That really is not faith either. That is making the best judgment we can. Once evidence becomes available we will follow that. If that evidence is contrary to our earlier belief we must change.

For most of us, this is not what our Mennonite mothers taught us.

 

 

Mennonite Mothers are to Blame

Conspiracy Theories, Critical thinking, Death of Truth, Epidemics/Pandemics, Ethics, Health, Mennonites, Philosophy/Ideas, Rebel, religion, The Sleep of Reason, Trust and Distrust

 

Let’s get back to Mennonites.  We have noticed that in many places in North America the resurgence of measles on account of vaccine resistance has occurred in areas with a large number of Mennonites. Why is that? Is that a coincidence?

In my view, the problem is that many Mennonites live in a culture of belief. What I mean by that is that often Mennonites robustly indoctrinate their young. From a very early age, Mennonite mothers (and of course fathers) are careful to foster Christian faith in their offspring. They teach those children that they must have faith. Faith in God and the inerrant word of God evinced in the Christian Bible. I know that many religious groups do the same thing, but Mennonites definitely do and they do it thoroughly. Their children must believe what they believe without evidence.

 

Personally, I consider this a mistake. That is a very bad habit to get into. By doing that Mennonites (and others who do it too) shackle their children. If parents don’t give their children the opportunity to think for themselves their children will not learn to think for themselves in the real world. They won’t learn if they are not given the opportunity. That means they must be allowed to make their own mistakes. Even if we think they are wrong. We should give them evidence to encourage them to change their minds. Not indoctrination. Children must learn to think and think critically. This is true even when it comes to important matters such as choosing to believe or not to believe what their parents have taught them. In fact, this thinking skill is most important in the most important matters.

If children do not learn to think for themselves, they will be constant prey for charlatans, con-men, and hucksters.  That goes for religious hucksters as well. And there are legions of them. They are ubiquitous. It is much better for children to learn to think for themselves and make decisions based on evidence and logical arguments or inferences rather than faith inculcated by their parents. Thinking is a good habit to get into. Believing without evidence is a very bad habit to get into. I know when we are very young we need to believe our parents to keep us out of children or get hurt. But when we are old enough we must learn to think for ourselves or we will be in big trouble. And if enough children overly credulous when they get older society will be in trouble.

Those are skills that are worth much more than any belief. Such skills are literally invaluable.  That is what parents should teach their young charges.

To take away their right and obligation to think for themselves is to rob them of what they will most need after their parents are gone, namely, the ability to think and overcome challenges which they will inevitably meet. I know parents mean well when they try to inculcate their children, but they are misguided when they do it after their children are old enough to think for themselves. And to the extent they are old enough, they should be allowed to make decisions for themselves.

It is only by trying to think that we can learn to cultivate a spirit of questioning, of scrutinizing evidence, of weighing evidence and making rational decisions.  These are the skills children will need as they grow and have to make important decision such as whether or not to take vaccines. Robbing children of that skill could be considered child abuse, because it robs them of one of the most important skills they will ever need and they will otherwise be unable to learn.

Parents can guide such learning and offer help to them in learning these skills, but to take away their decision-making power is unfair to them.

Children must also learn to avoid the trap of wishful thinking. It is one of the easiest traps to fall into. The most difficult thing in the world is to disbelieve what you want to be true.  The easiest thing in the world is to believe what you want to be true.

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said it was not important to have the courage of one’s convictions. It was much more important to have the courage to attack one’s convictions.”  That is what we have to learn to do. That is the basis of critical thinking. It is perhaps its  most important element.  Nietzsche also said, “Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.”

He also said, “if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire”

Nietzsche realized he was radical in this respect. He showed thinking is fun. He said, “I am dynamite.” I think he meant to say that he was on this earth to break up encrusted ‘truths.’ He was here to attack them, to expose them.

I think many Mennonite mothers, but not all of them, and many Mennonite fathers, but again not all of them, have taught their children to believe what they have been indoctrinated to believe, and that is a dangerous thing as is shown by the fact that too many Mennonite children  have refused to believe measles vaccines are better for them than the alternatives, such as, in extreme cases, such as the woman in Ontario, eating wild flowers.

 

 

Will to Believe

Death of Truth, Epidemics/Pandemics, Ethics, Mennonites, Philosophy/Ideas, reason, Skeptical Philosophy, Trust and Distrust

 

We live in a dangerous society. We see that every day.

One of the problems is the willingness to believe that is so prevalent among people.  For example, Professor Arthur Schafer said that in 1970 there was a strong willingness in the Canadian public to believe that we faced a likely insurrection just because 2 politicians were kidnapped.  The evidence of insurrection was extremely weak, yet when Pierre Trudeau implemented the War Measures Act and civil liberties such as Habeas Corpus were suspended and hundreds of people in Quebec were detained on very thin evidence that they posed a threat, people loved Trudeau.  He was tough. This was his most popular moment. People should have suspended their belief, but instead took a leap of faith. They wanted to belief it was true. People love to do that.

More recently, many people believe that immigrants are the major cause of crime. There is no evidence to support that and a lot of evidence to undermine that belief. Yet it is commonly believed.

This is exactly why irrational beliefs are so dangerous. They can spread like a virus leading to others believing what you believe, even though there is no evidence to support that belief, but even worse, can lead others to believe other irrational beliefs because they have been conditioned to do that by the culture of belief.

It is an obvious fact that some politicians lie.  Some —we know them well—even lie all the time.   The evidence of weapons of mass destruction concocted by the CIA to support actions President George W. Bush who wanted to take against Iraq in order to invade it are just one example. “Credulity is a rampant disease in modern societies,” according to Arthur Schafer. Not only that, but it is one of the most dangerous diseases our world has ever faced.

It is very easy to confuse people. We are not a skeptical rational society, even though, according to Schafer, our very capacity to survive, not just flourish, is dependent upon our diligently, conscientiously, and thoughtfully looking at evidence to support our beliefs.

We can’t always wait until we have decisive knowledge either. Take the case of climate change. The issue is so important because we are facing possible extinction. Sometimes we have to act on probability based on the best evidence and analysis that we can muster. It would be nice if we had perfect knowledge but that is seldom found in the real world. Really, that is never found in the real world. Probability is the best we can muster.

Do we have to pretend that we have certainty? Will people not act unless we exaggerate the level of certainty? Can we live useful effective lives while living with uncertainty? The problem is that there is so much that is uncertain and so little that is certain we really have to learn to embrace uncertainty.

Schafer said, “if you don’t have a healthy scepticism, you are really sunk. As a society we don’t have nearly enough.” We don’t need more credulity. We have to learn critical thinking.  Being infected with irrational beliefs is not healthy. That is asking for trouble—serious trouble. That is why it is so important to root out irrational beliefs that are not based on evidence—genuine evidence, not wishful thinking.

Of course, in recent times we have learned another problem, namely, that many people don’t trust authority anymore. That is what has happened with vaccines. Too many people have lost confidence that they are getting the straight goods from government and are not willing to believe authorities when they tell us it is vitally important for almost all of us to get vaccinated.  We need a rational scepticism in other words. We need to look critically at claims by authorities that vaccines are safe. Then if there is no good reason to doubt them, we should believe them.

We must also turn our sceptical lenses on to the critics. If Robert F. Kennedy for example, is not giving us the straight goods on vaccines we should reject his criticisms.  Irrational criticism—criticism that is contrary to the evidence—is just as dangerous as irrational belief. Neither belief nor criticism should be based on wishes, hunches, or instincts. All must be based on good evidence. The best evidence in fact. Sometimes this makes our job hard because it is not always easy to choose which side is right or rational.

As a result, Schafer concludes that Clifford has got it right and those who feel a liberal tolerance to those who espouse superstitious or irrational beliefs have got it wrong. “It is not permissible to believe whatever makes you feel good,” says Schafer. It is ethically wrong. And we ought to be willing to say so. According to Schafer those who take the attitude that it is permissible to believe whatever makes one feel good is sort of like stealing. “Such beliefs are equivalent to stealing from your fellow citizens by making yourself credulous” says Schafer.

We have to remember that giving up reason and evidence, as the only valid basis for beliefs, is not just unwise it is dangerous. If we base beliefs on sacred texts, authority, or wishful thinking we can come to believe absurdities.  Voltaire got it right when he said, “Those who make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

We have to remember that irrational beliefs can have very serious consequences. We should not do anything to encourage them. We ought to do everything we can to stamp them out. We should be cultivating a spirit of questioning, of careful scrutiny of evidence, of diligent searching for the best and most reliable evidence, and of conscientious analysis of arguments based on evidence. We should do everything we can to foster critical thinking for it is in such horribly short supply and our lives depend on it. That’s why it is unethical to believe without evidence. The ethical life is the rational life. The superstitious life is based on moral flaws.

That’s why we should not tolerate irrational beliefs such as the belief espoused by that Mennonite woman in Ontario who said eating flowers was better at combating measles than vaccines.

 

There are no innocent beliefs

Conspiracy Theories, Death of Truth, Epidemics/Pandemics, Ethics, Health, Philosophy/Ideas, Pluralism, reason, Skeptical Philosophy, Social Democracy and Trust, Sociology of Knowledge, Trust and Distrust, Vaccines

 

According to Professor Arthur  Schafer, if we are credulous people then we can easily believe the Christian story, or the Muslim story, or the Jewish story.  Or we can believe as the Mennonite woman interviewed by the CBC believed that eating flowers was as effective at defeating the measles virus as vaccines.

 

If we are credulous, we can believe anything because it makes us feel good. Then we can believe horoscopes because that makes us feel good, even though there is absolutely no evidence to support such beliefs. Even reputable newspapers publish horoscopes. It makes their readers feel good. Then they are more inclined to purchase the newspapers.

If we are credulous people, we can believe that Bill Gates implanted tiny chips into vaccines so that he could control the world, or kill millions of people, without any evidence at all. If we are credulous people our political leaders can make us believe that an election they lost was stolen by the opposition, even in the complete absence of any evidence.

If we are credulous people, we can believe that ivermectin can kill the coronavirus just because it is very effective at killing parasites in livestock even though we have no evidence to support that belief at all. If we are credulous people we will believe anything at all,  just because our political leader who has virtually no scientific knowledge at all, tells us to believe it. Credulity is a very dangerous thing. Not just for individuals, but for society. Society does not work well unless we believe our leaders when belief is rationally justified and do not believe them when the evidence does not support their claims. We cannot afford credulity.

The fact is, according to Arthur Schafer, that our society which many of us think of as secular, is actually “impregnated with a lot of irrational superstitions.”

Today almost no one agrees with William Kingdon Clifford, says Schafer. Schafer says instead, people believe things just because authority figures, such as Presidents, or mothers, or church leaders tell us to believe them. They are willing to accept all manner of irrational beliefs. According to Schafer, many people believe what they have been told to believe by their parents as they grew up, without challenging those beliefs at all. They require no evidence to support them.  As a result, children born and raised in a Muslim home usually become adherents of Islam. Children born and raised in a Christian home usually become adherents of Christianity. Parents want their children to believe them, even when they give no good reasons for doing so.

As a result, Schafer argues that people are entitled to believe what they want to believe, but are not allowed to enforce those views on other. This is called tolerance. In a pluralistic society, we must tolerate diverse views provided they don’t hurt others. To get along with others we must learn to respect their diverse views and must reject their harmful views, that are unsupported by evidence,  but in such a way that we can still tolerate each other. We have to learn to live together. Sometimes that is not easy.

This is the attitude of tolerance. This is a liberal good—a very important  good at that. We tolerate the fact that others have irrational beliefs. We tolerate that they believe any kind of superstition no matter how nonsensical as long as they don’t try to impose it on us.

But Clifford goes farther than that. Clifford is different. He doesn’t believe that your belief in horoscopes is innocent. According to Clifford, says “there are no innocent beliefs.”  All beliefs have consequences.  Many liberals hold that I have the right to believe whatever I want, so long as I don’t harm anyone else. Clifford says that by believing irrational things we are exposing ourselves and the societies in which we live, to serious potential harms. As long as we would harm only ourselves that might be acceptable. But by our actions we are actually exposing many others to serious harms as well through our credulity. That we are not entitled to do. That is morally wrong, he says. Credulity is a harm that we must work hard to suppress. Tolerating irrational beliefs is a sure way to encourage such harms.

 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: the Lawyer who Thinks he is a physician

Conspiracy Theories, Death of Truth, Epidemics/Pandemics, Health, Trust and Distrust

 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (R.F.K.Jr.) became famous early in life as an environmental lawyer. He was a pretty good one too.

Later he morphed into a conspiracy theorist and a maverick health advocate. How did that happen?  Perhaps it happened because his years of fighting corporations and the government he developed scepticism about everything the authorities told him.  That was likely a rational response to the situations he was in.

Sadly, after that promising start, RFK Jr. started to flounder. In a way he began to think that as a smart lawyer he knew everything and was virtually a physician. He is not a physician. I hate to say it, but lawyers have this uncomfortable tendency.

As a result, the scientific community has been strongly opposed to many of his views, which are in their opinion, not just maverick, but contrary to good science. We need good science, but we also need dissenters.  They keep us on our toes. They can show us how the comfortable majority can be wrong. We must always remember that we can be wrong. However, we must not let our scepticism poison us to good evidence, good science, and good reasoning.

Michael Thomas Osterholm is an American epidemiologist, and Regents Professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. He is also a vocal opponent of R.F.K. Jr.

This is what he said about R.F.K. Jr. on PBS Newshour: “He is a voice machine that continues to put out dis and mis-information in such a way that it sounds believable to the public.”

Frankly, Kennedy has a history of spreading misinformation. As William Brangham of PBS News Hour reported in December of 2024,

“In 2005, Kennedy wrote an article for “Rolling Stone” magazine and Salon that asserted a connection between autism and a mercury-containing vaccine additive called thimerosal. Thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines in 2001 and it was never used in the MMR vaccine. After that piece ran, the two publications discovered multiple errors in his work and they retracted it. A decade later, Kennedy joined a group called the World Mercury Project, which a few years later became the Children’s Health Defense, which is a nonprofit that has been a principal promoter of misinformation about vaccines.”

 

According to Derek Beres, Co-Host of Conspirituality: “That’s when it seems that he really got embedded in the anti-vax world.” Beres, according to PBS Newshour, has long been tracking RFK. Jr. and his influence about the intersection of the wellness industry and online conspiracies.

According to William Brangham from PBS Newshour,

“Months before the COVID pandemic began, Kennedy met with anti-vaccine advocates on the island nation of Samoa, which had seen a huge drop in its vaccine rates after a medical mistake killed two children. In late 2019, there was a Measles outbreak there; 83 people died, many of them young children.”

 

Kennedy later called the outbreak — quote — “mild” and denied playing any role in it. When COVID-19 arrived in the U.S., many Americans became frustrated with the evolving and sometimes conflicting guidance on wearing masks and the protections provided by vaccines, as well as the many stay-at-home orders, which impacted schools, churches, and businesses across the nation. That frustration became highly politicized, and donations surged to Kennedy’s non-profit, which went on to finance the documentary series called “Plandemic,” which alleged that a shadowy group was using the coronavirus and vaccines to get rich and powerful.

 Would you call 83 deaths on a small island a “mild” outbreak?

 That documentary series has had an enormous effect on Americans and Canadians, including the Reeve of the R.M. of Labroquerie Louis Weiss, a few miles from my house,  when he quoted misinformation during the Covid-19 pandemic here in Manitoba that got him into trouble and helped to make this area here, for awhile at least, the hotbed of Canadian anti-vax hysteria.

This is what Beres told PBS about that documentary series supported by R.F.K. Jr.:

“I cannot think of anything more consequential for the anti-vax movement than “Plandemic.” It struck an emotional chord at a time when everyone was locked inside and really confused about their own lives and about existence in general. And it’s understandable that you would be confused by what’s happening if you have never experienced it, but that doesn’t give people the right to spread misinformation to the level that “Plandemic” did. And I think we’re going to be feeling the consequences of that propaganda film for generations.”

 

People began to believe that bad actors had planned the pandemic. This led to a spate of wild conspiracy theories. That is the fruit of Kennedy’s work. And now, thanks to Trump, he is the US Secretary of Health.

 

Why are Governments not Trusted?

Death of Truth, Decline of the west, Epidemics/Pandemics, Health, Neo-liberalism, Oligarchy, Social democracy, Social Democracy and Trust, Trust and Distrust

 

As I mentioned in my last post, a lot of hesitance to trust vaccines is a result of distrust of government. This is a shame, because particularly in troubling times such as pandemics, it is essential that people trust their government about the information they give about vaccines or other health measures.  Distrust in government is not a laughing matter.  Distrust in government is a very costly matter.

 

Figuring out why governments are not trusted is a tricky thing.  Nesrine Malik said this about citizens of her country of Sudan who believed the government could not be trusted in giving them good vaccines for free:

 

This sounds like completely irrational behaviour, but in fact it is the opposite. In countries such as Sudan, nothing good, and certainly nothing free, comes from the state. The government is an extractive body that exists not to serve citizens, but to rifle through their pockets and charge them for going about their daily business. Corruption is endemic – from bribing one’s way through traffic violations, to being forced to use private hospitals because government cronies have hoarded medical technology. The state is something that you thrive in spite of. The government’s communication reflects this uneasy relationship. Officials speak to the public either to scold them or spread propaganda, and dissent is banned; in Egypt, doctors who contradicted the government’s account of the pandemic were arrested, while oxygen tanks ran out in intensive care units in Cairo.

 

We tend to learn from experience. Our own experience. In Sudan the consistent experience of people with the government is that it will try to screw the citizens in favor of their cronies. They are naturally reluctant to believe that free vaccines are given to them for the welfare of the people. After all, their government has rarely considered the welfare of the people. This is called crony capitalism, or in extreme cases, oligarchy. Oligarchs won’t hesitate to use their power to screw us. That is what they do all around the world. And in Canada and the US the trajectory is in the direction of oligarchy.

 

In the US they are increasingly nearing oligarchy, if they are not there already. The rich in the US who have the ear of the government use that power to ensure that money is not “wasted” on public health. Many of the health insurance companies do all they can to maximize their profits even at the expense of their customers. Christiane and I have recently experienced a most bizarre version of this that I must blog about some day.

 

As Nesrine Malik said in her Guardian article: “Suspicion is easily sown, because political systems don’t need to be fully authoritarian to sustain exploitative and dishonest regimes that breed mistrust.” Americans know that pharmaceutical companies earn enormous profits. You might even say, as Malik did, “outrageous profits.”  In the UK during the Covid-19  pandemic people were reluctant to trust the government because journalists revealed how their government kept changing the rules while leaders refused to obey the rules themselves. We had that in Canada too. We have no vaccine against corruption. Or ignorance for that matter.  As Malik said, “State failure breeds paranoia. And when trust in government breaks down, people turn to personal vigilance.”

 

This is what Nesrine Malik said,

 “Vaccine rejection doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s easier to dismiss hesitancy and conspiracies as unhinged behaviour; it makes us feel less unnerved by displays of unreason from those who we think are, or should be, rational people. Sure, among vaccine-hesitant people are those who are simply stubborn, misanthropic or selfish. But, just as the pandemic exploited the weaknesses of our economic and public health systems, vaccine hesitancy has exposed the weaknesses of states’ bond with their citizens. There are no easy answers for how to deal with those who repeat conspiracy theories and falsehoods, but scrutinising the systems that lost their trust is perhaps a good place to start.”

 

I think Malik makes a lot of sense. It is not a simple answer to a complex problem. It is a complex answer, as it should be. 

In the west, since the time of extreme neo-liberalism of Saint Ronny Reagan, the Iron Lady, Maggie Thatcher, and to a lesser extent their dedicated follower Brian Mulroney anti-government propaganda has flourished since the 1980s as Americans and Canadians have been fed a steady diet of dubious claims that the state is unreliable and predatory.  As Saint Ronald Reagan said, “the most scary 11 words in the English language are, ‘I am from the government and I have come to help.’ For decades, conservative political leaders have repeated over and over and over again that the government cannot be trusted.

As a result many of us believe this. And that is a costly mistake. This is all part of neo-liberal dogma/propaganda that the government can’t be trusted only the private sector is worth our trust.

Of course, this ideology has for decades served the interests of the wealthy who care most about minimizing their personal or corporate taxes. This ideology is now so prevalent that even people whose best interests would be served by government are reluctant to accept its help. Governments provide many things of enormous value including hospitals, roads, libraries, universities, parks, environmental regulations, health and safety standards to name only a few. Governments are important!  And vaccines are a very important part of this. For decades we have been taught, and many of us believed, that governments are bad and private enterprise is good. Now we are paying a heavy price for blindly following that ideology.

Mennonites Lead the Charge Against Health Protections

Death of Truth, Health, reason, The Sleep of Reason, Vaccines

 

I used to joke that Mennonites are taking over the world. It’s actually true. And its not a good thing. It’s actually very dangerous. But it is preventable by vaccines. Measles is one of the most contagious diseases in the world. And we have not been taking it seriously, because we have been so effective at combating it. And that is all thanks to vaccines for measles.

 

The United States has just experienced a measles outbreak in the American southwest, particularly in Texas. On February 26, 2025 for the first time in 20 years a child died of Measles in Texas. It was also the first time in nearly a decade in the US. Texas confirmed it had 124 cases mostly in Gaines County and 9 cases in Lea County New Mexico.

 

Here’s the shocking part:

“Most of the cases are occurring in a Mennonite community that largely homeschools, so there would not be school vaccine mandates,” explains Bill Moss, MD, MPH, a professor in Epidemiology and executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center.”

 

You see most schools in the US mandate that children enrolled in the school must be vaccinated against measles. Mennonites in these communities mainly homeschool. And these homes don’t get their children vaccinated.  As Mennonites sometimes say, “We trust in God. We don’t need vaccines.” They think God is stronger than any disease and all they need to do is appeal to God. Sadly, that’s not working so well.

 

As Aliza Rosen of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said,

 

“At a time of rampant mis- and disinformation about vaccines, public health experts worry outbreaks like this may only become more common in a time of rampant mis- and disinformation about vaccines, public health experts worry outbreaks like this may only become more common.”

 

As Dr. Ron Cook, of Texas Tech University said on PBS News Hour,

 

“If you walk into a room and you have measles, 80 to 90 percent of those individuals within a week will come down with measles. All you have to do is go in that room, breathe, cough a couple of times, but 80 to 90 percent of those individuals in that room will become infected with measles if they’re not vaccinated.”

 

Even though the vast majority of Americans and Canadians believe in the safety and effectiveness and safety of vaccines, there are growing numbers of people who are skeptical about vaccines, unvaccinated people account for the almost all the new cases of measles. And sadly, those numbers include children.

 

As Caitlan Rivers, Senior Scholar, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, pointed out,

“In fact, 93 percent of people are vaccinated against measles. That is an enormous congruency in a population that otherwise can’t agree on a whole lot.”

 

Rivers also said she was troubled by misinformation coming from the newly Trump appointed secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who has made it clear that he questions vaccines.  All of us should question vaccines, but when we get clear answers from a wide majority of scientists and researchers, we should believe them until we learn for some reason they can’t be trusted. Unfortunately, many Mennonites in some communities don’t trust in the science. They do their own research on line or have faith.

 

Dr. Paul Offit, an expert on vaccines and one of the  committee advisers and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said,

 

“I just fear that we are slowly sort of tearing apart the public health process that has basically served us well. I mean, we live 30 years longer than we did 100 years ago, primarily because of vaccines. And I just think vaccines have become, I think, following this pandemic, to some, a dirty word.”

 

Dr. Offit, like Caitlan Rivers lays a lot of blame at the feet of people like Robert F. Kennedy for spreading misinformation about vaccines that has influenced people like the home-schooling Mennonites. This is what he said:

 

“So, if you look at that Mennonite community, about 80 percent of those children were vaccinated. That’s not enough. It has to be in the mid-95 percent range to protect against this disease, measles, which is the most contagious infectious disease, more contagious than any other infectious disease.”

 

And so it will find those people who are unvaccinated and cause an infection. I think this was a line that was crossed. This is the first measles death in a child in almost 20 years. That’s a tragedy because, one, any death in the child is a tragedy.

 

This was a preventable death. We basically eliminated measles from this country by the year 2000. It’s come back largely because people have chosen not to vaccinate their children, in part because they’re scared of the vaccine, scared that it has safety issues like autism, something that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been promoting loudly and to many people for the last 20 years. And I think this is the result of that.

 

As a result Mennonites are bringing death to their communities—particularly children—because they are listening to misinformation rather than scientists. As a result children are at risk or even dying from a preventable disease. That’s bad.

 

History is Important

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Critical thinking, Death of Truth, History, Indigenous People After Contact, Truth Seeking

 

 

I believe there is a lot to be learned from history.   And much history can be learned from travel. History teaches us the truth about the past. At least it always tries to find the truth. Sometimes that truth lies underneath decades or even centuries of obfuscations or outright propagandist lies. Those lies were designed to obscure uncomfortable truths.  I want to face those truths; not escape from them.

Barbara Huck’s book has helped to do that and it has enriched our journey.  Huck made some very interesting comments about our Canadian history. As she explained,

Today, on the cusp of a new millennium, North Americans have more tools than ever before for travelling through time. Thanks to new technologies and new perspectives, we are well equipped to imagine life five thousand or five million years ago. We can contemplate doing blood tests on the body of  an ancient trader found high on an Alpine pass or cloning a woolly mammoth in China. Yet for the most part, an appreciation of life here just 500 years ago eludes us.

 

I did not want to elude that story. I wanted to approach that history on this journey.  I think it is important.

History is important because the truth is important. Nowadays a lot of people don’t want old monuments to be taken down.  Some say that is erasing history. I disagree. Paying homage to old statues, or refusing to critique history is to erase history. Many people don’t want to look at our past history because it might make them uncomfortable.  They prefer self-satisfying illusions.  Personally, I would rather be disturbed in my comfortable pew than sit there in ignorance ignoring the truth. If the truth is not challenging its probably not the truth.