Posts Made By: James Brown

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

It would be nice to see that same righteous indignation directed towards the likes of Tucker Carlson, Josh Hawley, Paul Gossar and Marjorie Taylor Greene instead of me particularly in light of their comments regarding Russia Vs Ukraine but also in light of their previous commentary posted in threads in this forum which have either gone ignored or undisputed by the cons in the forum. 

Originally Posted by David Cotterell

Linking would put this article behind a paywall, so a screengrab will have to do.  Much food for thought.

Dave

Originally Posted by James Brown

Hi Dave:   

I would much rather live in a world where people are free to disseminate disinformation than a world where the government censors disinformation.  This is true even if the disinformation is demonstrably false and damaging.  Government censorship of disinformation inexorably leads to government censorship of "disfavored" information and then unpopular opinions and the quashing of any dissent.  History is replete with examples, look to any dictatorship.

I hated this line of thought when the US press decided Trump required special treatment.  Freedom is too precious to trust the gatekeeping of information to any allegedly benign authority. 

What to do about disinformation?  (A) the authorities can publish better information, and (B) information consumers can weigh the competing viewpoints for themselves.  In the case of anti-vax disinformation, did this cost peoples lives?  In my opinion it did.  Free speech is worth the price.

Jim

Originally Posted by James Brown

p.s. Coyne attributes some bizzaro-beliefs to the occupiers.  That is stupid in my opinion.  This sort of painting the occupiers as misled buffoons is disinformation of it's own sort.  The sort of elite condescension that created Trump oozes from Coyne's opinion piece.  For example, surely very few of the occupiers actually thought there were RFIDS in the vaccines.  On the other hand, I bet a lot of them of maybe all of them thought the government's handling of the pandemic in general was heavy handed, elitist, and worthy of dissent.  Jim

Originally Posted by David Cotterell

Hi, Jim.  I just re-read the article - nowhere does the Author advocate government censorship.... Not sure how you took that from the article.

Dave

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

Jim,
I think you proceed from a false premise that freedom of speech has somehow been curtailed. The daily rantings and ravings of the misinformation superspreaders prove that it has not. The protestors in question have certainly been taken in by it but they haven't been suppressed because of it. They've been removed for violations of the law and not because of an impingement on free speech.  

Originally Posted by James Brown

Fair enough, the anti-vaxxers have not been censored so far.  But in response to David, what the heck is Coyne calling for here if not censorship?  I doubt he is calling for the wholesale round-up and killing/incarceration of the vile spreaders of disinformation. 

I too just re-read the article.  In my opinion he is trying to motivate his readers to support censorship.  He is calling on his chums in the government to make forays along the censorship lines.   The risk is just so dire in his stated opinion that censorship is justified.  Why the heck did he write this opinion piece if not as some sort of call to action?  He cloaks it in the language of a noble defense of "reality," but in my opinion, this is a call for censorship/power like few others.  

Jim

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

 of all 1000 children who died of Covid, 99% had serious Co Morbidities so the fact is that they may have died of another cause, but were labeled as deaths from Covid. '

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

Nutzoid,
"At least 1,000 children in the United States have lost their lives to COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)."
"According to available data as of December 15, a breakdown of 677,393 coronavirus deaths showed 1,005 persons between the ages of 0 and 17."
https://www.newsweek.com/over-1000-children-u-s-killed-covid-1660124
Globally, 12,300:
https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-survival/covid-19/

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

Jim,
What I would like to see is the equivalent of fact-checking alerts that occur on some social media platforms that alert the reader to covid misinformation. I'd like to see an ongoing alert along the lines of a disclaimer that, for example, alerts the viewer that a court of law has determined Tucker Carlson's commentary should not be taken literally and no reasonable person would believe it. That's not censorship, it's an informed viewership...