Holocaust

Anti-vaccine groups employ Holocaust denial tactics – disgusting behavior

by Michael Simpson
2021-08-17
COVID-19, Del Bigtree, Robert F Kennedy Jr, Vaccines

Since the anti-vaccine world lacks any evidence to support their tropes, they’ve decided to go with anti-vaccine Holocaust denial for their new operating strategy. But they just don’t understand what they’re doing again.

Recently, as more measles outbreaks occur across the world, there is consternation in governments, schools, and public health organizations about the dropping of measles vaccination rates in some areas. As a result, states like California are trying to clamp down on medical exemption abuse, and other jurisdictions, like Rockland County, NY, have banned unvaccinated children from public spaces.

And of course, during this COVID-19 pandemic, the anti-vaccine organizations are utilizing the same false equivalencies between vaccine mandates and the Holocaust. What are they thinking?

These actions by public officials were implemented to stop the spread of measles, a dangerous, and frequently, deadly disease. As you can imagine, the anti-vaccine religion has been whining and screaming about everything from their individual rights to some cynical conspiracy theory about something or another ever since “mandatory” vaccines became important to public health officials to reduce the spread of the disease.

Vaccines and Judaism – anti-vaxxer activists misusing religion

Dear anti-vaccine activists, Please stop misusing Judaism in your efforts to prevent authorities from fighting the measles outbreak that is putting little Jewish children in hospitals. You’re not standing up for Jews when you do that. You’re exploiting them in… Read More »Vaccines and Judaism – anti-vaxxer activists misusing religion

Climate change denier is accurate – AP stylebook disagrees

by Michael Simpson
2017-11-27
Climate change, Denialism, Science journalism, Skepticism, Vaccines

I’m going to guess that a discussion of the AP stylebook isn’t a typical subject discussed in a skeptic blog. But the AP is worried that “denier” is too pejorative, and recommend that the term not be used, which made me take notice. I’m going to take umbrage with their recommendation and state emphatically that “climate change denier” is an accurate description.

Sure, it may be pejorative, but it’s based on the fact that those who deny real science, that is, the conclusion derived from a powerful and robust consensus of expert scientists in a field of study, willfully ignore said evidence and invent their own pseudoscience. Not only do I state that a climate change denier is a factual representation of those beliefs, I also think that a GMO denier, a vaccine denier, an evolution denier, and a Holocaust denier are essentially equivalent – each ignores the massive and robust mountain of evidence to come to an unsupported conclusion.

I think the use of “denier,” to anyone who rejects the scientific consensus, is accurate and acceptable. And it’s like several of orders of magnitude better than the “climate change skeptic” used by the deniers to make it sound like their denialism is actually scientifically based. Because real scientific skepticism is an honorable pursuit in which constantly questioning and doubting claims and assertions is based only on the accumulation of evidence. It requires the use of the scientific method, where claims, facts and theories are relentlessly tested and reviewed.

Deniers attempt to co-op the word “skeptic” when they really are just doubters and cynics who can’t be bothered with evidence or cherry pick just enough evidence to support their pre-conceived notions.

I want to look at what the AP Stylebook has recommended. I would like to know if my pre-conceived notion that denier is an accurate description for anyone who rejects the scientific consensus.

Anti vaccine cult uses Hitler’s Big Lie – laughable strategy

OK I apologize. I went full-Godwin with the title. In case you don’t know, I’m referring to Godwin’s Law, named after Mike Godwin, who asserted that “as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” In other words, in an online argument, it’s almost a guarantee that someone will invoke a reference to Hitler or Nazis as the discussion gets more and more heated.

Because I am all about efficiency, I decided to invoke Hitler right in the title. Actually, given some of the antisemitism and hate speech of the antivaccine fanatics, it’s probably not too far off.

Be that as it may, the anti vaccine cult loves the propaganda technique known as the Big Lie, which is a method of stating and repeating a falsehood, then treating it as if it is self-evidently true with the goal of swaying the course of an argument. Eventually, it is hoped by the proponents of the Big Lie, that it will be taken for granted, and not really critically questioned. Hitler, and his Nazi propaganda machine, used the Big Lie to blame all of Germany’s problems, prior to World War II, on Jews, which may have contributed to the German people’s support, either actively or passively, of the Holocaust.

It’s ironic that some of the basic antivaccination ad hominem hate speech tends to be extremely antisemitic, especially towards the publicly Jewish members of the pro-vaccine/pro-science side. It’s doubly ironic that the anti vaccine cult utilizes Nazi propaganda strategies, while claiming that vaccination, especially mandatory vaccination, is somehow a modern day holocaust. Truthfully, there’s really not any mandatory (and certainly not forced) vaccination of anyone in the developed world. There are so many loopholes for those who refuse vaccines through various exemptions, that mandatory is truly not that mandatory.

Of course, comparing vaccinations to the Holocaust is a form of Holocaust denial, just as dangerous as climate change denial, evolution denial, or all other forms of denialism. In this case, comparing vaccination, which saves lives, to the Holocaust (in this definition, the murder of European Jews), which end the lives 6 million innocent human beings, either betrays their lack of knowledge of vaccines and the Holocaust, or worse, that they think the sharp temporary pain of an immunization is somewhat equivalent to the murder of 6 million Jews.

The fact that there is little evidence that anyone has ever died of a vaccination (stay tuned, an article is coming from here, once all the research is done) compared to mountains of evidence that the Holocaust actually happened makes such comparisons ignorant and hateful. Period.Read More »Anti vaccine cult uses Hitler’s Big Lie – laughable strategy