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