patrick.net

Since vaccines frequently fail to live up to their promises, it becomes quite difficult to sell them on their own merits. This in turn is why for almost a century, every authority has simply repeated the mantra “safe and effective” irrespective of the evidence arguing against that contention and simultaneously blacklisted any criticism of a vaccine from being allowed to enter the public discourse.

One of the classic marketing gimmicks used to sell vaccines once the initial public enthusiasm for them wanes is to say vaccinating in necessary not only to protect the vaccinated person from a disease, but also to prevent the disease’s transmission. This in turn justifies pressuring those who do not want to vaccinate into vaccinating for the “greater good.”

If you take a step back, this doesn’t make any sense since if the vaccine “works” it shouldn’t matter to the vaccinated if other people are unvaccinated, whereas if the vaccine doesn’t “work” then there’s no reason to make people vaccinate in the first place. However, due to how effectively this scheme has been marketed (and the fact that it excellently plays into the human desire to not admit one was wrong), vaccine promoters never notice that glaring logical inconsistency and instead get very pushy in demanding those around them vaccinate as well.

The particularly tragic thing about this is that vaccination sometimes makes individuals more likely to transmit an infection (e.g., with COVID-19) . ...

So, given how successful this non-sensical and cruel sales campaign has been, once the COVID vaccine fervor started (especially given how politically polarized the country already was) I felt it was inevitable that once the initial enthusiasm for the vaccines wore off and people stopped wanting to vaccinate, this sales tactic would be weaponized against the general public—even if there was absolutely no evidence the vaccines stopped COVID transmission.

That then ended up being exactly what happened, and a series of more aggressive mandates were put into place (e.g., you can’t go to a bar or concert, you can’t go fly to another country, you can’t go to school, you can hold a job) to pressure people into vaccinating. In parallel to this, the vaccinated were encouraged to hold more and more negative attitudes towards the unvaccinated and want to shun them from society.

For example, as an early 2022 Rasmussen survey of 1016 likely voters showed, much of the country was whipped into a hysteria where they supported blatantly immoral and unconstitutional tactics being used against those who did not vaccinate. ...

However, now that most of the public has realized how much they were lied to throughout COVID-19 (e.g., I’ve heard many stories of previously nasty relatives apologizing for their conduct), I feel very hopeful this Christmas will be the time where many of those critical bridges can be repaired.

It’s tempting to just focus on Covidians’ unquestioning devotion to the vaccines, and of course how they’re mad at us anti-vaxxers. Set that aside for a moment and consider how far they’ve come: They no longer believe the CDC or FDA. Neither do we.

There’s so much gaslighting, it’s not just that they don’t trust the government. They also no longer believe doctors, either. They know from their own personal experience with their friends and relatives that something is happening, even if the doctors claim everything is normal.

Like us, Covidians have even started mocking how suddenly baffled the doctors have become, despite pretending they knew everything there was to know about covid during the pandemic.

This morning I stumbled over a perfect example for yesterday’s Substack about meeting Covidians halfway. I found yet another goofy Covidian (a healthcare professional) oddly fretting that we anti-vaxxers will somehow blame Covidians for all the excess deaths and injuries not for the vaccines but because of their masking and isolating and trying not to catch covid (granted, the logic is pretty fuzzy):




And then in the replies, I noticed a persuasive comment that could help Covidians connect that final dot to the jabs:




Thanks to Matt for illustrating an effective style of argumentation, and hence persuasion. It worked well because Matt first showed sympathy for the Covidian theory that the virus never goes away and is deadly by conceding that “both are a problem.” Matt’s concession created rapport, which allowed him to gently introduce the possibility that the jabs could also be involved, harmonizing the two positions so they aren’t mutually exclusive.

I said Matt introduced the jabs as a possible cause “gently” because he avoided confrontational language like “it’s obvious, dummy,” or “wake up, the shots kill,” but instead made the minimal truthful argument they are the riskiest approved shots. And then — again, not in a confrontational way — he informatively offered a supporting fact in neutral language (Europe banned shots for healthy young people).

I call this method of argumentation “agree and extend.” It is a good tactic even outside the pandemic context. It’s especially useful for moving people toward your position by degrees. It works when nothing significant is lost by conceding the other person’s initial, erroneous position. That initial concession can then be used as a springboard to the desired point. Because the other person is psychologically primed to agree with whatever you say next — since they just gained an ally and want to keep you on their side — they are more likely to seriously consider your very next argument and are incentivized to make concessions of their own.

Surprisingly, an initial concession may still be available even when the other person’s beliefs seem impossibly wrong, by using tools like limited scope agreement. For example, what if the other person claims the jabs are saving lives? You could still concede a subset of their argument: many lives have been saved, and then add and many people have also been injured or killed by the shots. The trick is avoiding the temptation to directly challenge the error (the jabs haven’t saved anybody!). Also, this technique is obviously unsatisfying if you would have to lie even to make a limited concession.

There are other problems with the defective jabs like they make nonsense proteins, are contaminated with E. coli, and including SV40 promoter genes — but we don’t need those to increase the anti-vaccine coalition. Covidians already believe the virus is causing excess death and disability. If they could be persuaded that the spike protein part of the virus is the culprit, then it’s just one tiny step to the vaccines, which after all is where most of the spike protein comes from.

In other words, if the spike protein is harmful in a reservoir, then it’s also harmful when it comes from a shot, right?

... Covidians are closing in on the truth. They aren’t yet ready to question the jabs, not after arguing so hard for coercing vaccinations, imposing passports, punishing anti-vaxxers, and so forth, but the Covidians are starting to ask around wondering why they are so sick all the time:




This thread included several more recent examples, all of which were fascinating, but for economy I’ll include just a little bit more, to show how very close they are getting to figuring out the truth:




Hmm, a sore right forearm. What else could have happened in that right arm? Anything else that causes soreness? Think about the shoulder area.

This time last year, suggesting there was anything wrong with the jabs would make the Covidians laugh like stoned high schoolers at a Cheech and Chong concert. It’s a game of inches and we are inching closer.

Majority of Americans Worried about COVID-19 Vaccine Safety

PETER MCCULLOUGH, MD
DEC 30, 2023

You are assuming the pro-vaxxers actually took it themselves. Congress and Pfizer employees are exempt, along with many other "important" groups. Also, how many doctors faked their own shots, like that mass scandal in Italy.

@govt_corrupt
People after their first mRNA vaccine - I am a good person. I did it to keep you safe.

People after their second - I don't need to worry about getting sick, spreading it to others or ending up in the hospital like those dirty anti-vaxxers.

People after their 3rd - I tested positive for Covid-19. I will isolate and follow proper public health guidelines. Thankfully I am vaccinated because It could have been so much worse.

People after their 4th - It appears I have Long Covid. This is because the selfish unvaccinated refused to keep me safe.

The experts after the 5th - We are completely baffled. It was so sudden and unexpected.

Hypnosis

Sorry, I cannot get over this — the STATE created a gain-of-function virus that (together with murderous hospital protocols) killed over seven million people worldwide in order to create the trillion dollar market for a useless and deadly vaccine AND THE POLITICAL LEFT HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO SAY ABOUT THIS!???

Bougie Brooklyn Marxisant magazine Jacobin spent the pandemic braying for more totalitarianism.

Manufacturing Consent author Noam Chomsky wanted to starve the unvaccinated.

“Disaster Capitalism” expert Naomi Klein spent the pandemic stalking Dr. Naomi Wolf and then wrote a book about it (instead of following the money).

The entire “progressive” Berkeley crowd went all in for fascism.

I’ve never seen anything like it — the members of an entire global political faction completely repudiated all of their values in an instant, as if under hypnosis.

A bewildering mindset

I tried to put myself in the shoes of a Covidian for a moment and it was completely bewildering. As I understand their perspective:

We are being inundated with deadly viruses — Covid yes, but also flu, RSV, shingles, pneumonia, and so many more! Our immune systems are weak and defenseless! The only hope we have is to do exactly what the brilliant scientists at the CDC say which is to get five or six shots a year as adults and 90 during childhood (in addition to four in utero). Even then, we’ll still probably get many of those diseases but it would have been so much worse if we had not taken preventive action. The only problem in this world is those damn dirty racist Trump supporters who hate science and are endangering me and my kids with their disgusting germs!

In the real world, none of those things are true. But it must be completely terrifying to live one’s life from that perspective. No wonder they are cranky and lashing out all of the time.