“I’m Not ‘Brave’; You’re Just a P—y !!” (Dr Naomi Wolf here, h/t instapundit, on which it has been linked repeatedly)
This is a companion post to Natalie’s one on ivermectin below. There is the pandemic science and the pandemic ‘science’ (the pandemic nonscience) – and then there is the issue of courage in science. I invite readers to put their comments about the science and the nonscience under Natalie’s post, and their comments about courage under mine – insofar, that is, as they can separate the two. The more our society indulges its desire to be safe, the more dangerous it seems to become.
(BTW, I don’t think Dr Wolf abbreviated her last word from the least cowardice to say it – she is rather clear in the essay that follows it – but only so the very people who most need to hear her say it were not protected from seeing her write it by their web-search engines. I refrained from the strong temptation to expand it again mainly from the desire to quote honestly but also for that reason.)
Courage is not just a virtue. It is the form of every virtue under test. Pontius Pilate was merciful – till it became risky. (C.S.Lewis)
I will resist temptation no longer.
After all, our readers include non-native speakers of English – or at least, that is Niall politeness-is-my-middle-name Kilmartin’s excuse.
There are several different Early Treatment options – which is the best for an individual is for doctors with experience of successfully treating Covid 19, to say. Look up such sites as “America’s Front Line Doctors” or books such as “Overcoming The Covid Darkness” by Dr Brian Tyson and Dr George Fareed.
However, what is utterly terrible is the practice of the authorities in many Western countries (including the United States and the United Kingdom – at least the United Kingdom up till recently) of chanting “Tinet” (there is no Early Treatment) from the start of the crises onwards.
The majority of people who died could have been saved, but that would not (by coincidence or not) have suited the international agenda for lockdowns (part of the process of moving the economy of various nations to control by governments and large corporations in partnership) and mass injections. Did the authorities in various countries KNOW there was Early Treatment that could have saved most people who died? We just DO NOT KNOW whether it was ignorance or malice – we just do not know.
To Putin fans, Russia also had an insane “lockdown” policy – and a policy of mass injections pushed by mandates.
Overall – we must move away from the Collectivist “Public Health” approach to disease – and restore medicine to a matter of personal trust between an individual doctor and an individual patient.
Political considerations (“what policy would be best for Agenda 2030” or whatever) must have no place in medical decisions – medical decisions must be SOLELY a matter for the individual doctor and the individual patient.
If basic liberties, such as Freedom of Speech, can be overruled by such considerations as “Public Health” then we are living under tyranny.
It may not be the open tyranny of the style of Mr Putin (“do what I say – or you get a bullet in the head”) – but “soft tyranny” (“keep your mouth shut – or we will CANCEL CULTURE you”) is still tyranny.
My own view?
My opinion is that such people Peter Daszak and Tony Fauci have LIED, deliberately set out to deceive, from the start of the crises. However, proving that in a court of law is difficult.
““I’m Not ‘Brave’; You’re Just a P—y !!”
Or… maybe you have different opinions and vies than me. Or maybe you are confused, maybe you don’t know whom to believe…(Most people come under this heading)…. Or maybe you believe the other side (lockdowns and vaccines will save humanity).
The matter is complicated. There are more than the two options described in the header.
I generally dislike simplistic and facile, emotional rhetoric like Wolf’s.
I support her… you should fight for your beliefs, at least in the minor ways she talks about. (Even if you are wrong!)
Still, don’t be smug and righteous about it…
@Jacob
She’s responding to people who say “I agree but don’t dare say it” not the confused or those who disagree.
Being a pussy is indeed a “different opinion’ Jacob, but it is still being a pussy. It is a fear based choice or a rational risk assessment, opinions vary.
But given the stats available for quite some time now, characterising people very risk averse to Covid without cofactors as pussies (i.e. fearful of small risks) seem not unreasonable. And refusing to make a stand when you see and agree… yup, that’s a pussy.
I am not a great fan of Wolf (to put it mildly) but I do agree on this.
Perry de Havilland (London) (March 9, 2022 at 5:21 pm), I suspect we would agree on the ‘no great fan’ in general, but when someone is brave enough and honest enough and angry enough to overcome her feminist concerns (as she remarks in her article) to yell ‘pussy’ at cowards who cringe to the narrative, then I have to cheer.
May I go that far and far further out of my comfort zone if the virtues of courage and honesty ever ask me to. I like to think I start out on the side that will make it less likely I’ll ever need to, but, as you say, I do agree on this – even more than I agree with my preferred opinions on points where she and I would likely differ.
Agree entirely Niall
No Jacob.
Only one side was trying to punish people for their opinions.
That, the side that was trying to punish people for dissent, were the people who were (and are) in the wrong.
If the arguments and evidence on your side – you do not have to punish people for not agreeing with you.
It is fascinating how Covid has become a sign of the wider political divide.
For example – the mask, it clearly has nothing to do with public health. It is a sign of allegiance to the left – indeed that started BEFORE Covid as Marxist Antifa tended to wear the mask (as a sign of their rejection of “capitalist individualism” – in a mask all faces are the same, just part of the Collective whole).
I watched the South Korean Presidential Election – the conservative (rather than the leftist who thought that Franklin Roosevelt cured the Depression with government spending and regulations) won, but I could tell which candidate was the good guy and which candidate was the bad guy without knowing a word of Korean – because one wore the mask and the other did not.
Even when speaking the leftist candidate wore-the-mask – and so did his wife (again even when speaking). No one near them – yet they wore the mask to show their hatred of capitalist individuality, and their belief that they were just part of the Collective Entity known as “the people”.
And almost half the voters supported this lunatic.
Very true.
My view is people do need to be punished for this. There needs to be a social & political cost, not for having different opinions, but rather for the people who actively used punitive measures to suppress those different opinions
If people took a different view of Covid & its associated risks than I did, fine. If they in any way tried to ruin the lives of people who did not agree with them, not fine.
Tolerance means allowing people to have differences you do you agree with or like or respect, but it has to be reciprocal. And all too often, it wasn’t. So the people who tried to coercively suppress the contrary opinion should not, MUST not be tolerated either.
Careers and reputations were ruined… so, over the next few years, the same thing need to happen to the people who did that, they need to have their careers and reputations ruined. We do not need reconciliation or this will happen again, we need proportional retribution.
BTW I really do not get the horror of the word ‘pussy’.
With all terms that can be insulting, context is everything. For example, I would prefer people to not to write “I disliked the fact he used the N-word to insult him.” … I think it is far better to write “I disliked the fact he called him a nigger.”
Acting as if the word “nigger” is almost like speaking the True Name of Christ to unmake the world is not a good idea.
I have inside knowledge of certain US national labs (Department of Energy labs). One, Los Alamos, has now dropped it’s mask requirement onsite. Another only requires those flimsy blue “medical” masks which for all I know are better than the cloth ones I bought at “Target” (US department store). My own lab still requires masks and they must be N95.
So, if the need for masks is science driven, how can it be that all these labs have different policies…and policies different from TSA/CDC? Does LANL know the science better than my lab or the thin-blue-mask lab? If this virus were based on nuclear fission, I’d say maybe LANL knows more.
I was at LANL this week, no mask, but had to wear one on the plane home.
Every time I get national lab scientists, US government science and technical experts into a private space to talk freely (this happens pretty often, about once a month for the past 2 years), it’s the same story: “this is insane!”. Once small groups of us are meeting privately, the masks come off!
Where’s the courage of science? Where has the integrity of science been? These are things I thought existed in some measure…up until about 20 months ago.
“There needs to be a social & political cost, not for having different opinions, but rather for the people who actively used punitive measures to suppress those different opinions”
Well you’re at least 50 years late. The leftists have been suppressing opinions as a matter of duty as instructed by Marcuse’s Repressive Tolerance doctrine.
They cancelled Enoch Powell and no one complained.
Quite right, but it must also be said that it is primarily the establishment that must be punished. “We the people” must hit the head of the snake.
Having said that, nobody has been punished over here afaik.
GregWA – the cloth masks do not work against the virus, the establishment have always known that. So this mask thing is about political allegiance – not personal health.
What Plato called the “City of the Gods” where everyone would be equal and the same (including look the same) and have the same thoughts on everything – Woke doctrine taken to its ultimate extreme. Remember wearing-the-mask started BEFORE Covid – Marxist Antifa wore masks, their enemies (who were NOT “Fascists”) did not wear masks. This was not really a matter of preventing identification – as the left control the “justice” system in most cities, so Marxist Antifa and Marxist BLM could attack people and the only people to be punished by “the law” would be their VICTIMS.
The mask wearing was about a deeper philosophical point – the rejection of “capitalist individualism” and, instead, the principle that each member of Marxist Antifa was part of a Collective whole. Not an individual person – as they rejected individual moral agents and personal responsibility.
By the way, the Federal “Justice” Department is now full of these people.
Perry….
As you know Sir, Peter Daszak (of the “Eco Health Alliance” and the “World Health Organisation”) funded the creation of Covid 19 (gain of function research) in Wuhan. Peter Daszak’s activities were, in turn, funded by Tony Fauci of the United States government.
For a long time just saying this was “Tin Foil Hat” or “Paranoid Conspiracy Theory” stuff – now, when I mention it, I am told “everyone knows that – you are not saying anything new, this is all water-under-the-bridge, why are you digging up ancient history?”
Millions of people died – and the chances of Peter Daszak and Tony Fauci going to prison are just about ZERO.
And they did not stop at creating the virus (gain of function research) – oh no. They then pretended that it was no threat – I remember Tony Fauci saying that as late as January 2020.
He was lying through his teeth (as was Peter Daszik and his “World Health Organisation” – led by a Marxist Doctor of Philosophy NOT a doctor of medicine, who was made head of the WHO because he is a toady of the People’s Republic of China) – but they will NOT be punished.
Then they denied that Early Treatment worked.
“I had to lie” Tony Fauci would say “because otherwise I would not have got Emergency Authorisation for the injection program we have wanted for years”.
O.K. then Tony – what is about a MILLION DEAD in the United States alone, if that is what you need for your part of Agenda 2030, I quite understand Sir – I am very sorry for taking up your valuable time.
Perry – do you really think these people are going to be punished for their censorship and “Cancel Culture” policy (by the way, that is also part of Agenda 2030 – it has a “cultural” component), when they have NOT been punished for creating the virus (gain of function research), pretending it was not a danger, and falsely claiming that Early Treatment did not work – thus condemning millions of people (around the world) to death.
On the need for all of us to have (or find) courage to talk about banned literature, (Samizdata) I recommend Robert Malone’s latest article, on the disappearing evidence (and deleted webpages) that shows the USA actively encouraged (and helped setup) “biodefense” research labs in Ukraine.
https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/all-along-the-watchtower
I have reason to believe the UK may have done the same some years ago (using other countries), because of “leaky labs” in the UK that unwittingly released very toxic substances, and then “plausible deniability” (we don’t do that kind of research in the UK). Some might notice some “Wuhan” similarities.
Among the links at the end of his article, the most appealing is “What have Fauci’s friends been up to in Ukraine?“
Rudolph Hucker.
The official line is that these places are for the study of disease and for countering bioweapons – not using them.
But after what happened in Wuhan in 2019 (for which neither Tony Fauci or Peter Daszak have been punished) it was obvious that such places were highly dangerous.
What they were still doing operating in the Ukraine is baffling – and the establishment screaming “Putin, Putin, Putin” does not make it less baffling.
These places should never have been opened by the United States government in the Ukraine – or anywhere else OUTSIDE the United States.
You can only really control what is in your own country – the American government should not be funding bio research in foreign countries.
The Wuhan “leak” (if it was an accident) was in 2019 – 2019.
Years have passed – plenty of time to close these places in the Ukraine and elsewhere.
“characterising people very risk averse to Covid without cofactors as pussies (i.e. fearful of small risks) seem not unreasonable”
This is a very subjective judgment.
Covid caused or created a mass hysteria… Whether this mass hysteria was justified or not – I do not know. Covid was very real, you had those refrigerating trucks outside morgues to prove it. And the mass hysteria whipped up by Government and the media – it is very real too. So, if many people got caught in this hysteria and became afraid – that is understandable. I would not call them pussies. You say: if you do an independent and objective risk assessment – then you should not be afraid. Probably. How many people are able to do that, with confidence?
I do applaud people who do small acts of defiance of authority and disobedience in support of their beliefs (whether right or wrong). But it is very difficult to mark people as cowards for NOT doing so. Most people are some kind of cowards (and fools). So what?
Yes Jacob – Covid 19 was, and is, real.
Which is why it was a bad thing for Peter Daszak and Tony Fauci to fund the gain of function (or whatever you want to call it) research that created it, and it was bad of them to then pretend (as late as January 2020) that it was NOT a danger to the United States, and it was bad for them to LIE and pretend that Early Treatment did not work, when they knew it did work.
“I do not know” – well you have had two years to find out Jacob.
No, Covid did not cause mass hysteria, Jacob, government action did.
Agreed Perry – government Behaviour Modification teams (“Nudge Units”) created the hysteria in many countries as part of an international “governance” plan of action.
This is not denied, it is out in the open. I am astonished that Jacob does not seem to know this.
I wholly agree with every word Perry de Havilland (London) wrote in his comment on
March 9, 2022 at 11:57 pm.
It will take a while but yes, some will indeed suffer the consequences.
[…] – Perry de Havilland […]
Why not? Wolf is talking about people who knew the measures were utter bollocks and yet dared not say so. Her epithet seems like a fair characterisation for many, albeit individual context does matter.
I would not call people who truly believed we were dealing with a Bubonic Plague or even Spanish Flu level threat “cowards” (I would call them “incorrect”). But if you knew, and even said so privately, but just went along for an easy life… yeah, you get the White Feather.
No, Covid did not cause mass hysteria, Jacob, government action did.
It was both, and health officials, and the media… many got caught up in the frenzy. And the basis of all was the new, unknown nature of the threat (Covid).
Health officials and the media said what assorted governments told them to say, or the societal fear would likely have been comparable to seasonal flu, which is to say, not a lot.
Dr Naomi is not a doctor. She has no science or medical background. Her Phd is in English literature. Her writing career is feminist literature.
The signatories of The Great Barrington Declaration have the qualifications that Echo (March 13, 2022 at 5:06 pm) presents as desiring. The dishonesty of Fauci et al in conspiring to suppress and misrepresent that is gross. No-one needs qualifications to point that out; they just need to be not a coward and not a liar. As Dr Wolf points out, she does not need to be brave; she just needs to be not a pussy.