Why Is There No Restraint on Misinformation Sources?
While the United States is slowly approaching 600,000 Coronavirus deaths, the IHME modeling says that we have really passed 900,000 or 50% more. California’s confirmed Coronavirus deaths are over 60,000, but the IHME estimate of real deaths is over 120,000, or double. In my moral accounting, any excess deaths caused by flooding hospitals with Coronavirus patients should also be counted as due to our mishandling a disaster that could have been controlled with decent leadership and moral responsibility by information sources.
We have watched all of the details for a year and a half now. The misinformation media and mis-leaders have not backed off at all, and as before, are still campaigning on their mis-leading postures. Today, I was stirred up by Rand Paul’s vaccination misinformation, but he is minuscule compared to the entire misinformation establishment, which is benefitting financially and politically by their mis-leadership.
Genocides are driven by racial, religious, political, or other misinformation. In America, a large part of the almost million lives lost are caused by this, really allowing Coronavirus deaths to be classified as a genocide against fellow Americans. We haven’t even estimated those who suffered severely on oxygen before they recovered. We haven’t learned yet how many people have been permanently damaged, and how seriously, from the Coronavirus. The mishandling also caused longer and more severe shutdowns because people would not take the health protocols seriously, and many were driven to financial ruin.
We are now facing a massive misinformation campaign about vaccinations, which could stop 20% to 30% of Americans from being vaccinated. What’s worse, Republican areas, Republican states, and Southern States are not even making 50% vaccinations, laying them open to fast striking infections. To quote Game of Thrones: “Winter is Coming”. Some of our current success against the Coronavirus is that it is Summertime – Summertime, where people are outside more, and ventilating their houses more. In winter, especially with new Variants of Concern arriving and being more transmissible, we could still have resurgence in areas with fewer vaccinations.
The primary misinformation source may be Tucker Carlson on Fox “News”. A previous slander suit against his claims about fraudulent voting machines, has made him switch to a question only format of misinformation. Fox also does not let Tucker be claimed as an accurate news source. Fox has the largest network following, and can easily afford to bring in experts to answer all of Tucker’s “questions”. In fact, their are 5,000 epidemiologists in the United States who undoubtedly would be delighted to answer the misleading questions for free.
While we are going to prosecute 400 rioters on Jan. 6 at the Capitol, which resulted in the deaths of 5 people and was also driven by misinformation, we have not charged anyone with responsibility for almost a million American deaths from the Coronavirus. To charge them you have to show “intent”. Yes, their intent to get ratings, get followers, get votes, raise funds, get elected with infectathon political rallies, etc., show great intent to profit from the sewing of obviously dangerous misinformation.
Sure, history will judge, but why can’t we bring a rapid halt to misinformation by at least charging someone or a few with the consequences of that misinformation?
To misquote the standard limit on free speech: “You can’t yell ‘Don’t use the fire extinguisher’ in a theater on fire.”
