5 Comments

Always love your footnotes.

History doesn't ever really repeat. Every situation has different conditions, and even those that seem superficially similar always have fundamental differences. Those who try to create parallels to invoke comparisons, especially emotional ones, usually are trying to make a case they couldn't with competent arguments.

But stupidity always has multitudes of case studies. Often fun to dissect them, but seldom useful.

Expand full comment

Hm, well, I'm not really happy with my current subhead and will probably change it when I think of a better one - in this case, at all events, I think it is one of those "seldom useful" moments. I've long believed that Americans totally take the wrong lesson from the Holocaust. By making it taboo, by casting it as "unthinkable," we fail to acknowledge our own capability of repeating it - which, of course, ensures that at some point we will.

Expand full comment

This is not a partisan issue to me, but they seem hell-bent on making it one. I wonder if perhaps they realize that health freedom is an issue that can transcend right/left party lines. They can't stand to have people united, so they push this toxic narrative. Hitler was also vegan and liked art and puppies, does that make artistic vegan puppy-lovers Nazis? Ridiculous at its face.

Expand full comment

Note that Jacobin's logo is literally the division sign.

Medical freedom isn't naturally leftist. The problem is more that conservatism, in the 20th Century, failed to perceive that it has stakes in both business deregulation and environmental protection (managed via the courts, at least). Just one more way in which globalism has cross-wired politics. So the movement for a "return to nature" incoherently ended up arising on the side of (machine-based party politics and) "progressivism." Hence why leftist anti-vaxxers are stranded in the wilderness.

Expand full comment

I think they're beginning to realize their errors. Polls show they're losing support nationally, quickly. It's going to be an interesting year as we slide into the next elections. We can hope for big turnovers, and hope the replacements perform better. I hope Nancy gets reelected so she can suffer the full embarrassment of minority status.

Expand full comment