Sherman R. Frederick/Properly Subversive
The California Legislature has a knack for talking about something insanely stupid on a weekly basis. This week may I draw your attention to AB2098, a COVID-19 “misinformation” bill.
The proposed law actually seeks to censor medical professionals for making statements “contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus.”
What could go wrong?
When a hearing on this silly measure came up recently, a man wearing a t-shirt that read “good luck with your vaccines” told the committee that “anyone who supports this bill will be held accountable under Nuremberg Code.”
Instead of eliciting a nervous chuckle from the chairman of the committee, the humorless legislator dropped an angry “f-bomb” on the citizen and passed the bill out of committee, 12-5.
Someone ought to send that guy the book “Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything.”
There he and his committee would find that at one time the “contemporary scientific consensus” deemed the cure for cancer involved placing a dead puppy on top of a tumor because cancer would “feed off the sacrificed animal rather than the human patient.”
Doctors also once thought that wearing a necklace strung with weasel testicles prevented conception, which, come to think about it, might actually work in a roundabout way. But, I digress.
What our goofy Legislature fails to understand, apparently, is that questioning science is how science is done. And, shutting down speech is how totalitarianism is done.
Beware the idiots, good citizens.
Resist.
MASKAHOLICS
Speaking of popular science, former SFChron writer Debra J. Saunders wrote a salient piece in The American Spectator entitled “The Masks Are Off (and the CDC has been exposed as a house of political theater.)
After two years of watching the CDC, she writes: “it’s hard to show faith in a bureaucracy that hasn’t even bothered to distinguish between mostly-for-show masks and more effective face coverings, such as N95s. Compliance apparently was the goal.
“A chart by Ian Miller of the Brownstone Institute compares caseloads in states with and without mask mandates. Essentially, the chart shows no significant difference between states with or without mandates.”
Last week I saw a woman riding her bike by herself on a nature trail, wearing a mask. That’s the definition of a maskaholic, no?
THE RIGHT TWITTER PATH
The purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk has caused a mighty disturbance among the cosmopolitan progressive elite who, sad to say, have abandoned the American principle of free speech. But Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey expressed support for the ownership change.
“Elon’s goal of creating a platform that is ‘maximally trusted and broadly inclusive’ is the right one … Thank you for getting the company out of an impossible situation,” he tweeted.
Meanwhile, Musk reminded the world what free speech really is:
“I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.”
ONE MORE THING
– If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?
– Wouldn’t asteroids be a better name for hemorrhoids?
– Yet again this morning no one was standing next to my bed saying “your royal highness, here is your coffee.”
We’ll be back next week with more. Thanks for reading. Until then, avoid soreheads, laugh a little and always question authority.
(“Properly Subversive” is commentary written by Sherman R. Frederick for the Novato Advance, San Rafael News-Pointer, Mill Valley Herald, Ross Valley Reporter, Twin City Times and the Sausalito Marin Scope. Frederick is a long-time journalist and co-founder of Battle Born Media, a news organization dedicated to the preservation of community newspapers. You can reach him by email at shermfrederick@gmail.com.)
It is shameful that someone this ignorant is able to write an article on something they know nothing about and get circulation.
I am a physician, and if I give poor advice to a patient that contradicts scientific consensus and it harms the patient, that is malpractice.
Research which “questions science” is done through clinical trials, not in the primary care office. If you can’t understand that, then you have no business in medicine. Of course Mr Fredrick is no more a physician than he is an astronaut, so walk away and leave medical practice to the professionals. Your opinion about how to practice medicine is as relevant as your opinion on orbital mechanics.
First, you should use your real name when commenting. Of course, that would mean you’d out yourself as a kook and definitely not a doctor. So, what you are saying “DrN” is that you once wore a necklace strung with weasel testicles to prevent you from having children. (Gawd, I hope that worked.)