After carefully listening to the pros and cons on the COVID vaccines and measuring their risk-to-reward, I am opposed to taking any. Does this make me an antivaxxer? The likes at the CDC and those folk who blindly follow the directives of the medical establishment would probably say 'yes.' But that's false. In the past six years, I've had two different vaccinations for pneumonia (PCV13 and PVSV23),  one for shingles, and multiple shots of the seasonal flu vaccine. So because I'm opposed to getting the inadequately tested and rushed out novel mRNA vaccination, people like me are labeled as antivaxxers. Does that make sense?

To be called an antivaxxer implies the person is unscientific, ill-informed, and probably a mouth-breathing, knuckle dragging cretin. I hope to say I'm none of those. The pejorative 'antivaxxer' is not meant to be factual. Rather its intent is to shut down any discussion on the COVID vaccines that might make the medical establishment and Big Pharma feel uncomfortable.

This is exactly how those in the left wing hive throw around the term 'racist' to prevent any criticism of their destructive policies. Leftists will weave in the charge of racism to any discussion like immigration, education, American history, politics, corporate policy, entertainment, so on. Unfortunately, this has been effective. It has pushed many critics of liberal policies to the margins, and more tellingly, has intimidated many more from speaking out in public.

The effectiveness of debate-silencing terms like 'antivaxxer' and 'racist' has nothing whatsoever to do with their truthfulness or the arguments used by the ones hurling such slanders. Instead, it shows the shallowness of their position. Such terms have gained traction only because they're parroted and amplified by the corporate media. But as media's credibility continues to wane, so does its ability to distort reality.

In closing, think of the term 'racist' as a virus. It has been so overused that much of society has developed an immunity to it. The same will happen with the term 'antivaxxer.' Then the debates can shift from the emotional and mindless name-calling to the facts of the matter. 

Photo credit: US SecDef CC BY 2.0 license

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