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Comment by pstuart | Hacker News Reader

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You seem to be using the term "antivaxxer" pretty broadly. I read their COVID section and didn't see any claims that the vaccines don't work, or that you shouldn't take one. Rather, they seem to be against vaccine mandates and government-coerced social media censorship. Those are not fringe positions.

See https://nclalegal.org/covid-19/

I'm not at all a fan of vaccine mandates, but less a fan of the craziness around vaccine fears.

5G, Bill Gates, microchips, zombies!

That's low hanging fruit of characterization, but I've yet to see compelling research that shows these fears to be justified.

Herd immunity is the public commons of disease and that puts us in a collectively sticky situation in how to manage it.

I just did a Find and the words "vax" and "vaccine" do not appear on the page. Maybe you can explain how you concluded that from "a quick skim."

They said they skimmed the website. Not the page. Go to home page and you’ll find the second item is “ NCLA is Challenging Covid-19 Regulations and Orders Imposed by Executive Decree”

Keep in mind, it was not that long ago when some of us had regulations and orders that mandated you wear a mask... but allowed t-shirts over your face to count, which does absolutely nothing. Some other jurisdictions mandated that certain aisles in supermarkets be closed (yardwork / gardening tools), but others be allowed to remain open (alcohol aisle, where the entire aisle is dedicated to selling a known carcinogen specifically for human consumption).

The regulations in your jurisdiction being rational and sound does not mean that the regulations in everyone else's jurisdiction were equally as rational.

Consequently, an organization filing legal challenges against C19 regulations doesn't inherently mean they're a bunch of crazy conspiracy nuts who were opposed to things like mask mandates that required functional masks or social distancing.

I'm not saying they're guaranteed to be saints, but this doesn't exactly damn them either, at least not without a lot more context & information on the specifics.

It's black and white. How fancy could it be?

If they are anti-vaxxers does that mean you’re ok with the government censoring social media?

I’m trying to parse your statement.

I'm good with garbage not being amplified -- the cattle are easily spooked.

Ahhh… the old “im smart enough to see through lies, but others aren’t so we need to hide information from them for their own protection”.

Kind of like the “Abusing democratic freedoms” that China accuses people of. Have to protect our freedoms you understand..by removing them.

When the facts disagree with your world view, attack the messenger

What many Americans think the 1st amendment should say:

> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances, unless those people are anti-vaxxers, then screw em

The first amendment has judicial precedent for not yelling “fire” in a crowded theater. Most vaccines require mass public uptake in order to work.

This is explicitly political speech. Can the government ban it?

Mocking politicians and bureaucrats and calling their decisions into question is an absolute, inalienable right

Maybe you all could stop with that tired old "fire in a crowded theater" trope. This isn't that. This is scientific debate.

Do you know what that judicial precedent actually was? That quote about "yelling fire in a crowded theater" is from Schenck v. United States, a Supreme Court decision that affirmed the conviction of person who was distributing flyers against the draft during WW1. So, it basically came with a slippery slope pre-assembled and deployed.

But the good news is that it's not active precedent, since it has been superceded by Brandenburg v. Ohio, which defines the threshold as "imminent lawless action". Thus, anti-vax sentiment is protected by 1A, except for any specific utterances that can be conclusively demonstrated to have influenced people to not only not vaccinate, but to do so in violation of the law.

(FWIW I'm pro-vaccine myself and think that anti-vax is stupid and harmful. That doesn't mean that they don't deserve the same rights we all do.)

But Fauci said that "all 3 vaccines are 100 per cent effective against death and hospitalization" according to a blue checkmark news outlet.[0]

Was Fauci wrong or are you wrong?

[0]: https://twitter.com/independent/status/1366125427144732672?l...

The story that links to:

> The varying ‘effectiveness’ rates miss the most important point: The vaccines were all 100 per cent effective in the vaccine trials in stopping hospitalisations and death.

Only mention of that "100 percent" in it.

Is that wrong? Were there hospitalizations or deaths among the vaccinated in the vaccine trials?

Agreed the headline sucks, but reporting in general is terrible so that's no surprise.

[EDIT] Oh there's also:

> The numbers Americans should be emphasising are that all three vaccines have proven 100 per cent effective at preventing deaths. The risk of hospitalisation also plummets to virtually zero for people who receive the vaccine.

But the article's so chopped-up and shitty that it's hard to tell what the context of this was. Probably similar to the other quote above.

That's a fair criticism of my point. But you bring up a great point of your own as well - it may be journalists who are chiefly responsible for the growing distrust for the medical establishment.

The same journalists who eagerly proclaim any finding from any single study == "The Science", when we all know that in reality, one study does not science make. The "replication crisis" is a feature of science, not a bug.

Maybe those concerned with misinformation and the decline of public trust in institutions should be a lot more interested in the behaviors of journalists.

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