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Comment by ra1231963 | Hacker News Reader

ra1231963

It was absolutely taboo. If you tried to bring it up you were shouted down as a far right conspiracy theorist, or racist.

Mashup of clips from the news: https://youtu.be/zl-X-Lgrlf0

Jon Stewart was the first to call this into question publicly, which was brave at the time. Watch Colbert push back on Stewart’s line of reasoning: https://youtu.be/sSfejgwbDQ8

Honestly questioning anything covid-related was taboo at that time, including the vaccines, masks, ivermectin, etc. Please note, I am not making any claims about these things, other than it was taboo to question anything “official sources” stated.

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Lots of people thinking you are an idiot does not mean you can't say it. I saw plenty of people saying things about vaccines, masks, ivermectin.

But yes, when hundreds of thousands of people are dying globally, I think patience for those things wears thin in a personal capacity.

But I would seriously question whether something is really 'taboo' if ~half of the country is watching media outlets where they ask these questions regularly, which is the case in the domestic US.

It is exactly the attitude you are still exhibiting that was the problem. “We’re in a crisis, no time to ask questions. Fall in line or you’re a far right conspiracy theorist/idiot.”

It is a legitimate opinion and not censorious that if you are going and telling people to take ivermectin for covid you are legitimately harming people.

Having that attitude is not "a problem", having opinions on dumb stuff people say is not censorious.

This new interpretation that freedom of speech means freedom from having people criticize you is novel.

Wow, I already liked Stewart but really respect him to have the stones to bring that up. He doesn't fall into the left or right dichotomy.

He is extremely far left but had a new show coming out and needed to generate a bit of hype

"extremely far left" by US standards, sure .. otherwise pretty moderate middle of the road.

By which standards? Every country is different, even within Europe there are much more conservative countries than the US.

> "extremely far left" by US standards, sure .. otherwise pretty moderate middle of the road.

Globally the world is right of the US on most issues, but you're probably pretending that the rest of the world is just Europe.

Unsurprisingly, Americans generally evaluate American media by American standards.

He's never run for political office or anything like that so most of what we can glean is from his shows, which for sure attack the right more than the left but don't advance their own policy proposals.

The most overt stuff he has done politically is the late 2000s rally with Colbert which was very middle-of-the-road decorum-focused Democrat in tone, I don't think there's a lot of evidence for him being "hard left". If I had to guess, I think he'd be more in line with the Obama / Biden type camp than Sanders.

> He doesn't fall into the left or right dichotomy.

I am a fan of Jon Stewart, but the fact that I have never heard someone on the right-wing claim that Jon Stewart is non-partisan while I hear it frequently from mainstream democrats should tell you something about the veracity of the claim.

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