Biden Joins the All-Stars of Constitutional Contempt

I gave the wrong number above for the chances of dying on our roadways. It was supposed to be 1 in 8569 chance of being killed in a crash on our roadways (that included pedestrians).

[Bert Perry]

Again, the lying behavior of Dr. Fauci and other public health officials has everything to do with why many people are not getting vaccinated.

I think we have to be careful when we say “lying”. If we define lying as “making an untrue statement with the intent to deceive”. I think we need to be careful. If we define lying as “making an untrue statement”, it could be a bit closer, but we would still need to be careful. I am not saying that there aren’t liars out there. But we are taking a once a hundred year pandemic where everyone is 1) trying to get out the best information possible and 2) the information and data is rapidly changing, makes it very difficult over an 18 month period to only produce 100% true statements. I would argue that it would be an impossible task.

Think of it this way. You are counseling a young couple at your church who is having marriage problems. They come to you making certain statements. As you talk to them you issue them advice. You counsel them over a year period, but during that year, you begin to pull more information out of the couple. You may even get information from other family members or maybe individuals within the church. At the end of the 12 months period, depending on how much new data you get and how different the problems have now been discovered to be as you dig deeper into discussions, you could easily point out comments and advice that you made in the first week as being untrue or false advice. Maybe the advice could have been severely damaging. I remember hearing a story of one couple where the pastor told them to stick together and work it out. It wasn’t revealed to him at the time that there was significant physical abuse. That continued abuse over the course of the 6 month counseling session led one of the partners to kill the other. Looking back, maybe it wasn’t good advice to tell them to stick it out, if a life was in danger.

Again, I am not saying that untruths have not been told. But I question whether the entire medical community is doing it with the intent to deceive. I also think that most people don’t truly understand science in situations like this, because their exposure to science has been that when I get the milk from the grocery store, 200 years of science and testing has gone into it and I can trust the milk I am grabbing. There is not a single person on the planet who has lived in or experienced a pandemic like this, nor has one like this impacted a world like this either. I do totally get and understand people who look at the scientists and question what is going on. I think many have been two quick to get data and hypothesis out there, that it has resulted in too many retractions, backtrack or changes to what they have said. I like Dr. Fauci, he has lasted through so many administrations, but he has been way over exposed through this whole pandemic, which has just created problems.

[JD Miller]

I gave the wrong number above for the chances of dying on our roadways. It was supposed to be 1 in 8569 chance of being killed in a crash on our roadways (that included pedestrians).

I think that stat means that if you die this year, you have a 1 in 8569 chance of dying via car crash. I don’t think that number really reflects how risky it is to drive a car.

Per https://www.iihs.org, there were 33,244 fatal motor vehicle crashes in the United States in 2019 in which 36,096 deaths occurred. This resulted in 11.0 deaths per 100,000 people and 1.11 deaths per 100 million miles traveled. Doesn’t that sound a lot safer than 1/8569?

We are far off field from the main discussion now, but just thought I try to add some clarification here.

[dgszweda] I think we have to be careful when we say “lying”. If we define lying as “making an untrue statement with the intent to deceive”. I think we need to be careful. If we define lying as “making an untrue statement”, it could be a bit closer, but we would still need to be careful. I am not saying that there aren’t liars out there. But we are taking a once a hundred year pandemic where everyone is 1) trying to get out the best information possible and 2) the information and data is rapidly changing, makes it very difficult over an 18 month period to only produce 100% true statements. I would argue that it would be an impossible task.

And this is why “following the science” is a terrible idea when you are trying to do biblical apologetics. People think science is this static absolutely authoritative source of truth, when it is not. When you apply that expectation to our current public health crisis, people who follow the science are going to look like they are fluctuating, because they are.

Then you have the people like Joy Reid of MSNBC who said the vaccine is unsafe and you shouldn’t trust it back when Trump was in office, but now says vaccine mandates are good and people should be forced to take it now that Biden is in charge. Tucker Carlson (who has his own issues with the truth when it comes to the vaccine) had a pretty funny montage of this on his show last night.

[AndyE]

JD Miller wrote:

I gave the wrong number above for the chances of dying on our roadways. It was supposed to be 1 in 8569 chance of being killed in a crash on our roadways (that included pedestrians).

I think that stat means that if you die this year, you have a 1 in 8569 chance of dying via car crash. I don’t think that number really reflects how risky it is to drive a car.

Per https://www.iihs.org, there were 33,244 fatal motor vehicle crashes in the United States in 2019 in which 36,096 deaths occurred. This resulted in 11.0 deaths per 100,000 people and 1.11 deaths per 100 million miles traveled. Doesn’t that sound a lot safer than 1/8569?

We are far off field from the main discussion now, but just thought I try to add some clarification here.

Last night we crossed the threshold that 1 in 500 residents of the US have died of COVID-19. That is obviously not the same as saying you have a 1 in 500 chance of dying from this disease, but the statistic does provide a sobering number.

[AndyE]

Then you have the people like Joy Reid of MSNBC who said the vaccine is unsafe and you shouldn’t trust it back when Trump was in office, but now says vaccine mandates are good and people should be forced to take it now that Biden is in charge.

Yeah we have the same thing with Kamala Harris who said that she wouldn’t take the vaccine if it was developed under Trump. It has been a mess.

The correct way to say it is that in 2020, 1 in 8569 people died in roadway crashes. I need more salt on that crow. I might have to start cooking it in cream of chicken soup at this rate.

David, point well taken, but there is a certain point when we have to consider the question “is it plausible this person does not know better?” For example, was it plausible in the spring of 2020 when Dr. Fauci, knowing full well that surgeons wear surgical masks for a very good reason, said there was no value in them for the population as a whole?

We might consider it a “white lie”, since he appears to have been intended to protect supply of face masks for nurses and such. But even so, it was false, and Fauci knew it—that’s a lie.

Same thing with denying the possibility of a lab leak while he knew the bat in question lived nowhere near Wuhan, but he’d personally funded research into bat virii at WIV. The case for plausible deniability is just extremely thin in this and a fair number of other areas.

[Bert Perry]

David, point well taken, but there is a certain point when we have to consider the question “is it plausible this person does not know better?” For example, was it plausible in the spring of 2020 when Dr. Fauci, knowing full well that surgeons wear surgical masks for a very good reason, said there was no value in them for the population as a whole?

We might consider it a “white lie”, since he appears to have been intended to protect supply of face masks for nurses and such. But even so, it was false, and Fauci knew it—that’s a lie.

Same thing with denying the possibility of a lab leak while he knew the bat in question lived nowhere near Wuhan, but he’d personally funded research into bat virii at WIV. The case for plausible deniability is just extremely thin in this and a fair number of other areas.

I don’t think Fauci intentionally lied with the intent to deceive the public. First, everything was changing so quickly as to the effectiveness of masks. The people who are complaining about Fauci lying about this, are screaming at the top of their lungs today that masks don’t do anything and we shouldn’t have masks mandates. Their concern is less about whether Fauci was right or wrong, they are just trying to find lies in order to discredit him. Second, he has a long track records across many administrations of a strong competence in his field and with a long track record of solid performance. So it wasn’t because he was wildly incompetent. Third, what purpose did he have in deceiving the public. Back in March, there was so much lack of information and different guidances from CDC, HHS, NIH…. around what was going on. Can we look back 18 months later and say things should have been done better? No doubt. Was he intentionally trying to mislead the public? I just don’t see the evidence.

The Wuhan gain of function is really about Rand Paul trying to find Fauci lying. I don’t think it is conclusive yet around this. There is significant differences in interpretation of Gain of Function and also differences in “fungible” money given in grants that are distributed through multiple layers.

I give more credence to his decades of solid performance, the immensely impossible task he had working under Trump and once in a lifetime pandemic as contributing to challenges in giving clear information that is timely and doesn’t change. I will 100% agree that there were missteps, I am just not in the camp and don’t believe there is enough evidence to show that he was intentionally trying to mislead people. I still believe he was giving the best guidance based on the information on hand. I continue to look at the data and am willing to change my position as evidence becomes more solid around the accusations of lying.

[dgszweda]

Their concern is less about whether Fauci was right or wrong, they are just trying to find lies in order to discredit him. Second, he has a long track records across many administrations of a strong competence in his field and with a long track record of solid performance.

Fauci doesn’t need others to discredit him, he has done a great job of doing that to himself. As you pointed out about the man discussed earlier who did a lot of the early research with mRNA, past work and expertise doesn’t make up for wrong or stupid (or untruthful in Fauci’s case) things said now.

I realize that many would like this to be all about “the GOP is just trying to discredit Fauci, etc….” There is certainly plenty of that, but if Fauci were so rock solid, we wouldn’t be where we are today with trusting his credibility.

Of course, Fauci’s untruthful claims don’t have anything to do with how bad or good the vaccines are, but Bert is absolutely right about people’s trust level being low due to not only incompetence from our government, but also because of stupid or outright false things they are attempting to pawn off as “THE SCIENCE (TM).” They should have just made sure that everyone knew that science knowledge changes as things are learned, and that it’s not by any means infallible. Instead, they propped up SCIENCE as some sort of all-knowing god, with themselves as the high priests, and any opposing viewpoints or contrary evidence held up as heresy rather than being examined.

Instead of defending Fauci, our leaders should be attempting to find, disseminate, and defend truth. Yes, that’s a hard job to do well (although there is good reason to suspect that the motives of many of them are not so pure). Doing the hard job of governing is why they were elected/appointed and paid.

[dcbii]

(although there is good reason to suspect that the motives of many of them are not so pure)

What are the hidden motives of many of these individuals?

[dgszweda]

What are the hidden motives of many of these individuals?

You’ll note I said “suspect,” not that I knew their motives.

There are plenty of examples of reasons for suspicion, but I’ll mention just one that’s already been discussed — multiple comments (including from elected officials) about not taking a “Trump-developed” vaccine, but changing their tune now that Biden is in office. What is the motivation for that? It certainly is NOT simply the well-being of the populace. Such comments destroy their own credibility, and easily lead thinking individuals to suspect less-than-pristine motives, let alone those who already reflexively distrust government.

Again, those comments say nothing about the actual value of the vaccines, but they certainly give one pause when the same people are now spouting about science and the vaccine being necessary. Who in their right mind would believe anything they said was without ulterior motive after that? It’s a good thing we have other sources to check.

[dgszweda]

I don’t think Fauci intentionally lied with the intent to deceive the public.

I thought he admitted as much. The so-called “bold lie” because they were fearful (supposedly) of not having enough masks available, so he lied about their effectiveness. Then he changed course and said they were effective because he just didn’t want to cause a shortage…

Or something like that. I’m not bothering to look it up because I think it is pretty well established that Fauci has played fast and loose with the truth on at least that occasion (and admitted it), but seems to have done so many times during this ordeal.

His own admissions call into question his credibility. In my opinion, the US govt could do with a better and newer spokesman since Fauci has shown himself untrustworthy.

[Don Johnson]

dgszweda wrote:

I don’t think Fauci intentionally lied with the intent to deceive the public.

I thought he admitted as much. The so-called “bold lie” because they were fearful (supposedly) of not having enough masks available, so he lied about their effectiveness. Then he changed course and said they were effective because he just didn’t want to cause a shortage…

Or something like that. I’m not bothering to look it up because I think it is pretty well established that Fauci has played fast and loose with the truth on at least that occasion (and admitted it), but seems to have done so many times during this ordeal.

His own admissions call into question his credibility. In my opinion, the US govt could do with a better and newer spokesman since Fauci has shown himself untrustworthy.

I think this is a fairly accurate article of the situation. One of the key reasons I think it is accurate, is that Jacob Sullum is antagonist toward Fauci, which means he is not giving him the benefit of the doubt. I think it is also accurate because this was written in June of this year when even more information was out around private communications that Fauci had. Most news fact checking sites are marking the fact that he lied as a false statement. Jacob ends the article with the statement, “it seems fair to say he was less than completely candid about the reasons for his initial position and the reasons for abandoning it.”, which I think is a fair assessment of the situation. I don’t think Fauci was intentionally lying in order to deceive, because he was aligned to the recommendations of not only agencies like the CDC, but also other world agencies. They had access to the same data if not more data than Fauci had access to. I don’t believe that Fauci had access to unique data that other health agencies in the US or the world had access to.

https://reason.com/2021/06/04/anthony-fauci-may-not-have-lied-about-fac…

I am 100% in agreement with you that he needed to step back from all of this a while ago. One of the worse things you can do is to put a scientist in front of the media 24x7x365 over almost 2 years and expect it to go 100% smooth. I was always a strong proponent that he should have stepped back over a year ago, as I think he was just muddying the waters in many cases.

[dgszweda] Jacob ends the article with the statement, “it seems fair to say he was less than completely candid about the reasons for his initial position and the reasons for abandoning it.”, which I think is a fair assessment of the situation.

well, I read through the article. If this concluding statement is correct, there is a lie (at least one) in something Fauci said. Where the lie (or lies) is, precisely, is a little hard to tell. “Less than completely candid” is a lie, no matter how you describe it.

At best it is incompetence, at worst it is manipulative (for what reason, I don’t know). In any case, Fauci should have been turfed long ago.