Lilico, Vine, Hodges and Peters have all made this argument: "I won’t accept another lockdown [...] to protect those who have failed to conduct their civic duty by getting the vaccine and protecting us all from infection."
Nobody I have read that has said they are not getting the vaccine has demanded that lockdown be extended.
It's a straw man.
A massive straw man.
It's a way of shifting responsibility for endless lockdowns away from the government.
And those idiot hacks are willingly reproducing that argument, on the government's behalf.
The vaccine refusers don't want the protection.
The vaccine takers don't need the protection.
The government is unable to manage a way out of the fearmongering hole it has dug.
Here is why I am not taking the vaccine.
It is manifestly clear that the government and institutional science decided to manage this crisis by both fearmongering and indulging fear mongering.
In doing so, they abused trust in the government and in institutional science.
I do not take medicine or medical advice from people or institutions I do not trust.
I think they have acted in bad faith.
I do not believe that they have our best interests at heart.
And I think they have used the crisis to advance their own agendas.
Zero trust remains.
And I have EVEN LESS regard for moron scribblers like Dale, Vine, Peters, Hodges and Lilico who believe it is their job to divide society into good little obedient people and selfish evil-doers.
That cannot restore trust. It can only deepen the problem caused by their bad faith.
For clarity. I have not looked at the vaccine 'science'. I don't care whether or not it is 'effective'. I don't know whether it is gene therapy, or protein spikes, or whatever. My decision is based on my estimation of the government and institutional science.
Dale knows as much about statistics and risk analysis as I know about physically attacking pensioners on Brighton seafront -- perhaps the only subject about which I would ever defer to Dale's knowledge and experience.
A thread in which a Blairite climate wonk counters @SteveBakerHW's claim that #NetZero is 'a “ruinous experiment”' by claiming it 'isn’t backed up by evidence', by only citing evidence from #NetZero advocates and wonks.
It uses the authority of the orthodoxy's institutions to refute heresy.
Here, the @IEA's report is taken at face value, as though there could be no questions about the IEA's thinking, let alone its standing in domestic policymaking.
And here, it is the echo of the Stern Review's orthodoxy, carried forward by the CCC and others, that the cost will "only" be 1-2% of GDP. This forgets that those "studies" can be challenged, and were simply obedient to, rather than independent of Stern.
This keeps getting shared. It's odd that a tech billionaire should be interested in land, but 242,000 acres is not as big a holding as would be required to bring about an apocalypse. By my calculations, it's 328 sq miles - a square 19miles on each side.
“When people attempt to rebel against the iron logic of Nature, they come into conflict with the very same principles to which they owe their existence as human beings. Their actions against Nature must lead to their own downfall.” ― Adolf Hitler
"There is nothing unconservative about environmentalism – quite the opposite. Done properly, it can unite different strands of Tory thought, and tackling climate change is far too important to be ceded to the Left." -- @Madz_Grant
It should be obvious that if you need environmentalism to "unite different strands of Tory thought", then Tory thinking is disuniting and disunited. Environmentalism is not medicine for political ills. It is poison.
Yet it is what all dysfunctional political and public institutions have used to rescue themselves from their terminal mediocrity and irrelevance, and crises of legitimacy. The EU. The Royal Family. The Pope. I could go on... The green alignment belies deep foundational problems.
In what way will "legally-binding targets" to "restore nature" help to reopen the countless businesses that have folded? How will planting trees cut the millions on the waiting list? How will making life nice for fucking pigeons help recover the lost year of education?
Species are not in decline. There is no need for planting trees. The country is plenty green enough. And "legally-binding" targets merely prevent any possibility of building back anything that can help the economy.
This endless tree-hugging while millions and millions of people face an uncertain future is a symptom of totally degenerate politicians, political parties and Parliament.