Thread by @tim4hire

Politics is often about crafting a statement that is technically correct but which allows for misleading impressions to be drawn when those impressions can be politically beneficial. In that light:
#cdnpoli #cpcldr
1/12

https://twitter.com/LeslynLewis/status/1562841881603497986

Dr Lewis’s blog on the Nuremberg principles is notable in that the specific examples cited (two of which dealt with Black and Indigenous people in North America) are good reminders of how we have failed to meet those principles.

2/12

They particularly show how marginalized people have been mistreated medically by governments, particularly if also racialized. Dr Lewis’s specific examples are indisputable, and she absolutely is correct in pointing them out for the horrible wrongs they are.

3/12

Of course, much of the recent references to the Nuremberg principles have come from anti-vaccine nut-jobs who are convinced that governments have violated those principles with their COVID-19 vaccination programs, especially the mandates. Dr Lewis must certainly know this.

4/12

She does not, however, address this directly. Instead, she calls on us to not forget “modern day abuses of any human experiment based on coercion”. Anti-vaccine advocates have called the COVID-19 vaccine experimental. It is not.

5/12

She worries about types of coercion: “including attempts to entice participants … [and] threatening punishment through ultimatums that will interfere with ones [sic] normal livelihood or mobility”.

Sounds exactly like what anti-vaccine advocates say about the mandates.

6/12

Of course, Dr Lewis doesn’t come out and explicitly say that the COVID-19 vaccine, or any of the mandates, violate the Nuremberg principles. So, she can deflect from any attack on that point (as she is doing in her tweet). But …

7/12

No one reads in a complete vacuum. The context that exists today is the frequent, but unfounded, arguments that the vaccine or the mandates violate the Nuremberg principles. So, people reading her blog will read in that context and apply it to what she has written.

8/12

A dog whistle, after all, isn’t something humans actually hear. Dr Lewis’s figurative dog whistle in her blog is likewise invisible. But just as a real dog whistle brings dogs running, the blog attracts the anti-vaccine fringe.

9/12

Of course, Dr Lewis and her apologists can (and will) deny this. She can even point out how she is defending highly disadvantaged Black and Indigenous peoples. She can argue her critics are “cancelling” a Black woman just because her message is true, as opposed to “woke”.

10/12

Dr Lewis is highly educated, a lawyer and an experienced politician. She knows how to communicate clearly. And yet she makes no mention about the current context of the Nuremberg principles in her blog, but does echo some of the arguments made by anti-vaccine advocates.

11/12

It’s disingenuous, and a trick used by people who want to deny they ever said the silent message. Sadly, it often works.

Don’t let it. We all know what she meant.

12/12

P.S. See Exhibit “A”, below.

https://twitter.com/kayceemaduyeg/status/1562850251694022657

P.S. 2. Exhibit “B” which suggests some people are hearing a dog whistle and are amplifying it.

https://twitter.com/DavidMc71590985/status/1562927516624584704

P.S. 3 . Exhibit “C” which shows that other conservative-leaning individuals also recognize the dog whistle, and (justly) don’t like it.

https://twitter.com/brianlilley/status/1562889234251681793

And now the anti-vaccine crowd is starting to come out. Just because you consume a steady diet of disinformation doesn’t make the batshit true.

https://twitter.com/catdancing10/status/1563231511234498560