Censoring "Misinformation:" Don't Do It!

Why are our rulers so bent upon censoring "misinformation?" As a Thoroughly Modern Millie that believes in the truth of Critical Theory -- the original truth, that you cannot know things-in-themselves, so every fact and every truth is subject to change -- I can't believe that our wise rulers want to censor non-regime narratives.

We've seen, in living color over the last year, how the narrative changes.

First of all, masks didn't work. Then they did. Now it seems that masks don't make a blind bit of difference. Probably.

Then hydroxychloroquine, a non-prescription drug for malaria seemed like a good idea, then it wasn't because Trump, and now it seems to work. Ditto Ivermectin. But did you know that hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin are over-the-counter drugs and so Big Pharma doesn't make too much money on them?

Eric Erickson has more details on all the changing narratives.

Why do governments -- and religions -- insist on a single narrative, and label conflicting information as "misinformation" and "heresy." Why do they think that there is a good reason to block annoying voices that challenge the official narrative?

I suspect that it has something to do, first, with military culture, because once the military leader has decided upon a route of march or a tactic or an attack, then it would be disastrous in the short term to keep debating the options.

I also suspect that it has something to do with the female culture, where all the women in the community pretty well agree on things. And any woman that does not agree finds that nobody will talk to her.

There is also, of course, the shabby reason that most of politics is about division, shaming the opposition, and getting on with the loot and plunder. So the sauntering politician does not like to have his narrative or his policy questioned, because that challenges his status as glorious leader.

You can see that in the recent flap about the Biden administration wanting to silence several voices that were challenging its policy on COVID, particularly the efficacy of vaccination. The Biden administration and all good people want everyone to get vaccinated. Because science.

But there's a lot of pushback out there, from various quarters, suggesting that the vaccination doesn't stop transmission, doesn't stop you from getting reinfected, has serious side effects. From the point of view of the rulers, this is all dangerous misinformation -- insurrection even! Michael Barone:

[Biden press secretary Jan Psaki] called on Facebook to suppress 12 accounts that she said were spreading "misinformation" about COVID-19 vaccines. These accounts, she said July 15, were "producing 65% of vaccine misinformation on social media platforms."

"Facebook needs to move more quickly to remove harmful, violative posts. Posts that would be within their policy for removal often remain up for days, and that's too long. The information spreads too quickly."

Well, maybe. If we assume that the Biden administration is really leveling with us, and really knows its stuff, and really has the science straight and is not just playing politics with us. 

See, the reason we have a First Amendment and the reason we have LEDs is that back in the day our rulers agreed that nobody had a monopoly on the truth, and that anyone that did have a monopoly on truth would abuse that monopoly. Just like monopolists in the business world.

And that is what Critical Theory was about, before lefties decided to turn it into a political weapon. Critical Theory says that your brilliant theory of "life, the universe, and everything" may explain everything so far, but what about tomorrow? That is why the physicists' union demands "rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."

Now, the theory of the moment with respect to the COVID epidemic and the response to it is obviously not a theory with the prestige of Newton's mechanics, or Einstein's relativity. The government and its scientist bureaucrats are dealing with a disease about which we do not know everything we need to know. The facts change every day. And the government, like all governments, tends to be slow to change its mind when the facts change. As they do. Governments tend to stick with a narrative and demand people conform to the narrative until the day when the narrative is utterly exploded and even nice liberal ladies with virtue-signaling yards signs in the front yard realize it.

But I don't care. I think that the Biden administration and its Democratic operatives with bylines in the media are going to end up with egg on their faces. Because they cannot control the narrative, and shouldn't imagine that they can, or think that controlling the narrative will have a better outcome for the Biden administration, the Democratic Party, and the nation than allowing a frank and fair discussion of the science and the issues.

But what do I know?