Ad Hominem, Ad Nauseum

last refuge of those not up to a rational debate

Quoting from my favorite web-based quick reference guide to logical argument flaws (“Your Logical Fallacy Is”):

A logical fallacy is a flaw in reasoning. Logical fallacies are like tricks or illusions of thought, and they're often very sneakily used by politicians and the media to fool people. Don't be fooled! This website has been designed to help you identify and call out dodgy logic wherever it may raise its ugly, incoherent head.

ad hominem

You attacked your opponent's character or personal traits in an attempt to undermine their argument.

Ad hominem attacks can take the form of overtly attacking somebody, or more subtly casting doubt on their character or personal attributes as a way to discredit their argument. The result of an ad hom attack can be to undermine someone's case without actually having to engage with it.

Example: After Sally presents an eloquent and compelling case for a more equitable taxation system, Sam asks the audience whether we should believe anything from a woman who isn't married, was once arrested, and smells a bit weird.

And of course, what is “Ad Nauseum”? Per Merriam Webster -

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This essay follows a gradient from real world to clown world in three segments.

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Sunday was Fathers’ day here in the USA, and perhaps elsewhere. I generally do not keep track of holidays in other countries and regions. Perhaps I should. Surely I will be criticized promptly and relentlessly by the trolls for that deficiency. My dereliction is probably why the planes hit the twin towers and the Pentagon. I will leave it up to my cadre of personal cyberstalkers to build the case. Which they undoubtedly will. Moving on….

The stars had aligned, and Jill and I had been able to schedule Fathers’ day weekend with Son #1, his wife and two young children, boy and girl (biologically), 4 and 2 1/2 years. Right dead center in the “cute as a button but terrors when past their bedtime” age window. About a four hour drive from our farm in Virginia. So off we went early Saturday. Unfortunately, a 10+ car pile up and jackknifed tractor-trailer ahead of us on the interstate delayed arrival for about an hour.

I had forgotten how much work is involved in raising young children. Retrograde amnesia regarding past trauma must be the explanation. Good heavens! I vote for “young parents day” as a new national holiday. They are the ones that need it the most.

So Sunday, Fathers day, dawns at the mountain home of the young parents. We are sleeping upstairs, and I awake to the sound of a happy chattering 2 1/2 year old talking to her mom. No plans, looking forward to at least half a day spent with these lovely growing young minds and their infinitely patient parents.

Saturday before we had walked a canoe down through national forest to the lake, and with Son #1 on stern paddle and me up front in the bow, had taken grandmom and granddaughter for a lake tour (which left me exhausted and desperate for a double espresso). Off to a local gallery to view a range of amazing framed collages, including ones made by the children, then dinner of tacos, quesadillas, and a shared slice of peach cheesecake at a local outdoor mountain cafe. A walk holding the hands of the children down and up a long trail of stairs to view a local gorge and bridge, and then (having worn out the kids) back home and off to bed. A perfect day.

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And so back to Sunday. Awaking to the happy chatter. Jill is already awake and on the internet (another mountain home enabled by Starlink). She says “Tommy has been texting you. Twitter is blowing up. Something about Bobby, Rogan, Peter Hotez and Elon. He wants you to do a hit today to discuss.”

Stop the world, I want to get off please. I just want a cup of coffee and to listen to the happy little one chatter away. But duty calls. Reality bites.

At this point, I am aware that RFKjr recently did a podcast with Rogan, but have neither watched nor listened. For heavens sake, I still have not even watched the Mikki Willis “Plandemic 3” video, in which I am apparently featured - or so I have been told. Big reveal for some, I am not a narcissist- I have many flaws, but not that one.

So, migrate down the stairs, get the first cup of joe, and onto the web to figure out what this is all about. Jill writes to Tommy that we will leave early so that I can get back to the studio to do the hit. Searching on Brave with keywords “Rogan” and “Kennedy”, one of the top hits is a “Vice News” article that is clearly a smear/hit piece. Ad homineum, ad nauseum. Pretty much exactly what I have come to expect from “Vice News”. Frankly, I cringe as I write the word “News” as part of that title. It should be named “Vice Propaganda”. I immediately recognized all of the same tactics that have been deployed against me so often over the last three years. The superficial regurgitating of approved narrative, unwillingness to address the actual issues raised, and of course the “liberal” substitution of ad homineum attacks for actual reporting and analysis. This is all driven by the classical fifth generation warfare/PsyOps/propaganda playbook. Have they no shame? No self-awareness?

Having consumed both the coffee and the dose of “Vice” propaganda and smears masquerading as journalism, I take a moment to look at whatever the heck is going on over at Twitter. Yup, Tommy is correct. Shizastorm in progress. Peter Hotez, the self-appointed tip of the spear attack dog for the anointed academic vaccinologist elites (the ones that FDA and CDC rely on for their “oversight” committees), has decided to follow up on the “Vice” article by jumping into the fray, amplifying the Vice smears and adding his own ad homineums.

As an aside, if you have any interest in watching an example illustrating the sneering condescension typically seen with these anointed priests of academic vaccinology, watch this one in which Paul Offit and “ZDoggMD” provide a classical case study in the academic culture which I find so abhorrent. Just for the record, inventorship is determined by the US Patent and Trademark office, not by Paul Offit or “ZDoggMD”.

But what could possibly go wrong for Baylor Dean Dr. Peter Hotez? The corporate media/pharma shills have already done such a good job characterizing RFKjr as a nut job anti-vaxxer that this should be like shooting fish in a barrel as he continues to strive for hero status and universal adulation as a somewhat more round version of Fauci.

So what does go wrong is that the big dog (Joe Rogan), who almost never gets involved in a Twitter controversy, decides to intervene. Now just to be clear, corporate media understandably sees Joe Rogan as embodying their worst nightmare. With this substack, Jill and I often hit daily view numbers which are in the range of CNN daily audience numbers. Which I admit is a bit of a low bar these days, but then if you adjusted for our relative daily budget expenses we blow the CNN operation out of the water. But Joe Rogan on Spotify makes us look like pikers. He makes CNN look like amateurs, in terms of market size (which is the only metric these media types really care about). When corporate media look at Joe Rogan and his numbers, they can see their obituaries coming at them like a freight train.

Joe responds to Hotez by offering 100K$ to the charity of his choice if he will come on together with Bobby on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Now just for the record, if that was to happen, the viewership numbers on that would be worth WAY more than 100K$. Just saying. The financial conflicts of interest here abound. Everyone has an angle. Hotez is getting ready to launch a book where he pontificates about how “science” (or I would say the church of scientism) is under threat from misinformation. So this all works for Hotez. Most would agree that Bobby would mop the floor with Hotez, so it works for him as a presidential candidate. And of course Spotify/Rogan would win. A true win-win-win scenario. Whats not to like?

And into the fray jumps (on one side) the usual academic high priests of vaccinology defending Hotez, saying that he should not debate someone who is not an approved “scientist”, yammering about how Bobby is fringe (yeah, so fringe that he has a legitimate shot at winning the presidency) and basically throwing the usual ad homineum insults. And on the opposite side, more big dogs join in on Rogan’s side (including Steve Kirsh and then Elon Musk!) and up the stakes by adding more incentive money to the pot. Last I checked it was up to 2.5M $ to the charity of Hotez’ choice. Which creates quite a dilemma. Anyone so committed to charitable works as Hotez likes to broadcast that he is would seemingly jump at an opportunity to take one for the team and risk an ego bruise or two for the cause.

The corporate media claims that Hotez is being “Stalked” and “harassed” by (two) “anti-vaxxers” (Yipes! personally surprised that the “anti-semite” card was not played). For your reading pleasure, here is the corresponding “analysis” by Pravda on the Potomac (Washington Post) about this crisis. Now clown world is in full bloom.

And I have to try to step into this mess. At this point, on Fathers day I am committed to leaving the home of my grandchildren early so that I can drive back to my studio and record a podcast discussing this whole situation. Joe Rogan’s characterization of the “Vice News” article as “Dogshit” (or would that be dogeshit at this point?) comes to mind. In the midst of an amazing display of childish academic and corporate media immaturity, how can I intervene to try to bring clarity and some modicum of wisdom, balance and sanity? The behavior of Hotez and his defenders reminds me most of a squabble between the 4 and 2.5 year old grandchildren.

This is not scientific discourse. This is a serious topic - the safety of the pediatric vaccination schedule and the rise of autism. And the only one behaving like a scientist is actually a lawyer and presidential candidate. In opposition, we see others, typically grown men and senior academics, acting like school yard bullies. Ad homineum, ad nauseum.

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Now for act three in this sorry tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Jill loads the Spotify Rogan episode in question into her cell, and we drive back home listening to Bobby and Joe having a wide ranging chat. Frankly, Bobby should not have let Joe drag him into the whole 5G/WiFi controversy. That one deserves its own segment, and it is not RFKjr’s core competency. Bobby comes out of the gate swinging, wrapping his initial statements in lawyerly hyperbole after Joe’s rambling introductory “mea culpa” monologue about his willing acceptance of the approved corporate media storyline about Bobby. And for added measure, a bro love aside about a chance meeting of the two in the mountains. Not my style, but who am I to criticize these two. As I listen carefully for “misinformation” (or misstatements), what I hear rings pretty detailed, highly referenced, and for the most part accurate.

Kennedy is repeatedly raising important and valid issues about one of the most critical topics in public health, and he is being pretty cautious about documenting how he came to this point and the studies that back up his assertions. The interview drags out way too long (again, who am I to criticize about that!), and as Bobby tires he gets some stuff wrong at the margins. It was the “designed to fail” HCQ trials that overdosed the patients to a toxic level, not the Ivermectin “designed to fail” trials. For example, the trick used for the Ivermectin trials was to dose with too little too late.

And now, arriving home, I had to synthesize this into a podcast interview while avoiding the tit-for-tat, ad homineum, ad nauseum fecal storm which is so seductive, so easy, so pleasing to the already converted. But the challenge is how to be the grownup here. What can I contribute to help the listener, and particularly the listener who is part of the “persuadable middle”, see through the mudslinging and be able to make their own evaluation of the underlying issues. To see through the fog of (fifth generation, propaganda) war and understand what the real issues here are.

Here is a link to the resulting Rumble podcast. Not perfect, but I tried.

And on Spotify.

Bottom line?

The academic vaccine elite need to grow up (or grow a pair…) and realize that they are about to be subjected to a level of public scrutiny that they have never encountered. They have lived very sheltered, protected lives, never being challenged, with Big Pharma backing their every utterance, suckling at the breast of forever NIH funding, and both CDC and FDA treating them like little gods. Those days are passing now. The days of fawning adulation from corporate media will also pass at some point.

The public is becoming increasingly resistant to the arrogant, condescending “ad homineum, ad nauseum” gaslighting strategy. They got it wrong during the COVIDcrisis, again and again, and still are unable to come to terms with what that means. Will they be held accountable? How long can corporate media continue to come to their rescue?

All I know is that in the interim, I am going to continue to get asked on short notice to provide an alternative “insider” view, and those condescending academics are not going to like what they hear from me. And oh- by the way - Charlie Kirk asked me to come on for today’s show. I suspect he is going to want to discuss this also. Perhaps I will see you there.

So please, all of you, continue to ask questions of those arrogant, entitled academics who act as if they are above reproach. “The Science” is not settled, and it is not owned by academics, the WHO, or the WEF. Science is an intellectual inquiry process, not an object. A process, not an endpoint. It is never settled. And when you hear someone asserting otherwise, you will be able to immediately tell that they are blowing smoke. Choosing my words carefully there. And Bobby is not a fringe candidate, no matter what tired, pre-digested ad homineums the entitled academic vaccine elite may wish to regurgitate.

So stay awake, my friends, and think for yourself. Until next time.

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