Prototype wrote:Cuttooth wrote:Roughly 20,000,000 kindergarten children (taken as children aged 0-4 on 2010 census, assuming that's roughly the same rate now). CDC estimated (from
this CNN article from 2015) 5% of kindergarten children weren't vaccinated against preventable diseases.
That is an estimated one million children.
...because of Alex Jones?
Not the sole cause, no, obviously. He’s certainly a contributing factor regardless though, and points to the real harm the far-right does when handed the legitimacy of media appearances and neutral debate by a well meaning but ultimately naive centre. A centre that wants to "hear both sides" and tackle the violent and hateful rhetoric of fascism head on with debate will not win because they’ve already ceded the ground of what should be considered reasonable to the right by doing so.
That harm is I feel the thing that is overlooked the most when giving the far-right a platform to air their views. Allowing targeted abuse against minority groups or the less powerful is saying the hurt those groups have to endure from that rhetoric (and further, the potential violence they have to face because of that rhetoric being legitimised) is an acceptable cost for a peaceful society that can only be fully experienced by those
not targeted by that same rhetoric.
All forms of broadcast and print media that neutrally deliver an opinion that might be delivered by the pub racist on a Thursday night grant that view some form of legitimacy it otherwise wouldn't have. It’s why actions like boycotting companies who advertise on channels and newspapers that broadcast hate is absolutely the right (and effective!) thing to do.
If opening up room to debate hatred head on is the best way to stop it then we’ve been doing a strawberry floating terrible job of it for quite a long time.