In J. R. R. Tolkien’s novels, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf is a wise Wizard, and he is the leader of the “Fellowship of the Ring.” As a wizard, he sets out to destroy the “Dark Lord.” Although he has great power, he works mostly by encouraging and persuading. In the meme above, Gandalf is quoted as saying that there is something to be learned from everyone.
That’s the way it is supposed to work in a democracy. There is no great and wise Wizard behind the curtain who has the right to tell the people what to think and what to do. In a democracy, the people decide after hearing many different arguments from leaders who attempt to persuade and encourage various courses of action. Of course, for that to happen, it implies the people get to hear all the various sources of information.
Unfortunately, there are many rich and powerful people, especially now in the Democratic party and parts of the mainstream media, that wish to limit the various sources of information that the people are allowed to hear. They are afraid of Misinformation and Disinformation, and they want the power to control the spread of what they call dangerous misinformation.
For instance, take Al Gore. He said that people having access to information outside of mainstream media sources is a “threat to democracy” and that social media algorithms “ought to be banned… It’s an abuse of the public forum.” Presumably, he was not talking about the “misinformation he himself spread. In the late 2000s, Al Gore made a series of high-profile statements suggesting the possibility that Arctic sea ice could be completely gone during the summer by around 2013 or 2014. Ten years later, we’re still waiting. Let’s be kind, and just say that he was “misinformed.”
More recently, Rachel Maddow, the popular political commentator on MSNBC, complained about the “rise of fascism” after Donald Trump easily won the Iowa Caucus in a landslide over his Republican opponents. She basically admitted, on air, that the network decided to censor Trump’s victory speech, saying: "We will keep an eye on that as it happens. We will let you know if there is any news made in that speech—if there is anything noteworthy, something substantive and important..." We and other news organizations have generally stopped giving an unfiltered, live platform to remarks by former President Trump.”
What chutzpah! How kind of her!! She must think that her listeners are like a herd of cattle – that they are too dumb to think for themselves, and thus she must and will let them know what is “substantive and important.”
Unfortunately, this type of censorship – keeping information away from the public and not letting them decide – has gone on for a while and is increasingly happening. Two weeks before the 2020 Presidential election, the New York Post published the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop. Even though the FBI had previously concluded that Hunter’s laptop was authentic, Twitter, Facebook, the Washington Post and the New York Times all concluded it was Russian misinformation and they censored the New York Post story. Why didn’t the FBI let the people know the truth?
The withholding of important information is not limited to the FBI and the media. According to a recent report from the Epoch Times back in 2021, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) prepared to alert state and local officials to an emerging connection between heart inflammation and COVID-19 vaccines, but ultimately did not send the alert, The first cases were reported shortly after the vaccines became available in late 2020. We don’t know all the reasons the CDC did not release that information, but we do believe that the public had the right to know, so they could take that into consideration in deciding whether they should get the vaccine.
Finally, we will refer to the recent testimony of Anthony Fauci, in a US House of Representative hearing on Covid. As one of the nation’s preeminent infectious disease experts, who led our country’s response to the pandemic, he was asked about the science behind the advice that everybody should stay six feet apart. Fauci’s answer was stunning: “it just sort of appeared.” What! You mean that there was no actual scientific reason behind that rule?
Well, that would have been nice to know! This six foot rule governed all social interaction for more than two years, and the results were disastrous for so many people and institutions.
The six-foot rule isolated people and made normal societal meetings impossible. It caused a huge increase in depression and suicides. This is why schools in most states were closed and delayed in opening, and that is a major reason that young children are so far behind in learning and in developing their social skills. That is why so many restaurants and other businesses failed, closing never to reopen again. That is why so many older people died alone, and their children and grandchildren were precluded from visiting them.
There was never any reason for this rule, and there were eminent scientists who thought this and the basic covid response of government was wrong, but they were censored by the US government, working hand in hand with the large powerful media companies.
As our headline implies, the basic question should be: who decides what constitutes misinformation? Who decides who and what should be heard and not heard? The government and the large social media and news organization have made their choice – They do! The wise answer is quite the opposite. There is something to be learned from everyone. Let the people hear all the arguments, and let them decide.
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