RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-covid-commission-americans-can-trust-11624823367?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

Mr. Kulldorff, a biostatistician and epidemiologist, is a professor at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Bhattacharya, a physician and economist, is a professor at Stanford Medical School.

The pandemic is on its way out, but how many Americans think the U.S. approach succeeded? More than 600,000 Americans died from Covid, and lockdowns have left extensive collateral damage. Trust in science has eroded, and the damage won’t be limited to epidemiology, virology and public health. Scientists in other fields will unfortunately also have to deal with the fallout, including oncologists, physicists, computer scientists, environmental engineers and even economists.

The first step to restoring the public’s trust in scientific experts is an honest and comprehensive evaluation of the nation’s pandemic response. Sens. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.) and Susan Collins (R., Maine) have introduced a bill that would establish a Covid commission to examine the origins of the virus, the early response to the epidemic, and equity issues in the disease’s impact. Private foundations are also in the process of planning such a commission.

For a commission to be credible, it needs to be broad in both scope and membership. Members can’t have conflicts of interest. If the public perceives the commission is a whitewash, distrust in the scientific community will erode further. A commission must consider four major areas of the U.S. pandemic strategy:

• Public-health measures, including the closing of schools, businesses, sports, religious services and cultural events; other forms of physical distancing; protection of nursing homes; masks; testing; contact tracing; case counts; cause-of-death audits; decreased medical care; Cares Act payments to hospitals, and much more.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/battle-over-critical-race-theory-11624810791?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Critical race theory is the latest battleground in the culture war. Since the murder of George Floyd last year, critical race theory’s key concepts, including “systemic racism,” “white privilege,” and “white fragility,” have become ubiquitous in America’s elite institutions. Progressive politicians have sought to implement “antiracist” policies to reduce racial disparities, such as minorities-only income programs and racially segregated vaccine distribution.

The ideology has sparked an immense backlash. As Americans have sought to understand critical race theory, they have discovered that it has divided Americans into racial categories of “oppressor” and “oppressed” and promotes radical concepts such as “spirit murder” (what public schools supposedly do to black children) and “abolishing whiteness” (a purported precondition for social justice). In the classroom, critical race theory-inspired lessons have often devolved into race-based struggle sessions, with public schools forcing children to rank themselves according to a racial hierarchy, subjecting white teachers to “antiracist therapy,” and encouraging parents to become “white traitors.”

Alarmed state legislators have pushed back. In recent months, lawmakers in 24 states have introduced, and six have enacted, legislation banning public schools from promoting critical race theory’s core concepts, including race essentialism, collective guilt and racial superiority. Parent groups around the country have mobilized to oppose critical race theory in the classroom, arguing that it cultivates shame in white students and fatalism in minority students. According to a recent YouGov survey, of the 64% of Americans who have heard about critical race theory, 58% view it unfavorably, including 72% of political independents.

That’s a major liability for the political left. Sensing that they are losing control of the narrative on race, left-leaning media outlets have launched a furious counterattack. Liberal pundits at the New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC and elsewhere have begun spinning a new mythology that presents critical race theory as a benign academic concept, casts its detractors as right-wing extremists driven by racial resentment, and portrays legislation against critical race theory as an attempt to ban teaching about the history of slavery and racism. All three charges are false.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2021/06/27/boston-pro-palestinian-thugs-spit-at-and-curse-pro-israel-activist-n1457621

On Thursday, a group of pro-Palestinian activists surrounded Dexter Van Zile of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) at a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) rally at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. The pro-jihad protesters tried to intimidate Van Zile physically, poking their fingers in his face, shouting at him, shoving him, spitting at him, and calling him a “bitch,” “Nazi,” and “f**king pig.” Then they no doubt went away believing themselves to be on the side of righteousness. It was a small incident that reveals many of the big problems facing America today, thanks to the American Left.

Just before Van Zile was surrounded and menaced, a speaker at the pro-Palestinian rally told the crowd: “Uh, Dexter Van Zile over here is in the crowd, he’s a rabid Zionist with this group called CAMERA.” After the crowd booed and hooted, the speaker went on to explain how “Zionist racist fascists… under the guise of journalism, write only to smear and muckrake on our righteous movement.” He called upon the crowd to start chanting “Zionists, go home,” which they dutifully did, turning toward Van Zile to do so. Van Zile was surrounded, abused, and reviled shortly thereafter, even as one of the pro-jihad activists repeatedly tried to convince his companions not to do so, saying over and over again: “They will use this against us. They will use this against us. They will use this against us.”

Well, yes. And here we are. Because in the first place, no one in the crowd was saying that Van Zile should be left alone for any reason other than that surrounding him, yelling at him, and spitting on him would make the demonstrators look bad. No one reminded them of the American tradition of free discourse and Voltaire’s old adage, now completely forgotten, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” The American Left has now replaced that idea, which is at the foundation of any free society, with “If I disapprove of what you say, I will revile you, slander you, and physically menace until you are too afraid to stand up against me.”