You don't have to be an expert in everything. Just Google it when people make claims you're not sure about. And, sometimes ask for evidence. Me, when someone asks me a dumb question they could have easily Googled. Public domain image from Pikist. We humans live in abject fear that we might be publicly busted for looking stupid; that if we don’t know something we’ll be laughed at and shamed for our lack of omniscience. And sometimes we are, whether we deserve it or not. We fake it hoping they’ll take it. We make it up if we have to. Intellectual bullies, meanwhile, roam the planet looking for exactly you—someone they can shame and diminish. They may not even be experts in the topic of discussion; they just have to know a little bit more. I’m here to tell you you don’t have to know everything about everything, and you don’t lose an argument just because you admit you don’t know much about it. This spring, my Montreal filmmaker cousin stayed with me for Toronto’s annual HotDocs festival. We had a grand time hanging out, catching up, drinking ‘cuz-tinis’ and watching movies - including a few my filmmaker cousin had made. We both lean left (like me, he doesn’t let his brains fall out either) although our realms of knowledge differed. My cuz knew a lot about space travel, about which he’d made a documentary, as well as foreign defense politics, which he keeps up on more than I. “Can you name the four biggest nuclear powers in the right order?” he challenged me. No, I couldn’t, although I figured Russia, the U.S., and China all had to be on the list. They were, in that order, with France as the distant fourth. (I would have guessed Germany.) I felt a little intellectually diminished not knowing that, but then realized, hey, I’m not as knowledgeable as Alan about this. It’s okay . Image from Pexels Later, I told him about the alleged 6,000 burials of Indigenous Canadian children, which Indigenous bands claimed have died in our country’s residential schools, although they haven’t provided one single case of excavated remains. My cuz found it hard to believe. “It’s true,” I said. “Everyone’s always surprised. Look it up.” The next morning when I emerged from my bedroom he said, “Hey, you were right! I Googled this morning on the Indigenous graves and holy cow, they haven’t unearthed a single kid!” You have to Google it because it just sounds too crazy. Later, we talked about trans issues. “I find that hard to believe,” he said several times as I told him about the lack of science behind sex transitions for kids, and the driver of the sexual fetish autogynephilia in the movement, and the trans-identified men who had used access to women’s private spaces to assault or intimidate them or just to satisfy their need to ogle women and girls undressing. “I’d need to know where that came from. I’d like to see those sources,” he said. He wasn’t skeptic-bullying, it was an honest response. I really didn’t want to dig up links again like I have for so many others. “Google it,” I told him, knowing he’d find his answers in the first page of search results. He said later, “I thought about a lot of the things you said about transgender issues and came to realize that it’s okay to say, ‘I just don’t know enough about that.’” Ironically, he’d come to the same conclusion about his lack of knowledge on trans issues that I’d come to about nuclear politics. It’s liberating once you realize it’s okay to admit you simply don’t have enough knowledge about an issue. She never minded admitting she didn't know something. So what, she thought; I could always learn.― Louise Fitzhugh, Harriet the Spy Not everyone has gotten into the weeds on culture war issues as I have, and many are genuinely mystified as to why I even find them important. I can be impatient with people who don’t seem to get it, but some don’t even know what’s going on; an apolitical news-avoiding friend was surprised to find we’re now giving sex-change treatments to children. My knowledge of global politics will probably never approach my cousin’s level. It’s his bag, not mine. Nevertheless, Alan doesn’t pay much attention to the eternal Israeli-Gazan conflict and didn’t know that the Middle East took advantage of the then-new state of Israel by pushing their own Mizrahi Arab Jews out of their homelands because now they had a ‘dumping ground’ for them. How many people don’t know that Israel was only first populated by European Jews, but that a second influx came shortly later from the antisemitic Arab world? Betcha 95% of the college campus Kiddie Keffiyeh Klan don’t know that, including the ones from the Arab world. I don’t know if Alan felt momentarily stupid by my greater knowledge of trans issues or Arab Jews, but we both came to realize we’re not stupid if we don’t know as much about an issue as someone else. You learn important things talking to others, like that Indigenous bands here are making some highly spurious claims and excoriating Canadians who ask too many questions like, “Where are the bodies?” Or, that France is more nuclear-badass than you thought. Now, let’s examine when should you provide evidence, and when you should point folks to Google. Demands to ‘Prove it!’ We often end arguments by demanding, “Prove it! Send me your source!” Such requests can be valid, or wielded to mire the statement-maker in endless Googling trying to find that article they read last month by that guy, in the article in the Conversation? Or was it Quillette? Or maybe Newsweek? The challengers might not even look at it, either through lack of interest (the purpose might be to shut you up) or worse, for fear that you proved them wrong. One intellectual bully in a pro-science skeptic chat group I once belonged to put down those he deemed his inferiors by challenging them over anything. If one failed to provide evidence, he declared them ‘debunked’. If you challenged him on some claim, he’d tell you he didn’t need to provide sources, it was ‘common knowledge’. While ‘common knowledge’ is sometimes a fair response, a bully can use it to abrogate responsibility, holding others to a higher standard than himself. Another type of bully simply seeks to destroy, roaming social media looking for targets. When I was working for a technology company a few years ago I made an online joke about “Which pronouns are we using this week?” and two users tried to start a cancel campaign to perhaps get me fired, since I was posting under our professional account. I didn’t think what I said was bad, even professionally, but I checked out the two accounts and one described himself as a ‘professional Millennial,’ which I took to mean professionally unemployed, especially since he was tweeting in the middle of the day. The other person also looked suspiciously jobless. I blocked them and no other Twitterati picked up their calls for action. I wiped my forehead in relief, since my boss was absolutely phobic about ‘controversy’. Ideological bullies are near-religious about their political beliefs, whether it’s trans rights, antiracism, supporting the ICE raids or devotion to a political figure like Donald Trump. Women have finally achieved some unpleasant equity—in political and social media bullying. Some discussions are beginning to center around how feminized ‘cancel culture’ is , how much it resembles the feminine power games any female older than two years old has experienced, and that women may be behind the popularity of wokeness politics. Campus protests are dominated by women . Educator and narcissism expert Dr. Nathalie Martinek , in her article Dark neurodivergence or Cluster B traits? , analyzes what she observes as “a social pattern I’ve observed in adults who frame antisocial behaviour as trauma-based neurodivergence. These individuals often display vulnerable narcissism , covert manipulation , and antisocial tendencies that never come with real accountability. They rarely apologise unless there is something to gain. They are skilled at DARVO [deny, attack, reverse victim and offender] and consistently position themselves as the victim, the empath, and the misunderstood one.” These people, she says, reframe as ‘neurodivergence’ what is actually “indicators of arrested emotional and moral development,” rather than subject their ‘fragile identity’ to self-awareness and confrontation. Sound familiar, ladies? Nathalie notes the ‘flood’ of social media warnings about ‘narcissistic’ and ‘toxic’ people. She doesn’t mention sexes here but I’ve noticed they appear to be predominantly women, and when they’re not, they’re often men claiming to be or pretending to be women. Back when I was on Medium, it was hands-down biological women diagnosing everyone they’d ever dated or had a disagreement with as a narcissist or a toxic personality. Sound kinda like the Mean Girls you dreaded in school? Back in my early-Internet skeptic group days, on the other hand, intellectual bullies were almost all men. My ex-partner was in an email free speech/anti-censorship discussion group, where many seemed more interested in argumentative victory than actually changing minds over various media stories and court cases they were debating. There were no women on this list. He asked me if I wanted to join and I said I had no interest in an intellectual dick-slinging contest. Go figger. When do you need to provide evidence? I’m circumspect when people ask me to ‘send me your sources. I have to see them.’ It’s not bullying, it’s a fair request, but if it’s fairly common information, I tell them to Google it if I think they’ll find it on the first page of results. (My ‘common knowledge’ defense). On the other hand, if it’s not something they can easily find themselves, like a particular research paper they won’t find by general Googling—I dig it up and send it to them. That’s a valid request. I archive many articles on a thumb drive so I can find them easily. People aren’t stupid for not knowing something someone else does. (I’m assuming you don’t hang out with sub-literate NEETs who spend their entire day downloading porn, gaming, and debating whether that guy with Karolyn Leavitt is her husband or her dad.) What we shouldn’t do is allow anyone to make us feel stupid for not knowing something. We also shouldn’t bully ourselves for not knowing something. Hector from #holysmoke, the aforementioned skeptics’ group, loved laughing at others but, predictably, had no sense of humor about himself. One evening I showed up with mischief on my mind. “How do I know you’re really Hector?” I challenged him. “How do I know you’re the real deal? Have you got a DNA test to prove yourself? A notarized testimonial? Any witnesses here to whether it’s really you or not?” “Fuck you, Frenchy!” he replied. “Yep, that’s the real Hector,” everyone else laughed. He was the only one not amused. Always remember: Bullies are ridiculously insecure. Write that down! Did you like this post? Do you want to see more? I lean left of center, but not so far my brains fall out. Subscribe to my Substack newsletter  Grow Some Labia  so you never miss a damn thing! There are also Substack  and Spotify podcasts of more recent articles!

Childfree-by-choice is still and always an option. Don't listen to the most unfit, irresponsible Genghis Khan wannabes. Eight billion is enough. Tragedy stalked this family like P Diddy at a high school. Photo by the author. Public domain. The above photo is from a small cemetery around the corner from where I live. Six Bryans children, and only two made it to adulthood. I remember reading elsewhere of a nineteenth-century family in America who had twenty children, only one of which made it that far. Back then, relentless breeding was necessary to perpetuate the family line. Today, losing a child is a tragedy beyond imagining in an era where parents can reasonably expect their children to outlive them. My French grandmother lost her firstborn to a tragic accident back in France, but it’s a wonder she didn’t lose more of her six children. Although her last three were born in the late teens and ‘20s, and in America, where kids drank milk instead of wine at meals, and had vaccines for tuberculosis, diphtheria and tetanus, and wars were fought elsewhere. My mother knew a child who died of a childhood illness. Fifteen years earlier, she would have known several. Six billion humans later… The eight-billion-strong human race is in no danger of under-replacing the dead, no matter what you’ve heard from billionaires racing each other to see who can be the most Genghis Khan, at least with consent since mass rape is now largely frowned upon. Baby production is the renewed conservative obsession, propagandized by Elon Musk and Greg Lindberg, whose baby-factory network landed him in prison. Other criminal billionaires the enterprising womb can engage with is Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, who claims to have fathered over 100 babies around the world and is currently also in legal trouble in France. Rich men seek out young beautiful women to bear their children, in true 21st-century form—sexlessly. In fact, only one of Elon Musk’s children was conceived while he was there. Right-wing baby-making is liberally (ar ar) led by the very worst stereotypes of irresponsible non-fathers spreading their sperm as if that’s all that matters, who believe fathers really aren’t all that important in raising a child. (Um, how is this right-wing again?) Some conservatives ignore it, seeming to believe fathers are only tsk-tsk necessary when a woman gets pregnant by someone who isn’t an entitled rich guy. Rather, she’s a deplorable welfare ho whose kid will grow up to be a CVS smash ‘n’ grabber because he didn’t have a steady paternal hand. But when a father decides to seed a child from afar, and nothing else, many conservatives are silent, except for the ‘family values’ religious right, with whom I haven’t agreed on anything for forty years until now . Nearby are ‘tradwives’ who prefer housewifery to the rat race, and work to convince others via TikTok and Instagram that really, doing everything for your man and your children is all the fulfillment you need. While I won’t deny that avenue, it’s the very reason why Betty Friedan freed women from the family trap in the first place, since women weren’t finding the Betty Crocker life as fulfilling as they might. It was a trap for fathers, too. They didn’t get to see the kids grow up. They didn’t get to see the ‘firsts’. First smile, first wobbly step clinging to the divan, first time discovering grass. (The lawn! The lawn!) 1960s dads after a big holiday dinner. Photo by the author’s mom Gen X introduced—with some success—the notion that men should spend more time with their families, in a world in which both parents now worked, but with only limited success. Digital media made the sex divide even worse—mobile-addicted young people can’t even connect with each other like normal humans, many remain virgins , and young males (virginity Ground Zero) ruin themselves through porn or toxic influencers like Andrew Tate. While young women ruin themselves with toxic feminism and ‘progressive’ politics: Is there a real argument behind the concern about declining fertility? The reduced fertility hand-wringing isn’t for naught. Fewer or no children means no one to take care of the elderly in their dotage. Fewer taxpayers mean reduced services all around, not to mention reduced federal funding for states. Lower fertility worsens labor shortages, although wages failing to keep up with the cost of living for decades also contributes. The anti-immigration sentiment will fade quickly when populations realize they need to get shit done. The Trump administration is pondering $5,000 ‘baby bonuses’ to encourage people to go forth and be fertile—already a demonstrably failed policy, as the South Korean government has ponied up $200B trying to get South Koreans to propagate which failed to inhibit their ‘4B’ movement - No dating, no sex, no marriage, no babies. Why? Because Korean women are sick of misogynist men with prehistoric attitudes who resist women’s advancement, feel entitled to sexually harass, and are often overtly hostile. Maybe the money would have been better spent addressing the four U’s of South Korean masculinity: Undateable, unshaggable, unreliable and unmarriageable. Meanwhile, back in the States…. A more level-headed strategy for boosting birth rates won’t please liberals: Graduate from high school, get a full-time job, marry first, then have babies. Fifty years ago, everyone was doing it. Now, not so much. But as Rob Henderson pointed out in his newsletter recently, it works . The only proviso is this ain’t the 1950s and you can’t make much money on a high school education unless you learn a trade, which pays a lot less than it did before union-busting. Unions, love ‘em or hate ‘em, built the U.S. after the war, and as they declined, so to did the middle class. The drive to thrive is highly complex and will take more than one or two solutions to resolve. For certain young women, rich-entitled impregnation makes sense if she wants a child but is surrounded by man-children, and knows she can’t afford single motherhood. But. Strike a deal with a faraway sperm donor who provides the child support, and voilà ! You have a right-wing Murphy Brown . Billionaire genetics must factor in as well. Maybe she, too, could produce a genius kid who might make billions and set her for life. Except for the research she may not be aware of that consistently links negative outcomes to fatherlessness by about 76%—mental illness, suicide attempts, incarceration, dropping out of school. Environment and culture matter as much as genetics. If she doesn’t find a loving stepfather to provide the real example and effort billionaire donors don’t, she may raise the most deviously genius CVS looter in the ‘hood. Conservatives need to remember their most cherished value is that it takes two to make a baby, and, if they remain true to their ideological values, two to properly raise it. They must make up their minds: Are fathers important or not? If not, admit the libs were right and stop shaming single mothers. If not, prove it by doing it. Get married, make babies with one woman, and help raise and take care of them. But condemn those of your own who aren’t doing it right. What’s good for the libs is good for the cons. What would happen if a few billion humans quickly died off? Experts think we’ll hit peak humans at somewhere between 9-10B in a few more decades and then live with regular human decline permanently. There’s a controversial ‘ Toba catastrophe theory ’ which begs an interesting question: What if a chunk of humanity suddenly died off? The theory considers whether the human population experienced a serious reproduction bottleneck 70,000 years ago after a supervolcanic eruption in Indonesia. It’s theorized to have brought down a ‘volcanic winter’ on the world population after ejecting ash and sulfuric acid into the atmosphere, resulting in vegetation die-offs and significant cooling in some areas—and maybe to a huge decline in human reproduction. Scientists cite the fairly low genetic variation in humans at this time, without the same in other primates. After recovering from the catastrophic event, humans eventually moved out of Africa and populated other parts of the world. Archaeologists argue that some regions may have been more affected than others, while other experts argue there might have been other causes for the mass migration. So how bad would it be if something similar happened and we lost, say, a quarter of the world’s population—about two billion? That would take us back to the world of 1999. Depending on how and where the population declines were worst—most likely the poorest and unstable parts of the world—post-shock humans would eventually come together and do what needs to be done to pick themselves up and move on, like our ancestors had to do throughout human history. To misquote another great philosophical thinker—Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park, humans, like life, find a way. Which is why I don’t lose sleep over declining fertility rates. There are genuine consequences to a globally declining birth rate we need to consider and adapt to; there are, I would remind population hysterics, other solutions besides baby-making. Maybe we’ll need to spread our resources differently. Maybe we’ll need to take care of our own elderly family members more. (Maybe give that $5,000 to people caring for relatives instead.) We didn’t know how to handle a pandemic lockdown until we were forced. Rather than fretting about a baby dearth, we can accept the drop until humanity somehow collectively decides the time is right to go forth and be fruitful again. Maybe declining fertility is all just part of the natural evolutionary process. Childfree by choice is still an option There’s a lot to be said for not raising humans you don’t want. I chose the professional life, and never regretted it. My life definitely does not suck. Many others’ don’t either. In fact, it would probably be greatly to our benefit to stop fucking for ten or fifteen years. Darwin knows it would be a boon to the environment, and we keep forgetting we still have to live here since Elon can’t build a rocket yet that doesn’t explode like Mentos in Coke. It would probably suck even if he could get us there. Seriously, after about three weeks of a tedious landscape you can’t easily visit, or send the kids out to play in, you’re going to long for a walk on a beach, or a mountains horizon (with trees), or Jesus, even the flat unending plains of Saskatchewan. Geez, if this is what you want to look at for the rest of your life just build a house in Death Valley. Image generated by Poe AI The hell with baby-making. Americans especially can’t afford it now with a mentally unstable old man ruining the economy and ensuring low prices will never terrorize consumers again. If Trump’s MAGAs really want to make America fruitful again, maybe they should raise wages and stop destroying jobs. In fact, raise taxes on the rich rather than everyone else which is what tariffs do-. After all, if billionaires can afford to pay 100 women to have their babies, they can sure as hell afford higher taxes. Just sayin’. Did you like this post? Do you want to see more? I lean left of center, but not so far my brains fall out. Subscribe to my Substack newsletter  Grow Some Labia  so you never miss a damn thing! There are also Substack  and Spotify podcasts of more recent articles!

COVID-19 spotlighted political polarization and how you can't trust 'reliable sources' or even 'the science' when even the scientists were biased and censorship-crazed CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 photo by Joe Zachs on Flickr A few years ago a subscriber challenged me to learn more about the COVID pandemic and response when I asked for 'convincing evidence' re conservative skepticism. She sent me a 1,600-word missive covering The Great Barrington Declaration, lockdowns, masks, vaccines, censorship, and crappy media coverage. I pinned her response (thanks, N.S. Austin ! No, I never forgot you!) to my desktop knowing I'd get to it 'wunna deze daze' since I wanted to investigate, but not right at that moment. Then, last Christmas, I got something from my wish list: The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind by Free Press columnist Joe Nocera and journalist Bethany McLean. Gotta warn ya: This is a lengthy article. Skim over what you already know and focus on what you don’t. The Big Fail covers a broad range of pandemic issues, but my primary curiosity was about what we got right, what we got wrong, and when we simply didn't have enough information, versus when we were acting like Neolithic tribalist dumbasses. And we were. Often. How did scientists screw up the science so badly? How do you not trust a guy like Anthony Fauci? He was a physician, an immunologist, and had worked for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. His work was relentlessly cited by scientists around the globe. He’d worked with the then near-impeccable National Institutes of Health. He received the highest civilian award available in the United States, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, given by George W. Bush for his work on an AIDS relief program. The man knew his infectious diseases. So when he was attacked and criticized by Republicans, the left defended him, well-versed in Fauci’s adversaries’ historical allergy to science . There was growing evidence the left wasn’t always so keen on science either—but in 2020, we were only just beginning to take note of, for example, woke progressives’ hostility to well-established biology-based immutable sex differences. Had we been more cognizant of a ‘progressive’ political position with about as much scientific evidence as Creationism, we might have responded more knowledgeably and critically when this killer virus began spreading around the world and doctors warned it could kill millions. (The firm scientific consensus that, for example, ‘gender-affirming’ care for children had little scientific basis, wasn’t yet available). Ignorantly, but understandably, liberals panicked, because not only was there a Republican president, but he was pretty demonstrably the most intellectually-challenged man Republican voters could find. We had good reason to fear conservative ideologues. Especially when Trump pushed, to no one’s surprise, junk fixes like hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin. The man asked his coronavirus task force whether people could inject bleach , FFS! Trump did get a few things right, including a successful, fast-tracked vaccine, but he otherwise made the facts-challenged George W. Bush look like Jonas Salk. Fauci was this old, calming, and immeasurably more knowledgeable scientist . And yet, the man who exemplified ‘Follow the science’, confessed to Congress in 2024 that there was none behind multiple COVID rules, which arguably killed many more Americans and resulted in an incredible learning loss for children who couldn’t attend school. Even though kids were the least likely to suffer adverse effects or die from COVID infection. Americans masked, shut down, social distanced, enforced vaccinations—and led the world in COVID infections and deaths. How did Fauci get it so wrong? Science and politics are a bad mix, one based on evidence, the other on ideology (although that can be based in evidence as well). Fauci admitted to fudging the facts sometimes to manipulate Americans, like to get vaccinated. First he said masks weren’t effective in preventing transmission, then he said they were, and then claimed he never said that. He made honest mistakes—he said, with the best available information at the time, that it would take a year and a half to develop a vaccine, then the Trump administration put it into production by the end of 2020—successfully. He pish-poshed the Wuhan lab leak theory, despite knowing early on that experts suspected the virus hadn’t developed naturally. As of today, science points now to a natural origin although that still hasn’t been established, but it looked very bad when it was revealed that the lab may or may not have been involved in virus-altering research (also still unclear). Fauci played the media like a harp, seducing progressives and liberals to ‘follow the science’ and we thought we were. We clutched the man with undeniable credentials to our bosoms while checking in with Reddit’s Herman Cain Death List , named in honor of the failed Republican mask-shunning presidential candidate who died of COVID-19 in July 2020. The list stood as a testament to those who, as one nurse put it, ‘ refused to believe COVID was real ’ until it killed them. How did the left screw it up so badly? The left smartly embraced N95 surgical masks , which were highly effective and provided the most protection. But it also failed to challenge certain policies or ask enough questions of what the experts claimed. Our biggest fail was on lockdowns and school closings, since it made perfect sense when you consider how contagious the common cold and influenza were. The support for lockdowns in a politically polarized world is one I still can’t completely damn the left for, at least initially and for those who weren’t epidemiologists. The right knee-jerked the opposite response of anything the left supported, and the far right’s famous lack of compassion for their fellow humans made it more believable that they were just being contrary, tantrumming children. What we libs didn’t question enough was the insanity of what stayed open and what was forced to close. Schools were the worst. The initial rationale was that children and teenagers were particularly susceptible to influenza, and who wanted to take a chance with a virus that was already killing thousands? The school closure plan had been strategized by the U.S.’s response plan originator, George W. Bush—whose well-thought-out pandemic prep strategy unfortunately proved useless in an actual pandemic. It became clear early that old people and those with existing co-morbidities like diabetes and obesity were most at risk. Fauci never considered many lockdown/closedown ancillary risks, like denying children an education, when hastily-assembled Zoom classrooms quickly degenerated into no-shows. It didn’t help that the media focused on the few hundred children who did die of COVID, failing to provide the perspective that they all had extenuating circumstances and that the total number of children who died from COVID—a very tiny fraction of 1%—were dwarfed by the way the virus ripped through senior homes like Elon Musk on a DEI tear. Fauci’s and others’ COVID-19 pandemic response unfortunately reversed traditional, established, outbreak strategy—it isolated the healthy rather than the sick. Blue city San Francisco, on the other hand, got it right—they were several leaps ahead of the rest of the country by applying their decades-old AIDS control strategy. In the ‘80s, when the city became ground zero for the mysterious new STD, San Francisco responded by targeting communities where the disease clustered—like Hispanic neighborhoods, where they moved quickly to isolate the ill, rather than the healthy. Fauci didn’t take note of adversarial successes, blue or red—another huge mistake. Rhode Island was the only blue state to respond like pros. Governor Gina Raimondo, who paid attention to the data and followed the actual science, was able to force schools open in Providence where the state controlled the school system. But other cities insisted on closing the schools, which drove her crazy. She told parents who were frustrated with closed schools that if they wanted to sue the district, the state would help them. Raimondo noted the serious risks of leaving children behind to force them to go virtual, that it would irreparably harm them academically, threaten the kids with food insecurity getting free meals at school, and suffer further mental health declines. She worried about those for whom school offered a daily respite from abuse and neglect. But most other blue states and cities refused to reopen. Today, kids who suffered school shutdowns lag in math and literacy worldwide, while child suicide attempts and depression rose sharply . How did the right screw it up so badly? The right wasn’t always killing it on the facts, either. Trump’s administration teamwork was hobbled by the enduring feuds and loyalties that characterized his first term. They, too, fell prey to ‘Whatever the left believes and does, we must do the opposite’. Some red state governors curried favor with Trump by refusing to instigate sensible mitigation measures. Others parroted his aforementioned junk fixes. Then there was Florida governor Ronald DeSantis, who provided a somewhat better example than his fellow red-state leaders. DeSantis actually did follow the correct science initially, but in the latter half of the pandemic appeared more driven by conservative politics. DeSantis annoyed many conservatives by supporting vaccines, correctly observing that “The data is showing us that you are much less likely to be hospitalized or die if you are vaccinated.” This is correct; one early misunderstanding is that the vaccines prevented infection. He didn’t support, however, vaccine mandates, and his reasons appeared much more political than scientific. Whether the mandates were justified or not is still a matter of debate, clouded further by stands taken by formerly highly scientific organizations like the National Institutes of Health whose reputation has since fallen somewhat in disrepute. To those of us on the left, right-wing opposition to vaccine mandates looked rather a lot like little resistant children who’d rather put their families’ and neighbors’ lives in danger than get the Fauci Ouchie. I won’t judge DeSantis yet on his mandates resistance because we may not understand their reality for some time to come. But he did abrogate attention later in the pandemic by focusing more on the politics—‘rights’ and ‘freedoms’—than he did on the public health benefits and consequences. Nor was he always respectful of municipal agency itself. Earlier on, he supported allowing Floridian municipalities to instigate their own mitigation rules if they deemed it necessary. Later, he docked salaries of school board members who defied his edict against instituting mask mandates. (It sure did look awfully cancel-culturish to us libs!) Where the right really got it wrong was on vaccines. The American resistance to them, which were almost universally regarded a generation ago as one of the modern world’s greatest successes, was a joint effort by celebrities on both political sides who unscientifically pushed notions like that they cause autism. Many religious conservative sects have also historically resisted vaccines. While many issues still remain unaddressed, like the health problems some claimed and which were sometimes valid, the overall consensus today among health professionals is that the COVID vaccines were effective at doing what they were supposed to do. The cost of vaccine refusal in red states was predictably high. According to The Big Fail, “an ABC news analysis of federal data found that the excess death rates in states that voted for Trump were more than 38 percent higher than in states that voted for Biden.” The highest vaccination states voted for Biden, and the lowest for Trump, except for Georgia. I remember checking the Microsoft Bing COVID infection map daily and nodding sagely as the red states reddened faster than the blue states—and how the U.S. remained at the global apex with the highest infection rates throughout the pandemic. Early on, I wondered if Trump was going to ruin his own chances at a second 2020 term by killing off his voters. I still wonder today if he did. One of the most famous Herman Cain Death List casualties was the Republican ex-rock musician Meat Loaf, a high-risk individual who was elderly (74 years old) and obese. He refused to vaccinate. We libs shook our heads and tsk-tsked at the sheer stupidity. No, vaccines didn’t prevent infection all that well, but the N95 masks that might have saved Meat Loaf’s life did, and vaccines kept you out of the hospital—and the morgue. These are the big fails of the right. When I finally got COVID, in January 2023, it lasted only a few days, with a nastier but not life-threatening cough than I got from colds. I was a virtuous, compassionate liberal and stayed inside for five days, with my neighbor helping with my laundry and grocery shopping. For five days after, I masked when I went outside, in accordance with Health Canada recommendations. No, I didn’t want to accidentally kill anybody, and even today I feel disgust at those political children—right or left—who may have. Still, under DeSantis the Florida economy did much better than those who obeyed the government and shut down. He took a lot of blowback from allowing the beaches to remain open. Florida closed far fewer businesses and as a result became an attractive state for startups. DeSantis focused, correctly, on the elderly who were the prime victims of COVID and most likely to die from it. Young people in bars and on beaches might contract it but almost no one died. As for Trump, he appointed a team led by a project-capable Jared Kushner, fast-tracked vaccine development with Operation WarpSpeed, and pushed out the first vaccines by Christmas 2020. The Big Fail offers a fascinating look into how they pulled it off. How did censorship hobble our response? Many raised their voices, challenging and questioning the draconian policies imposed by governments around the world, and those speaking truth to power were shut down and censored, much of it fuelled by political polarization. Too many politically knee-jerked, because if the other side was in favor, or not, of a particular policy, response, or vaccine, they themselves opposed it. Scientists censored, too. Those with dissident views watched their tweets, posts, and YouTube videos taken down. Martin Kulldorff, an epidemiologist and biostatistician, wasn’t just censored on LinkedIn for an article criticizing national pandemic response, his profile was removed, too. He was fired from his job at Harvard Medical School for the crime of being right. Others described his and Jay Battarcharya’s similar theories as ‘pixie dust and pseudo science’. Scientists attacked one another for following science rather than official party diktat. Many kept quiet, knowing nothing good could come out of telling the truth. The Great Barrington Declaration In October 2020, a think tank convened in the lovely Massachusetts Berkshires to debate pandemic strategies. Luminaries included Kulldorf, Battarcharya, and Sunetra Gupta from Oxford University, who disliked the lockdowns. They spent a weekend discussing mitigation strategies, and all agreed that, big surprise, the elderly should be the prime focus until vaccines became available. In this way everyone could get back to their lives and the economy could start rolling again. They summarized their findings in a one-pager they named the Great Barrington Declaration and published it on social media. And of course, all hell broke loose. The GBDers criticized lockdown policies and noted their horrific impacts on mental health. They also named “lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health—leading to greater excess in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden.” ( The Big Fail’ s theme is who, how and why some Americans got left behind.) Their goal, they stated, was to “minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity,” along with recommendations for nursing homes, where the virus decimated so many seniors. It also called for opening the schools again. Long story short, it went viral, a few hundred thousand people signed it, and—the critics drowned it out who claimed relying on herd immunity was unethical and questioned whether it was possible to protect seniors and the immunocompromised since together they comprised 30% of the US population. The British medical publication The Lancet, the medical sparkies who ironically linked childhood vaccines to autism, arrogantly called the GBD’s strategy “a dangerous fallacy unsupported by scientific evidence.” And once again, the Fauci gang criticized the Declaration as well. This is only one of many reasons why today, in 2025, it’s become much more difficult to ‘follow the science’, especially with how far scientific journal reputations have fallen. Dr. Anthony Fauci: The Seymour Hersh of the healthcare world. Both men with sterling careers that ended in nuttiness. Are we set to screw it up again next time? I don’t usually write articles this long and if I gave the amount of detail I’d like to in this one it would probably be two or three times longer. The Big Fail is an engaging read that both criticizes and praises the left, right, and scientists for their reactions to the pandemic and the government/healthcare response. There’s a whole chapter on how American healthcare began to privatize in 1968 and how it’s led to better healthcare for the rich and less for the poor, who were disproportionately disabled and killed by COVID. (It doubled poverty.) We could take a closer look at the problems surrounding WHO and the CDC, and the pandemic scams that multiplied faster than COVID, it seemed, skimming billions off the response as America scrambled to source enough N95 masks for healthcare workers, let alone the public. Their prime supplier was China, from whom there were far fewer available now as they took care of, understandably, their own population as well as supply all other China-dependent countries with them. There’s plenty more about the politics, the polarization, and how countries fail when they don’t trust their government (Sweden was an uncommon success story; guess what, because they trusted their trustworthy government). If you don’t trust yours, or the last one, ask yourself why, and whether America is producing leadership candidates of appropriate calibre. In the end, for me anyway, I find the uneven COVID response to be a case study in how politics and polarization don’t mix with science. Have we learned our lessons? Probably some, but not others. And now we have a government only 39% of Americans trust, and scientists who must now fight for open science , rather than the social justice-infused pseudoscience that has led to so many ruined lives. It took me as long as I did to embrace N.S.’s challenge to delve deeper into COVID because I wanted a source that was unbiased and factual; in the olden days you knew to avoid opinion factories like podcasts and social media influencers, and stick with the respectable journals. Five years ago that was a viable option; today, six years after I began regularly consulting Media Bias Fact Check and Snopes to check bias and factualism, I find even the best sources like the AP and Reuters infected with social justice nonsense and bias. It’s something we should all be thinking about when the Next Big Pandemic hits. I’m not sure how I’m going to follow the science. Or who. But I will listen to conservatives more. And I hope they will listen to liberals more, too. Because no one got it all right, or all wrong. Did you like this post? Do you want to see more? I lean left of center, but not so far my brains fall out. 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"GROW A PAIR" That's what we say to men when we think they're acting weak. "Grow some balls!" So what do we say when women are acting weak? We can't very well tell them to grow some balls. Women can't, of course! Women need to 'grow some labia'! They're the parts of the vagina that would have become the scrotum for the balls had she been born a male instead (and since she didn't, what would have been her balls are her ovaries). But I doubt you came here for a female anatomy lesson. It's time for us to grow some labia and woman up, show more strength, challenge ourselves more. Time to take more charge and responsibility for our lives, and spend less time blaming 'The Patriarchy' or systemic sexism. Those things exist, for sure, but at some point we've got to recognize the buck stops with the woman in the mirror and we need to claim our power (or reclaim it if we gave it away somehow!) So it's time for women everywhere to GROW SOME LABIA! I've written a few blog posts about how we can do exactly that and reclaim our power! Feminism The differences between victim feminism, which sees women as chronically aggrieved and victimized by men and 'The Patriarchy', and power feminism, which is more focused on one's self, achieving and claiming personal power and using it for the betterment of others. Dec 21, 2024 The Transfolk Who Really Do Need Our Support The experience of 'The Bearded Lesbian' reminds us some folks really do need to transition; and how LGBTQ can fail them I began following... Dec 5, 2024 American Feminists Don't Need A 4B Movement The South Korean feminism project will be dead in the water. Like it or not, we need men, and they need us. Maybe we just need to reform... Nov 24, 2024 Emma Watson, Emma Watson, Wherefore Art Thou, Emma Watson? The foxy fauxminist has gone missing in recent years. No movies. No fauxminist outbursts. Not even any trans love tweeted. I... Nov 17, 2024 Progressive Democrats Hate Women More Than The Right. Especially Feminists. Right-wing misogyny isn't How The Left Was Lost. It was women's, the primary administrators and executors of patriarchy and misogyny. The... Oct 12, 2024 A Frenchwoman Is Dead Serious About Holding ALL Her Rapists Accountable The Gisele Pelicot case highlights just how frighteningly high is the number of 'normal' men who have a penchant for, and might be... Sep 14, 2024 Let's Have A Grownup Talk About Privilege - With Curiosity Rather Than Outrage It's real. It's worth exploring even for the UnWoke. Its purpose is to open our own eyes rather than beat up others (and ourselves) over... Feminism Substack Subscribe to my FREE SUBSTACK NEWSLETTER for all my latest on power feminism, reclaiming your power, and the ongoing culture wars. Visit Substack >> Subscribe to my FREE SUBSTACK NEWSLETTER

WELCOME TO MY WEBSITE ABOUT POWER Big Girls Don't Blame The Patriarchy Explore The Blog LABIA POWER! About Me Grow Some Labia! is written by a liberal, feminist writer and social justice critic who teaches women and others how to reclaim their power and avoid partner abuse. She also candidly critiques far-left, progressive/woke/ social justice extremism. It's a place for people who lean left or right, but not so far their brains fall out. GSL's work can be found here and on Substack, Quora. And maybe a few other places. About Me The Latest From My Labia Power! Blog 5 days ago Daniel Penny: The Hero That Wasn't "He scared the living daylights out of everybody." The woke left damns Daniel Penny for trying to save others from a clearly disturbed... Jan 4 We Have To Think About Moderating X, Bluesky And Other Social Media The anoymous psychos who call for others' assassinations are a direct threat to democracy and public safety. Threats are NOT free speech.... Jan 1 Here Comes The 'Woke Right' And It Looks A Helluva Lot Like The Woke Left Brand-new management, same as the last! But the bipartisan UnWoke have the recent accumulated observation to help call out the... Dec 25, 2024 Roman Holiday - A Christmas Story Oh no! Not another Messiah! CC0 public domain Just what we need. Another bloody Messiah. The name’s Flatulous. I’m a Roman soldier in... Dec 21, 2024 The Transfolk Who Really Do Need Our Support The experience of 'The Bearded Lesbian' reminds us some folks really do need to transition; and how LGBTQ can fail them I began following... Dec 14, 2024 Is There Any Real Joy In Learning Anymore? Can students even experience learning something intriguing or unexpected? Or are they only told what to think? "Just kill me now!"... Explore The Blog DON'T BE THE VICTIM Take back your power. NOW. It started with abused women who didn't know they could say No to abuse. It morphed into taking back your power from political bullies and haters, including 'social justice warriors'. Don't Be The Victim GROW SOME LABIA "Grow a pair!" That's what we say to men when we think they're acting weak. "Grow some balls!" So what do we say when women are acting weak? We can't very well tell them to grow some balls. Women can't, of course! Women need to 'grow some labia'! Grow Some Labia I also take on the crazies from the right and the left. Subscribe to my FREE SUBSTACK NEWSLETTER

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