The politicization of medicine is a horrible development. Instead of trying to figure out what’s true, we now take sides on medical issues based on politics. When it comes to life-or-death medical issues, it’s a disaster. Our government now acts as a filtering censor: “We know what’s true. Anyone else who says otherwise is simply wrong.” What if the government happens to be right about something, even by accident? Those who correctly mistrust the government’s motives might dismiss good information for political reasons. Similarly, those on the other side will tend to blindly believe whatever the government (and its media) say is true.
Not only has medicine been politicized. Media has been too. While a marginal number of media outlets and websites are dissenters, the vast majority are all spokespersons for the government. That’s very, very unhealthy. The media is supposed to be the skeptic — not the water boy — for the government. Better too much skepticism than too little. The only difference between today’s media and the state-run news organizations run by dictatorships is that today’s media is highly paid … by advertisements from big corporations who are ALSO spokespersons for the government.
There’s a word for all this: FASCISM. Fascism is where you have the pretense of capitalism and private property, but everything is really run by the government … through the highly paid corporations. Think of it as socialism or Communism on an expensive champagne budget, rather than a cheap beer budget.
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