Lab leak intelligence exposes misinformation police
Washington Examiner
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It appears that the people who came down with COVID-19 before anyone else were scientists who worked at the Chinese virology lab in Wuhan. This makes it difficult, bordering on ludicrous, to deny the virus originated in that lab. The latest reports, citing U.S. intelligence, point very clearly toward that conclusion.
What’s more, the intelligence suggests the Chinese research in question was funded by the U.S. government.
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There are a hundred lessons to learn from this story, including how much we should mistrust China’s government and whether we should fund its research laboratories.
The Biden administration probably does not welcome this news, as America’s relationship with China is already compromised by the administration’s incompetence. An overly friendly visit to Beijing by Secretary of State Antony Blinken made no sense when paired with President Joe Biden’s remarks at a fundraiser labeling Chinese President Xi Jinping a dictator and mocking him over the spy balloon.
Though the key lesson is not about China but about humility. It’s a lesson not merely for Biden but for a broad swath of America’s elite class: Stop trying to shut down opinions you dislike by labeling them “disinformation” and instead engage with them honestly. Today’s “misinformation” might become tomorrow’s verified truth.
In 2020, Twitter suspended a Chinese virologist for arguing the virus leaked out of a lab. The World Health Organization asked Facebook to remove as “misinformation” all posts arguing that “COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured.” Facebook complied.
“Someday we will stop talking about the lab leak theory and maybe even admit its racist roots,” New York Times pandemic reporter Apoorva Mandavilli ignorantly and arrogantly tweeted in 2021. “But alas, that day is not yet here.”
Media, Twitter, Facebook, and the WHO weren’t arguing against the lab leak hypothesis. They were declaring it out of bounds — harmful, racist “misinformation.”
“Misinformation” now means “opinions the establishment really dislikes.” Democrats used the term to describe damning information found on Hunter Biden’s laptop, and Biden’s misinformation czar promoted news stories falsely accusing Justice Clarence Thomas of “misinformation” when he mentioned facts she disliked. The term is wielded as a way of shutting down debate or reporting they’d prefer to be silenced.
This is grossly illiberal. It is a flank attack by Democrats, Big Tech, and liberal media on free speech and the free press.
Robust debate and diversity of opinion are necessary for a free society and functioning democracy. That’s why censorship efforts on the Left — from the Biden administration, congressional Democrats, charitable foundations, Big Tech, and the largest news outlets — are so troubling and reprehensible.
The Left once prided itself as the home for “free thinkers,” but today, it is conservatism that evinces a disposition and philosophy based on humility. We reject grand plans, respect tradition, and champion individual choice because we know the limitations of human reason and foresight. Liberals, putting faith in their own reason and planning, lack that humility.
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That arrogant certainty on the Left is why Biden tried to create a misinformation ministry inside the Department of Homeland Security and why Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) characterizes criticism as “terrorism” and calls for federal crackdowns on “misinformation.”
Today, as evidence pours in that the lab leak, yesterday’s racist misinformation, is the foundational truth of the COVID pandemic, we hope (but without much expectation of success) that the misinformation police will take a dose of humility. If they think we are wrong, which they do, they should argue against us rather than brand us as racists and try to silence us with the power of Big Tech and the threat of state action.