What-About-isms
Some people say these rhetorical rejoinders are disingenuous, but, personally, I like them.
For some reason, I haven’t followed the ICE shooting controversy as much as many people. However, in observing the furor this event has produced, my first reaction was: “What about Ashli Babbitt?”
(Babbitt, who was in the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 was also shot and killed by a law enforcement officer, an event that created no uproar or outrage among the Leftist who are outraged by the death of Renee Good).
This is an example of what’s been labeled “What-About-ism,” a common rhetorical rejoinder used by Internet posters who are seeking to point out hypocrisy or double standards usually involving media coverage of certain events.
Some people dismiss What-About-Ism as a parlor trick employed to distract the population from focussing on more important or central issues.
While I’m sure I could come up with plenty of examples where posters are engaging in this practice to obscure valid points, as a general rule I think What-About-Isms can be a powerful tool in civic debates.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Narrative-manipulators have engaged in a concerted and intentional psy-op to cancel (or suppress the reach of) people who have a talent for highlighting questions that start with the words, “What about …”
(For example, citizen journalists like myself, for using this technique in articles like this one.)
To me, resplendent “What-About?” examples prove that many pundits and journalists are not sincere or intellectually consistent … that these people are basically captured and are seeking to conceal important or relevant context from the public.
Off the top of my head, I can easily identify many What-About-isms from recent years - case studies that support my thesis that the Left actually fears those who excel in using this rhetorical device.
*** (What about my theory that the only way I can generate at least 4,000 page views is if at least 12 of my readers share, cross-post or re-stack my dispatches?) ***
Let’s start with Ashli Babbitt …
According to some media reports, the late Ms. Babbitt, 36, was a 5-3, 110-pound female who was not displaying a weapon of any sort when a Capitol police officer, allegedly fearing for his life, shot and killed her.
Ms. Babbitt was the only person who died as a direct result of an insurrection that was dubbed the most severe (and violent?) since the Civil War.
As far as I can remember, no Leftist pundits or Substack authors expressed any outrage that this lady was shot and killed. Indeed, the consensus opinion (on the Left) would be she suffered consequences proportional to her unconscionable actions.
Unlike the police officers involved in the arrest and death of George Floyd, no criminal charges (or any disciplinary action) was ever brought against the officer who killed Ms. Babbitt and, in fact, this person continued to work as a police officer.
It’s unknown if public opinion might have changed If video had been released showing several angles of the shooting that killed Ms. Babbitt. What is known is that no law enforcement agents were physically attacked, shot, stabbed, beaten with a baseball bat and died as a result of any direct assaults on January 6.
Participants in this civil protest/Insurrection seemed to simply want to roam through the Capitol and weren’t interested in killing any innocent bystanders.
In the killing of Ms. Good, video footage seems to show an ICE Agent was hit by a moving car, which can be considered a deadly weapon.
So … what about the outrage dealing with Ms. Babbitt’s death? My only question is … (not counting Trump supporters) where is it … or where was it?
*** (Citizen Researcher Support Button) ***
What about the George Floyd “riots” compared to other protests or riots?
In the early summer of 2020, scores of people died in scores of riots, with hundreds of businesses burned down and billions of dollars in property damage incurred. Still, per Democratic conventional wisdom, these were “mostly peaceful protests” and, certainly justified given what happened to George Floyd.
What about the notion that conventional wisdom is often BS?
What about the take-away that, in Europe and Canada, those protesting draconian Covid lockdowns and liberty-eradicating mandates were labeled “dangerous right-wing extremists?”
What about someone pointing out that these protests were actually peaceful and non-violent - unlike the protests of professional and serial agitators recruited and compensated by George Soros and ANTIFA.
What about the fact the J-6 Insurrectionists didn’t burn down the Capitol? (Surely a few of these violent extremists carried lighters or matches in their pockets).
Property damage to the Capitol was so minor that members of Congress had reconvened by late in the night of January 6 and passed the very legislation Trump’s supporters were protesting.
Whatever one says about this rhetorical device, What-About-Isms can indeed provide interesting context … that is, if journalists still cared about providing relevant “context.”
What about the greatest political scandal of my lifetime, Watergate?
Couldn’t this exposed scandal be compared to the unexposed Epstein scandal?
How many people died because of Watergate? How many agencies of the U.S. government and members of the Deep State participated in the conspiracy to perform dirty tricks on Nixon’s enemies and then tried to cover this up?
Was the number of conspiracy participants and accomplices in Watergate smaller than the number of people and government agencies who knew all about the Epstein scandal and then worked to conceal it … for decades?
What about the corporate journalists who, in pack solidarity, have refused to expose the Epstein scandal? Should we admire journalists who are card-carrying members of the “Trusted News Initiative” … or cast scorn on them?
Biden’s Dementia …
In 40 months, I’ve published at least 10 pieces on the “Biden dementia scandal” and made many more posts in Reader Comments.
My first point - a What-About-ism “tell” - is that the Biden Dementia Scandal wasn’t a scandal for 3.7 years of the Biden administration.
A popular what-about-ism rejoinder my posts generated is, “What about Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimers?” Didn’t Reagan also suffer from the onset of dementia?
This, I admit, is a fair and valid point. It seems clear President Reagan’s memory was faltering, especially in his second term.
Still, I can offer my debating colleagues a few questions that might fall into the What-About category.
Did White House officials ever feel compelled to dress up an intern as a bunny rabbit to make sure Reagan didn’t wander over to the press during a White House Easter Egg hunt?
After delivering presidential remarks, how many times did President Regan walk off a stage in the wrong direction or seem to not know where he was?
When meeting with foreign dignitaries, how many times did President Reagan wander off to a restaurant only for Nancy to come find him and bring him back to the group?
How many times did Regan’s handlers use the Auto Pen for President Reagan to sign pardons or executive orders?
What about … flagrant and brazen media bias?
I must, of course, give a few Covid examples …
I admit that one What-About question left me stymied for many months and, admit, this was a fair question, but one whose obvious answer has incredibly sinister implications.
As a “Covid Contrarian,” I kept writing that Covid was NOT a particularly “deadly virus” or disease.
The immediate response to my claim was “what about the X million people who died from Covid?”
To which I now instantly reply, “What about these deaths? Shouldn’t some honest investigator investigate what really killed these people?”
I can even frame my answers with the nomenclature I’m using in this essay.
What about all those ventilators? What about remdesivir? What about keeping elderly, scared patients isolated in ICUs away from their loved ones? What about the administration of powerful drugs like morphine and midazolam.
What about dehydration? What about “Do Nut Resuscitate” orders? What about not treating people with possible pneumonia with antibiotics?
What about the Nocebo Effect?
What about the 80 to 90 percent “false positives” from the PCR tests?
What about the theory that many people didn’t really die from a novel virus?
What about the theory that government officials can and do manipulate statistics - including death certificates - to support a dubious narrative?
***
On the lockdowns and the importance of masking and Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions … What about Sweden?
On the effectiveness of the Covid vaccines … what about all the vaccinated people who got Covid, Rebound Covid and Quadruple Rebound Covid?
What about the embalmers’ clots?
On the great threat of death from Covid among athletes, what about the fact no college or pro athlete ever died from Covid?
Miscellaneous What-About-isms …
What about rampant, government-endorsed censorship?
What about Bill Rice, Jr. being censored on Facebook, but nobody who agreed with the CDC’s guidance being censored?
On Global Warming, what about the 8 inches of snow that fell on Andalusia, Alabama (40 miles north of Florida) last January?
On chemtrails, what about the fact nobody saw these white, criss-crossing streaks in the sky three or four decades ago?
On the importance of life-saving vaccines … what about the Amish?
On the “war on cancer” … what about the fact cancer deaths and diagnoses have never been higher?
On the threat of Venezuelan cocaine ravaging America … what about Mexican cocaine?
On the necessity of bringing justice to dictatorial tyrants, what about Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman getting away with pre-meditated murder by ordering the death of one of his critics via bone-saw dismemberment while this person was still alive?
On the importance of a free press and government transparency … what about Julian Assange?
What about every Fortune 500 company brazenly discriminating against white males and proclaiming “diversity is our strength?”
What about all the Democrats and liberals who took to social media to celebrate the assassination of Charlie Kirk?
What about low-and-contained CPI inflation that’s given the world $7 Oreo Blizzards at Dairy Queen?
On “curious trends on Substack,” what about the fact brave, conservative citizen journalist Bill Rice, Jr. has lost 28 subscribers in the past week, while a brave liberal citizen journalist I just profiled has gained more than 300 subscribers in the past 3 days?
***
Lastly, what about that ass-whipping Indiana put on the mighty Crimson Tide in the Rose Bowl two weeks ago?
Most What-About-isms I like … but not all of them.
Remember when Darrell Edward Brooks Jr. ran over and killed a bunch of Christmas parade goers in Waukesha, WI. He was affiliated with BLM (to my recollection). The media went so far as to say his car must have malfunctioned or something, then they just buried the story as fast as possible. These people who work for mainstream media are totally amoral. And I think that's being generous. They are despicable human beings.
Cutting-room floor Text, Part 3 (I even cut out some "early spread" tidbits):
What about the theory that a novel coronavirus was spreading widely by October or November 2019? Where was the huge spike in all-cause deaths before the lockdowns?
If there was no spike in all-cause deaths, what does this say about how "deadly" this novel virus really was?
What about the fact no corporate news organization or public health officials ever investigated “early spread?”