Ursula von der Leyen advocates “pre-bunking” in the public forum to “vaccinate” people against “disinformation”…
EU President Ursula von der Leyen just joined the ranks of former Senator John Kerry and other globalist ghouls in declaring war on free speech by perversely proclaiming that the EU citizenry needs to be “vaccinated against disinformation.”
Like every censor in history, she characterizes her censorship program as a means of expunging erroneous information and ideas from public discourse. By using the word “disinformation,” she implies that she and her clique are already the sole possessors of the truth about everything, and that everyone who has and shares heterodox ideas is necessarily in error.
Her entire premise is FALSE for the following reasons:
1). Knowledge about the world is constantly evolving through constant inquiry, discussion, and dissemination. Knowledge is NOT a static thing. This is why countries with stifling censorship regimes have experienced intellectual, scientific, and artistic stagnation. Their rulers try to freeze the human mind in its state at their moment in history.
2). NO state, university, or ecclesiastical committee has ever been in possession of the full truth of any matter. Official orthodoxies have always been challenged by heterodox thinkers. Indeed, virtually every major advance in human insight has been performed by heterodox thinkers.
3). As John Milton observed in his 1644 pamphlet, Areopagitica, contending with error is an intrinsic part of learning and discovery. We literally learn by making mistakes and correcting them. If free speech is suppressed for the objective of preventing the propagation of erroneous thought—or “vaccinating against it”—it will become extremely difficult if not impossible for people to learn and discover.
4). Without a single exception in history, the people who hold power always advocate the orthodoxy that sustains and extends their power and that of their friends and supporters.
