Apology Not Accepted
Many public figures who bullied and blackmailed people into taking toxic shots are scrambling for fig leaves. It’s not yet a movement – most continue to act as if they did nothing untoward, let alone abetted a genocidal conspiracy – but it’s definitely a trend.
A recent article in The Atlantic – just another pseudo-intellectual propaganda outlet whose only place is in the bathroom, and not as reading material – called for “a pandemic amnesty”. That’s right, the sort of people who routinely try to destroy others for something they said twenty years ago now want you to forgive and forget what they did to you.
Meanwhile, they aren’t even taking responsibility for their behavior. The most they can manage is that they were misled, maybe even that they were lied to. The experts told them to call you the most malicious names, to terrorize you and your children, to force you to obstruct your breathing and take accursed shots, to denounce you to authorities – everything short of deporting you to a prison camp, and that was in the works, too. They complied without an ounce of hesitation or compassion. They complied with religious fervor and malice.
But they couldn’t have known better. Let it go.
Ben Shapiro expressed outrage at having been lied to – as well he should – but stopped short of taking responsibility for promoting this misinformation to his massive audience in condescending language. Shapiro has every right to defer to whichever expert he chooses to trust in any particular situation, but he has no right to pressure others to surrender their decision-making process to the same expert, or at all. At most he can suggest it and explain why his expert’s opinion should be given more weight than yours. Then we could have an intelligent, respectful discussion, and possibly even convince one another without resorting to abusive tactics.
Unfortunately, he joined the chorus of bullies and blackmailers. This requires real teshuva. Real teshuva means acknowledging one’s guilt, expressing sincere remorse, resolving not to repeat the mistake, taking measures to ensure it doesn’t happen again, and rectifying the damage however possible. Blaming people for lying to you doesn’t cut it.
Shapiro is right that we cannot become experts in everything, and must rely on others to guide us where our knowledge is insufficient. However, there is a big difference between deferring to a plumber’s professional opinion on how to unclog your drain and calling perfectly healthy people dopes for not deferring to the demands of Big Pharma and their stooges. Even a sick person who needs medical intervention is advised to seek multiple opinions (not multiple people who read from the same script, but independent opinions from people with actual knowledge and wisdom).
I don’t believe Ben Shapiro is a bad person, but he made a terrible mistake, and for that he needs to take responsibility. There is no shame in having been misled – I wore a mask and used hand gel in the beginning. The shame is in making excuses and saying you couldn’t have known better – especially when you make a career out of being smarter and more informed than others.
This is especially true when thousands of medical professionals and other informed people were desperately trying to warn everyone about the lies, corruption, and dangers involved with the shots. It is inconceivable that none of this information reached those who are issuing non-apologies today. Did they examine this information with an open mind? Did they consider it at all? Or did they dismiss it out of hand, with jeers?
Why is it that those issuing non-apologies failed to do so until someone from Pfizer itself admitted that they didn’t test their accursed shots for stopping the spread of whatever Covid is? Why was nothing short of an admission of guilt sufficient evidence that something was seriously amiss about the whole thing? Can a rational, intelligent person be called such if nothing else will budge him? Are we really that helpless? Is that the message? What if Pfizer and the criminal “experts” never admitted anything?
The most dangerous aspect of these non-apologies is that they leave the door open for those making them to repeat exactly the same behavior in the future. If they could not possibly have known better last time, then they have no soul-searching to do and nothing to learn from their mistake. Sure, they learned that other people did some very outrageous things, but what’s to stop those who trusted them from continuing to follow “experts” down the path of self-destruction and tyranny next time around?
We cannot be an expert on every subject, but we can ask questions, make informed decisions, and beware of deceitful people – which include “experts” and rabbis. This is, in fact, what the Torah demands of us “regular people”, as I vociferously argued all along. Besides, it’s not like the bad guys were subtle.
There is also a tendency for people to apologize on behalf of those who haven’t even issued non-apologies. It’s a disturbing phenomenon even among those who didn’t fall for the shots.
Trump’s supporters give him a free pass over his key role in promoting the shots, or they bend over backwards to argue that it was a brilliant gambit on his part to thwart something even more sinister. Israeli citizens have been excusing Netanyahu or their sold-out politician of choice because they cannot accept that they are frauds who betrayed them. How easily they fall for someone who says what they want to hear!
The most common excuse they give for the politicians who sold them out is “he didn’t know better”. Seriously? It’s their job to know better. They have all the information and experts at their fingertips, but they couldn’t do better than millions of ordinary people who were bombarded with lies and propaganda? We’re three years into this and they’re still clueless? If that’s the case, what good are they?
That people who saw through the Covid charade can offer such a lame excuse for some of the leaders who pushed it is cognitive dissonance at its finest.
The same holds true for the many prominent rabbis and medical professionals who “didn’t know better” and were “just following the experts”. They don’t get off the hook with that excuse. It’s their job to know better, too, and not just follow anyone. That’s why they get the high positions, salary, and prestige: to get it right when it matters most. People at that level aren’t entitled to make excuses. The buck stops with them.
But they aren’t even making excuses. Their followers, the people who want so desperately to believe in them, are making excuses on their behalf. They are rationalizing for those who aren’t even rationalizing for themselves.
The Torah offers the opportunity for even the greatest of sinners to repent and salvage something positive from all the carnage they caused. But they have to actually repent. Lame excuses don’t cut it, shifting the blame is unacceptable, and no one can make apologies on their behalf.
Everyone who played abetted the tyranny of the last few years – from the demons at the top, to your neighbor who verbally abused you, and everyone in between – has an obligation to repent. They have to take full responsibility for what they did, make amends however possible, and learn from their experience so that they don’t repeat this behavior in the future. (There will be more tests.)
Until then, I don’t want to hear their excuse-laden non-apologies, and I don’t want to hear others rationalizing on their behalf. If we whitewash evil behavior and overlook our own, we guarantee more of the same.
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