Bait and Switch

Hello and welcome to the thirtieth (!) issue of the Bright Morning newsletter. This week, our stories are about the phenomenon on social media whereby minority perspectives are presented as mainstream wisdom. This is something that we touched upon last week when the idea of “canceling” Canada Day was presented as common sense. As we will see here, this phenomenon extends across all subjects. Whether it is COVID or political revolutions, social media companies bait viewers with a trending topic and then switch the narrative to present the opposite of truth.

| COVID-19

Vaccine passports and fascism: two interlocked, minority perspectives

Readers of this newsletter will know how much we oppose the concept of vaccine passports. The idea that an individual should be coerced into displaying his or her medical information in order to access a service is nothing short of authoritarian fascism. It demands compliance and the subjugation of the individual. 

As well, the logical end point of vaccine passports is segregation. This is because there will always be a substantial minority of individuals who choose to refuse medical intervention - whether it is for personal, medical, or religious reasons - and if these individuals are barred from participating in basic quality of life activities (such as going to a restaurant, gym, or cinema), it sets the foundation for a two-tiered society. Since we live in what is supposed to be a liberal democracy, this is wrong. End of story.

There are a whole host of other issues with vaccine passports, (many of which we described back in April) but for now, we will just state that vaccine passports are no longer just a slow creep towards totalitarianism - they are an avalanche. This is because the corporate and legacy media outlets have been working overtime to suggest that we would all be “safer” if our lives were reduced to a series of checkpoints in which we submit our private medical information to nameless, faceless bureaucrats whom we do not know or trust. 

Take, for example, the manufactured controversy surrounding GoodLife Fitness in Canada. This past week, the fitness chain announced on Twitter that it is “not planning to require associates or members to be vaccinated to enter our locations. For privacy reasons, GoodLife will not disclose information regarding any individual associate’s vaccination status.” This was a good move from GoodLife - one that respects human rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Unfortunately, a very loud minority of activists disagreed with this stance and stated that they would be cancelling their memberships. Let’s be real here - these people probably didn't even have gym memberships. They saw an opportunity to display faux-virtue online and jumped on it. Nevertheless, CBC called the responses an “uproar.” But was it? We know that Twitter skews towards outrage. The platform is designed to spotlight the most deranged perspectives and present them as if they are mainstream. This is why the concept of “canceling” Canada Day was presented as normal, even though it was nothing more than the amplified barks of a few disillusioned journalists. So, is there any reason to believe it would be different here? 

Furthermore, why put GoodLife in the spotlight? CBC is acting as if GoodLife is the only business not requiring proof of vaccination to enter its facilities, but its