Tweet [1]
Here’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal:
Editor:
Barton Swaim eloquently exposes the dangers posed by intellectuals and government officials who, insisting that facts ‘speak for themselves,’ arrogantly assume that their own particular interpretations of the facts are correct beyond dispute (“How Disagreement Became ‘Disinformation,’ [2]” May 14). For any person infected by this conceit, it’s a short leap to the conclusion that the good of society requires the silencing of individuals who dare to disagree with his or her interpretation.
No clearer recent example of such pre-enlightenment dogmatism exists than Francis Collins conniving with Anthony Fauci [3] to use their high government offices to discredit and drown out the voices of the scientists who wrote the Great Barrington Declaration. Ironically, like every such censorious effort, Collins’s and Fauci’s attempt to smear the Great Barrington Declaration [4] loudly announces the censors’ own justified fear that their interpretation of ‘the data’ will be exposed in open debate as being flawed.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030