Heaven’s Gate, Jonestown and the NRB
Matt Yglesias linked to this:
The spokesman for a major evangelical nonprofit was fired for promoting vaccines on the MSNBC “Morning Joe” cable news show, Religion News Service has learned.
Daniel Darling, senior vice president of communications for the National Religious Broadcasters, was fired Friday (Aug. 27) after refusing to admit his pro-vaccine statements were mistaken, according to a source authorized to speak for Darling.
Does that mean they’d refuse to vote for vaccine advocates like Donald Trump?
PS. Don’t know what the NRB is? Here’s their credo:
NRB is a nonpartisan, international association of Christian communicators whose member organizations represent millions of listeners, viewers, and readers. NRB works to protect the free speech rights of our members by advocating those rights in governmental, corporate, and media sectors, and works to foster excellence, integrity, and accountability in our membership by providing networking, educational, ministry, and relational opportunities.
Corporate free speech? You mean they aren’t just against government censorship? They also believe that private organizations should mostly refrain from censoring their members? Especially when the speech is pro-life? That’s my view too!
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28. August 2021 at 16:26
Try again, he was fired for being insubordinate. You see when you are speaking on behalf of your organization, you don’t get to engage in private/free speech. That was what he was fired for.
You made it sound like he was engaging in private speech and fired for it which I would agree would have been against their credo but that simply wasn’t the case. If you go back and watch his piece or read it he clearly indicates he is the NRB VP of Communications and hence speaking on behalf of them. Same reason soldiers can’t engage in “free speech” in uniform.
28. August 2021 at 16:33
Getting fired for promoting vaccination during a pandemic is sick.
28. August 2021 at 18:54
What if they directly told him not to talk about vaccines in press appearances?
Would it be wrong to fire a waiter who advocated for vaccines to customers? No; it’s not their job to be yapping about vaccines. Just push the desserts.
Da vaccine works, it could be worse, so’s eats desserts!
But why would you risk sharing a dish at a time like this?
28. August 2021 at 19:07
Peter says an individual can be fired for being “insubordinate”. That is a totalitarian/utilitarian mindset. To state that an individual MUST comply with private or public demands – demands that violate the inviolable – simply because the “mission statement” says so is the same argument used by libtards to separate bathrooms under Jim Crow. It’s the same argument used by libtards to move white people into a different classroom under the banner of CRT. The libtard motto has always been “but its in our “mission statement, sir”! (No, it’s not called a creed dummy. Start a business, get out from behind the desk, and learn something)
Furthermore, what part of “inalienable” is so difficult to understand? Whenever you set preconditions, through “mission statements” or through your own bias, you are violating the inviolable. You are setting your own agenda, above that which cannot be legislated upon.
Trump’s approach is the correct approach. You can advocate for vaccines or advocate against them, but you cannot use legislation or back-room deals with private enterprise to FORCE them down people’s throats.
And now we finally have a legal precedent to strike them down – thanks to the big and beautiful Texas Supreme Court.
God I love Texas.
28. August 2021 at 19:13
Dzhaughn: “What if they directly told him not to talk about vaccines in press appearances?”
Um…..
It’s called a bill of rights. Look it up!
Magna Carta? Glorious revolution? Hamilton, Jay, Madison, Adams, Jefferson?
Locke, Kant, Montesquieu?
Have you ever read a book?
28. August 2021 at 19:17
Peter, You are confusing legal and moral issues. No one denies that they had a legal right to fire him, we question why a Christian organization would fire a man for trying to save lives. They would have fired Jesus Christ if he were alive today and working for the NRB. Imagine if Jesus said something “insubordinate”, like, “We should help the poor refugees at our doorstep”.
29. August 2021 at 03:11
“Does that mean they’d refuse to vote for vaccine advocates like Donald Trump?”
The article says that Darling’s statements “violated the organization’s policy of remaining neutral about COVID-19 vaccines.” So, it wouldn’t appear that the NRB would take a position on Donald Trump one way or the other based on Trump’s vaccine advocacy. (The article makes no mention of whether the NRB has fired anyone for anti-vax advocacy.) The article does give several examples, however, where the CEO has touted the benefits of the vaccines in promoting the NRB convention, so it doesn’t appear that the CEO himself is anti-vax.
I don’t think that Darling should have been fired for making non-neutral statements about vaccines, although I understand that many progressives are strongly opposed to religious organizations, especially evangelical ones, weighing in on vaccination as progressives generally seem skeptical about religious organizations’ influence on many issues.
29. August 2021 at 03:34
Sumner still cannot get over Trump.
He doesn’t have the guts to serve himself, using doctor notes to get out of Vietnam; even worse, he doesn’t have any appreciation for the service men who have died for the banking cartel, military industrial complex, and his own globalist policies.
Instead of holding Biden and his corrupt party accountable, he continues to spend time writing about how horrible Trump is.
Trump isn’t in office doofus.
This is all corrupt libs. Btw, where is hunter? Has he sold any more paintings? Is he smoking crack with a prostitute? Is Sumner smoking crack with Hunter? I’m asking for a friend.
29. August 2021 at 11:51
Trump still effectively controls the GOP so he is still relevant. Speaking as a corpsman who served during Viet Nam (not in country) I am much more bothered by a public figure like Trump who used some phony doctor notes to avoid service and then talk about his ability to serve as C-in-C than what any private citizen would do. Not only it is an ad hominem, it is a really stupid one. (Probably a clue you are just a troll.)
Agree that NRB had the legal right to fire the guy but after writing this in their mission statement ” NRB works to protect the free speech rights of our members by advocating those rights in governmental, corporate, and media sectors,” it was not consistent with their claims and certainly not the moral thing to do.
Steve
29. August 2021 at 17:06
“Would it be wrong to fire a waiter who advocated for vaccines to customers? No; it’s not their job to be yapping about vaccines. Just push the desserts.”
Right, because even vaccinated people might get somewhat annoyed at the waitress trying to bring up some issue, about vaccines or politics or whatever, while people are trying to enjoy their dinner.
Here, the guy wrote an editorial. Remind me how that is inconsistent with his job description?
30. August 2021 at 03:45
I am with Jayne. Really, what did that article have to do with Trump. Someone is living rent free in Mr. Sumner’s head.
30. August 2021 at 04:39
Does anyone else find it strange that Putin is one of the few world leaders standing up for human rights?
When a corrupt oligarch breaks with established world order, and declares corporate and government coercion “tyranny”, one does wonder who the good and bad guys really are.
The west likes to point to Putin and yell corruption, killer, and other negative epithets without much evidence, but they very rarely look in the mirror. Washington politicians may not be taking “kickbacks” from contractors directly, but they do provide “grants” and “subsidies”, and are the sole arbiters of “red-tape”. Some of them vote for subsidies in return for a job on the board should they lose their political seat. Some of them even take a stake in the companies they subsidize. Nancy Pelosi is a good example of how extreme political corruption can be – her ties to Tuna, including her shares of stocks, are well documented. Or in the case of Clinton, one can simply use their NGO to funnel “pay to play” money.
Russians clearly have more freedom today than Americans. Russia today has very little debt – only 12% of GDP; they don’t have the same multicultural issues because they refuse to provide citizenship to people of non Russian descent. The future for Russians born in 2020 look a lot brighter than Americans born in 2020.
Get the shot or lose your job, is a far cry from a country that used to be a “beacon of hope”, and a “shining city on a hill”.
Will American allow globalists to destroy their constitution?
Will you become the next China?
It’s becoming more and more plausible.
30. August 2021 at 05:56
If this were a more dangerous pandemic, like say, small pox, in which the likelihood of suffering and death were much higher than with Covid-19, I think many opinions here would flip.
Because we live in a country full of narcissitic, superstitious, innumerate people, the very small relative risk of awful suffering and death that nonetheless leads to large absolute numbers of the suffering and dead is too abstract for many. As Stalin said, a single death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic, to paraphrase.
I don’t think many would be fired or otherwise attacked for advocating vaccination during somwthing like a small pox outbreak. I don’t think many would object to vaccine passports or even vaccine mandates under such circumstances.
Of course, long Covid symptoms affect about 15% of the unvaccinated who get infected, but what’s the problem with permanent brain, lung, heart, or other organ damage? And such conditions won’t be expensive to treat in our highly subsidized healthcare system. Surely, good, independent, hardworking conservatives won’t accept government-provided disability benefits, because they were too stupid and selfish to try to avoid infection.
Yet, nearly every Trump supporter in my family was on federal disability benefits before the pandemic. They decry government handouts for minorities and Democrats, but have no problem getting paid to complain all day about getting banned on Facebook. They love their free Medicare coverage, but say government-provided healthcare is part of an evil communist conspiracy to destroy American individualism. They have no idea what’s in the Bible, but always complain about a supposed liberal war on Christianity. They only ever reference the Old Testament, and they often get that wrong. Same with the Constitution, even though both are readily available online.
I don’t think Christianity or other religious beliefs are necessarily problematic, but fundamenalist beliefs often are. I used to think people like Dawkins, Krauss, and Hitchens were wasting their time challenging religious beliefs, but I’m reconsidering that lazy view. Fundamentalist Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish beliefs are a huge problem globally, and perhaps it’s good to begin to treat these sorts of beliefs as the more dangerous disease.
30. August 2021 at 06:11
I do agree with Jayne. I say similar things all the time. However, in this instance, Scott’s question/comment on Trump was pertinent and relevant. Not his usual “Trump is living in his head” comments. So, just because Scott mentions Trump, does not mean it is not an interesting and relevant comment. In this case, it was very relevant.
30. August 2021 at 20:41
BC, What would Jesus do? Isn’t that the only question that matters?
Jayne, You said:
“He doesn’t have the guts to serve himself, using doctor notes to get out of Vietnam;”
I’m not going to criticize Trump for using doctors notes to get out of going to Vietnam.
Mary, You said:
“Does anyone else find it strange that Putin is one of the few world leaders standing up for human rights?”
I do find many of my commenters to be rather strange.
31. August 2021 at 07:14
For those interested, there is now a 3rd independent group to find different metals and other things in vax that dont belong there, +La Quinta Columna & Japanese regulators.
Download the full doc at the bottom.
https://www.drrobertyoung.com/post/science-team-reveals-graphene-aluminum-lnp-capsids-peg-parasites-in-4-cov-vaccines
People must understand that the CDC and Big Pharma are more interested in profit than your well being. They are not without self interest, and one should recognize that most studies are not independent. They are conducted by Big Pharma or the CDC, who have tentacles EVERYWHERE.
I’m not anti-vaxx. I’ve proudly received many vaccines. But I do find it interesting that the narrative is so tightly controlled to the extent that independent reviews are so quickly labeled “anti-science”, and that scientists who disagree are labeled “anti-vaxx”. It’s a strange world when a former noble prize winner in virology is called “anti-science”. Why not have open debates? Why are scientists at the CDC and Big Pharma so concerned about these independent studies?
I’ve never seen such a concerted effort to drown out opposing views.
1. September 2021 at 07:43
2 things I had not noticed
1)April of 2020 is when Covid really kicked in. So comparing April-August of each year re; total deaths is interesting to look at. While August this year is lagging count, one should increase it to the about the average of April to July.
When one does that the annualized death death rate is 2,945,000. Have no idea what “expected” is—-but CDC had it at about 2,850,000 for 2020—-but whatever—- it 2.945m is 400k lower than last year——which is more than number of estimated Covid deaths last year.
2) Bizarrely, it the CDC is changing how they count pneumonia deaths. They have changed it to how they count Covid. They now count death from and with pneumonia as a stand alone category. It appears in a table they update daily along side Covid and flu. Since Jan 1 2020, 575K have died from pneumonia, excluding flu. It includes Covid (about 300k also had Covid—footnote 3). It does not count how many Covid deaths had pneumonia.
My doctor showed me the CDC page when she said I should get a Pneumonia vaccine—-which I never heard of!. So I got it.
If they keep changing methods the total deaths will be a multiple of actual deaths.
Pneumonia is not transmissible directly, but it is indirectly—-by catching viruses which can lead to it.
Annual pneumonia deaths were always around 50k.