I have to confess much great ignorance than knowledge wrt QAnon, HOWEVER...
There is no matter of precedent of prior history that automatically precludes a person from being right about something. Someone says the sun will rise in the east, or that Ivermectin is useful in treatment of Covid, I don't care if it's QAnon, Ben Carson or the …
I have to confess much great ignorance than knowledge wrt QAnon, HOWEVER...
There is no matter of precedent of prior history that automatically precludes a person from being right about something. Someone says the sun will rise in the east, or that Ivermectin is useful in treatment of Covid, I don't care if it's QAnon, Ben Carson or the Bad Orange Man himself who says it: it's true.
I understand the mechanisms of discrediting sources that are among the tools the social media platforms use, but facts remain facts, even when delivered by someone who has been dressed up like a witch*.
*-note: in the historical record to which I refer, she actually WAS a witch. So there's that.
“in the historical record to which I refer, she actually WAS a witch”
There are subtle points about the witch trials:
* Many witch trials were conducted with the best standards of fairness and law, not just by the standards of that time, but also by the standards of our time, and in those cases the convictions were sound, "beyond reasonable doubt".
* This was because whether or not those witches *were* witches, they believed themselves to be witches, and very passionately so; they really believed to be consorting with the devil or with pagan godlings, and of having gained supernatural powers that they could use for bad (if from the devil) or good (if from nice pagan godlings) purposes, and that their sorceries were effective.
In the "first world" we no longer have witch trials, despite there still being many witches who believes themselves witches, because we have chosen to decriminalize heresy, rather then sorcery. If someone who believes themselves a witch commits crimes, they get convicted for that, rather than for *being* a witch.
To understand that sorcery was not the issue, but heresy, witches who performed "miracles" claiming their supernatural powers were from the christian deity or angels were not (usually) prosecuted.
+1, insightful. I not so long ago read a somewhat revisionist account of the Spanish Inquisition, which was partly to convert and steal from the Jewish populations but also partly to curb the abuses of the *local* authorities. Which latter, confronted with land/property owned solely by a powerless old widow, reliably abused the Biblical injunctions against harboring witches.
Now, it was conceded that at times the injustice meted out by local authorities was merely converted into mercy more profitable to the Inquisitors, but I was kind of amazed to read how often the accused were found "not guilty", including methods to pass the "tests" they used to conclude guilt/innocence.
Things, especially things involving human behavior, are seldom clearly binary, black/white/, good/bad, yes/no...
I have to confess much great ignorance than knowledge wrt QAnon, HOWEVER...
There is no matter of precedent of prior history that automatically precludes a person from being right about something. Someone says the sun will rise in the east, or that Ivermectin is useful in treatment of Covid, I don't care if it's QAnon, Ben Carson or the Bad Orange Man himself who says it: it's true.
I understand the mechanisms of discrediting sources that are among the tools the social media platforms use, but facts remain facts, even when delivered by someone who has been dressed up like a witch*.
*-note: in the historical record to which I refer, she actually WAS a witch. So there's that.
“in the historical record to which I refer, she actually WAS a witch”
There are subtle points about the witch trials:
* Many witch trials were conducted with the best standards of fairness and law, not just by the standards of that time, but also by the standards of our time, and in those cases the convictions were sound, "beyond reasonable doubt".
* This was because whether or not those witches *were* witches, they believed themselves to be witches, and very passionately so; they really believed to be consorting with the devil or with pagan godlings, and of having gained supernatural powers that they could use for bad (if from the devil) or good (if from nice pagan godlings) purposes, and that their sorceries were effective.
In the "first world" we no longer have witch trials, despite there still being many witches who believes themselves witches, because we have chosen to decriminalize heresy, rather then sorcery. If someone who believes themselves a witch commits crimes, they get convicted for that, rather than for *being* a witch.
To understand that sorcery was not the issue, but heresy, witches who performed "miracles" claiming their supernatural powers were from the christian deity or angels were not (usually) prosecuted.
+1, insightful. I not so long ago read a somewhat revisionist account of the Spanish Inquisition, which was partly to convert and steal from the Jewish populations but also partly to curb the abuses of the *local* authorities. Which latter, confronted with land/property owned solely by a powerless old widow, reliably abused the Biblical injunctions against harboring witches.
Now, it was conceded that at times the injustice meted out by local authorities was merely converted into mercy more profitable to the Inquisitors, but I was kind of amazed to read how often the accused were found "not guilty", including methods to pass the "tests" they used to conclude guilt/innocence.
Things, especially things involving human behavior, are seldom clearly binary, black/white/, good/bad, yes/no...