YouTube Claims This TRP Video Has a Claim That Contradicts Expert Consensus

Let me know what you think

Dear TRP Community,

YouTube censored a TRP video of Republican Congressional candidate Heidi St. John, host of the Off the Bench podcast with a million downloads a month. YouTube, on the week of the November election 2022, removed the TRP video for having a claim that contradicted “expert consensus” from “local health authorities” or WHO on Covid-19 vaccinations.

Pardon me for having taught Logic for 15 years, but the words that stand out to me are “contradict,” which is a Logic word, and “consensus.” Let’s consider these each in turn for a moment.

First, to contradict means to assert the negation of some other specific thing. For example, if I claim “It’s not the case that B,” that’s a contradiction of B.

It works the other way around, as well. If I assert B, where B is a complete sentence asserting a truth claim, that is a contradiction of “It’s not the case that B.”

A contradiction is a technical term. It means something that specific.

”Consensus” likewise means something specific. It means there is a lack of disagreement. The term isn’t vague. It means, not to sound redundant, a total lack of disagreement. More than that, I think it means also agreement. Again, not to be redundant, but in case I haven’t expressed this clearly enough, consensus means the members of the group you’re referring to all (every member) completely agree. That’s what consensus means. Absent that total agreement, consensus is lacking.

If you Google “Claims there is a consensus about Covid-19 vaccination among local health authorities or the WHO” what do you think comes up ? Lot’s of things come up. But you won’t find a publicly available list of claims that there is expert consensus on from local health authorities or the WHO. There are thousands of local health authorities. There isn’t even a list of the people that occupy those offices, let alone a list that is updated and archived as the members change, let alone the beliefs they have that they all agree with at any given time (and, what, people keep the same views over time, all the time?).

Stay with me, because this is important.

And what about that logical operator, the word “or” ? If we’re referencing a “consensus”, why the word “or”. Why not “and”? Why not local health authorities and the WHO? If the word is “or,” then the claim has to contradict only one of those sets, not both. But that would imply that some local health experts deviate from WHO, which would not be a consensus.

Here’s a final thought: Expert opinion, if it is expert, is at its apex of persuasiveness when there is a wide consensus . If there is a total consensus, it makes one wonder what would be the harm in “allowing” a claim that contradicts that consensus. What’s the harm ? You have expert consensus. Hard to miss that, if you can identify it and publish it.

If there was massive confusion and disagreement, maybe there would be more risk in discussion that could result in false beliefs that end up doing some harm. But even then, how are the false beliefs supposed to be identified if the claims can’t be made ? In order to vet a claim, it has to be allowed to be made. And if it contradicts “expert consensus,” then the fact that it does could be pointed out very clearly. Not vaguely, but very clearly. And left alone.

But that’s not what’s happening on YouTube.

YouTube will say just about anything to censor Republican voices. Never under the guise of censoring Republican voices.

Here’s the audio:

https://www.therepublicanprofessor.com/2022/05/05/episode-46-heidi-st-john-home-based-education-for-congress/

See if you can find the claim that “contradicts” “expert consensus.”

Lemme know what you find,

Ljm