Unexpected
Keeping your professional relationships apolitical can sometimes be a challenge.
“Joe Rogan Wants a ‘Debate’ on Vaccine Science, Don’t Give it to Him.”1
— Vox article title
In my professional life, I’ve tried to stay away from politics, something I’ve been mostly successful at. However, I remember two times in the last seventeen years when I ventured in. In both instances the individuals said something I couldn’t let pass.
In the first instance, the woman, a lesbian, said soon after Trump’s election in 2016 that she and her partner now feared for their lives. I wasn’t speechless because I responded right away, but I was flabbergasted. It turned into a somewhat cordial exchange between my client and me (we had a very good relationship), but then she handed the phone over to her partner and it got rather heated. An hour later after I hung up, I thought to myself, I’m never doing that again.
In the second exchange, my client’s assistant decided it would be a good idea to call ivermectin “horse dewormer.” She was upset at Joe Rogan and his take on ivermectin and since he was on Spotify, she wondered if we should put my client’s podcasts on Spotify since there was so much disinformation being irresponsibly broadcast by Rogan and allowed by Spotify. She’s also a Lesbian. I’m not drawing any conclusions from my two political encounters with lesbians, just reporting the facts. We had a very good relationship and still do, however, I couldn’t let that comment go. So I said calmly, “It’s called Ivermectin.” She didn’t know much about it. We got into it for a good ten minutes but my client, ever the peacemaker, ended the debate. You can read a more detailed account of that here.
Just recently my wife and I were talking to her doctor during a phone appointment. He’s a previous doctor we had in Arizona, but now that we’re in California we can’t see him in person. Anyway, after the appointment was almost over, he began lamenting the fact that he can’t get some of the alternative medicines he’s been used to getting. He said for the last 25 years there’s been a push to make it difficult for alternative doctors (he’s a Naturopathic Medical Doctor) to practice. Then he said, without any kind of prompting from us,
I don’t want to scare you guys, but they don’t care about us. In fact, they’re trying to kill us.
My wife and I burst out in agreement and laughter, “You don’t have to convince us, Doc!” It’s satisfying to discover common ground with people when you don’t expect it.
I’ve never been quite been sure about the Doc’s political views and to some degree I’m still not, but in that we agree. There was a clue sometime back. I asked him about a treatment (IVIG) that used blood from thousands of people that a couple of other doctors wanted my wife to try. I asked, “What are the ramifications of using vaccinated blood to create this?” His response?
That’s an excellent question, but one we’re not even allowed to ask. The short answer is, no one knows. I would advise she not do it.
A good doctor, like a good man, is hard to find.
We’re keeping this one.
Note
Karen Landman, “Joe Rogan Wants a ‘Debate’ on Vaccine Science. Don’t Give it to Him,” Vox, June 22, 2023, Source quoted in The Great Awakening by Alex Jones, Kindle version, pg. 401.
Jones quotes this from the Vox article:
"For starters, a debate about a scientific issue implies that there is scientific disagreement about that issue, said Rupali Limaye, a social scientist at Johns Hopkins University’s public health school who studies vaccine communication."
LOL. There is always scientific disagreement about issues...if there is not...pause and take note.
