A Challenge: Can You Make Your Case For or Against the COVID Vaccines Without Ad Hominem Attacks?

If you really know something you can teach it, without attacking your student.

Can we even talk about COVID mRNA vaccines? What are the preconditions for a rational conversation? The whole subject of vaccines has driven a rift between us so deep it seems like we may never reach each other again.

If you think no such conversation is possible or desirable, congratulations, you get your wish — you will not hear anyone, so by definition, no conversation will take place. Everyone is right in an echo chamber.

But for those of us who still want to talk, I suspect there are at least a few of us on each side of this that don’t want there to be any such thing as “sides”. That is, we have more fidelity to truth than we do to defending one “side” or another.

As best I can tell, right now, the conversation goes something along the lines of:

Side 1: I can’t understand how you would question the COVID vaccines. They are perfectly wonderful, effective, and safe, they’ve brought the cases down, the pharmaceutical companies have pulled off a miracle and saved us, and no one can (or s…