Dangerous Liar
I haven’t been following this Aaron Rodgers story much at all — he’s one among so many idiots who don’t know a thing about biology or medicine, but are so arrogant that they’ll pontificate foolishly about it and end up killing people. In this case, he’s a rich, overpaid, poorly educated professional athlete, and I confess, I find it easy to dismiss him as just a big dumb jock.
And then Kareem Abdul-Jabbar rises up and demonstrates that my stereotypes are false, delivering a well-informed smackdown to the stupid football player.
Unfortunately, the pandemic has revealed several athletes who abuse their position and responsibility, not just to the public, but to other professional athletes’ livelihood.
That latest egregious abuser is Green Bay quarterback and three-time MVP Aaron Rodgers who directly and deliberately lied to fans and the public when he assured everyone he was “immunized,” knowing that word would be interpreted as his being vaccinated. He wasn’t vaccinated. And he got COVID-19. And he went maskless during in-person press conferences, which not only violated NFL rules, but put everyone else’s health at risk.
Instead of consulting immunologists, he consulted anti-vaxxer and podcast host Joe Rogan, who also contracted the virus. If he ever requires open-heart surgery will he hand the scalpel to romance writers because they know about matters of the heart? While many who came into contact with him thought he was vaccinated, Rodgers had embarked on his own regimen to boost his “natural immunity.” He failed, as any scientist could have told him—and as they have been publicly telling us for over a year. University of Michigan microbiologist Ariangela Kozik explained that achieving “natural immunity” through these homeopathic methods is a non-starter because vaccines inform our immune system what the virus looks like so the body can build its own protection.
Joe Rogan…now there’s the type specimen of the big dumb jock. Abdul-Jabbar references that to point out that, obviously, some big jocks aren’t that dumb.
Rodgers’ ignorance regarding the science of immunology brings back to life the old stereotype of the big dumb jock. His utter lack of even the most basic knowledge and logic is shocking. In an effort to defend his lying, he stated, “This idea that it’s a pandemic of the unvaccinated, it’s just a total lie … If the vaccine is so great, then how come people are still getting covid and spreading covid and, unfortunately dying of covid?” Those two statements don’t even belong together. Statistics from many sources conclude that around 97 percent of those being hospitalized or who have died in the past several months are unvaccinated. The CDC found that the unvaccinated are 11 times more likely to die than those vaccinated. If he thinks that’s a lie, what credible evidence does he have? None.
And then — I did not know that Rodgers had been whining about “cancel culture” and the “woke mob”, but I am unsurprised. As always, though, the ones who whimper the most about being “canceled” never seem to face any real material consequences, they’re just bawling over their inanity being exposed.
Rodgers complained that the “cancel culture” was coming for him, but his own words cancel him as a liar and a bad thinker. If he had a principled objection to the vaccine, he could have chosen not to play, like Kyrie Irving, who at least is honest. What really sacked his whining stance was his refusal to wear a mask during interviews to protect others from sickness and death. That was merely his hubris and arrogance against what he called the “woke mob.” In this case, woke means compassion and responsibility toward others. He might also remember that the only reason he is able to play in front of crowds again is because all those suckers got vaccinated.
What will happen to Aaron Rodgers? Other than the brief suspension probably very little. He’s a valuable asset to a multi-billion dollar industry. The deal he signed with the Packers in 2018 is worth $134 million, plus the $9 million for commercial endorsements such as the one he has with Adidas, State Farm Insurance, and others. He has lost one endorsement: Prevea Health, a health care provider, cancelled their contract because his actions were contrary to their commitment to encourage vaccines to end the pandemic. When Rodgers signed with the company in 2019, Dr. Ashok Rai, president and CEO of Prevea, remarked at the time, “As one of the most respected athletes in the country, Aaron is truly passionate about improving the health and wellness of our communities.” That, too, turned out not to be true.
I can’t help but think of Colin Kaepernick, who was blacklisted by the NFL for passively expressing his frustration with systemic racism—a brave act meant to help his community and save lives—while multi-millionaire Rodgers will continue to play, despite lying to the fans and his teammates and putting innocent lives in danger. Time will tell whether Rodgers will be judged by the content of his character or the strength of his throwing arm.
I’m going to guess that the content of his character has just become a more valuable asset to the regressives.
“If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?” logic on AR’s part.
OT, but speaking of dumpf**ks who suffer no consequences for their stupidity but Rep. Paul Gosar “tweets altered anime video showing him killing Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Biden”
Abdul-Jabbar is smarter than the average bear and an all around good egg from what I’ve seen.
At one point Aaron Rodgers said, “I’m a critical thinker.” Whenever someone makes a point of saying “I’m a critical thinker” or “I can think for myself,” it’s usually a flag that they’re faking it.
What do you expect? Current psychological research suggests that belief in conspiracy theories are predicated on 3 things, lack of education, lack of critical thinking skills and feelings of powerlessness in one’s every day life. Belief in conspiracy theories give the person the illusion of power – their life might be absolute crap, but they have access to this secret knowledge so that mitigates these feelings of powerlessness. When combined with True Belief, it makes their conspiratorial thinking particularly resilient to persuasion.
I go more into the details (with references) about it here (btw it is still a work in progress I need to go into more detail in a couple of sections):
https://larryclyons.medium.com/a-dark-quadrangle-for-conspiracy-theorists-430066bd5818
(I wish there was a way to edit these DISCUSS posts – I forgot to mention one thing)
I don’t think that feelings of powerless apply as much in this case. HOWEVER, the lack of education is a factor here. And obviously the dearth of critical thinking skills. It’s pretty clear that Aaron Rodgers appears to lack both.
I’m sorry, but how does that work?
OK, your “research” of TikTok videos and the back catalog of Alex Jones’ show revealed to you that the real reason you’re living paycheck-to-paycheck is because the Interdimensional Lizard-Jews control the UN. What good is this supposed “knowledge” going to do for you? It isn’t going to liberate you from your circumstances–you’re still a dumb prole eking out a squalid drab existence. Even if it was true, what are you going to do against the near-god-like power of the Lizard-Jews?
@ 5
Lack of education AND living a life of luxury where no one dares challenge you no matter how wrong you are.
Aaron Rogers is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
The latest trend in hospital care for Covid-19 virus patients is an increase in death threats and violence directed against the staff. Somewhere around 95% of the patients in the ICU are Covid-19 virus deniers/antivaxxers.
As this pandemic keeps going, the people getting sick and ending up in the ICU are the hardcore antivaxxers. When they get sick with the virus, rather than learn anything and adapt, they are getting hostile and attacking the health care staff.
It’s gone beyond verbal screaming and physical attacks to death threats and the occasional assaults with weapons.
The health care workers all think it is a matter of time before one of these right wingnuts goes Florida High School and shoots up a hospital.
I struggled a bit with this post. Why would anyone think Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was a big dumb jock in the first place? He’s up there with John Amaechi – and he was in a Bruce Lee film.
If Aaron Rodgers had any awareness at all, getting called out by Kareem Abdul-Jabber like that should stop him in his tracks and make him reassess his behavior.
I am not optimistic.
#10
Down that path lies magical and mysterious outcomes. In other words, pure fiction.
Just wait. When/if Rogers recovers he’s going to claim “natural immunity”. There’s some bad science floating around and one of the anti-vax myths claims that contracting COVID confers superior immunity. THIS IS FALSE. Repeated studies establish that the mRNA vaccines are far superior at generating antibodies.
I don’t care about the Packers per se but as a person living in Wisconsin for many years I cannot think of a worse public figure to be bleating anti-vax nonsense than the QB of the Packers. I also live in the WOW counties so these comments are doubly influential among the people I live by.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has written a nice set of essay / opinion columns for the Grauniad.
Anyone doing stuff involving the word “homeopathy” should be preceded by a person waving a red flag, ringning a bell and shouting “possibly unclean!”
Ray Ceeya: the best science suggests that if your goal is maximum immunity, the ideal is to get sick and then get vaccinated.
Problem is, the goal isn’t maximum immunity. It’s to not get sick. But people who buy into anti-vax nonsense have trouble keeping things straight like that.
Perhaps Rodgers ought apply the principles of homeopathy to his profession.
A few years ago Abdul-Jabbar was on Splash, a reality show built around Olympic diving, sort of like diving with the stars.
Some things I learned; first that Abdul-Jabbar is a good sport, and then also that an older, taller gentleman, no matter how athletic, is at a serious disadvantage when it comes to body rotation.
Some amusing clips on Youtube.
Aaron Rodgers is not dumb (neither for that matter is Joe Rogan). Rodgers appears to be decently educated. Mostly I just think he’s a dick.
Aaron Rodgers attended Butte College, than transferred to Cal-Berkeley. He majored in “American Studies”, but didn’t actually graduate.
link
I’m tempted to believe that folks who disagree with me must be less educated or less smart than I am – one catchphrase I spout (with tongue firmly in cheek):
“people who think they know it all really piss off those of us who actually do”
A conspirational mindset isn’t always associated with less education, lack or critical thinking, lower intelligence (however that is measured)…but it is associated with thinking ‘differently’ – this has been parodied in mass media as ‘trusting your gut instead of your head” or in some places as an ‘Amygdala Hijack” – folks in that state of mind are not thinking critically…because they are not thinking rationally at all. They are reacting emotionally, as if they were ‘thinking with their limbic system’ instead of their frontal cortex. They are allowing themselves to be governed by their own fears
Even political affiliation (conservative vs less so) can be predicted from brain differences
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092984/
some folks cannot be reasoned with…because they do not think, use the part of their brain involved with higher order cognitive functions (when deciding about these issues)
being in the ‘in” group re a ‘conspiracy’ give a false sense of control, it assuages fear, and pumps some ‘feel-better’ neurotransmitters
I don’t know how to solve the problem, but I have learned that it isn’t worth my time to be confrontational or try to educate someone who holds that mindset. They will insist that the earth is flat and cannot be convinced otherwise. We can just hope that public policy can avoid pandering to those fears
and vote for folks that reason vs. emote when it comes to things like epidemiology
well of course he went to college, that is the general path to a professional football career, colleges function as the minor leagues for pro-football. While he did attend he clearly did not get much out of it besides the pro-football career .
some other athletes did get the benefits of education from attending university as in the example here of Kareem
I don’t follow sportsball, but I feel a need to cheer for Mr. Abdul-Jabbar for that essay.
The attitudes shown by Rodgers have shown up in large portions of countries. The BBC Newshour just broadcast the Ukraine is now having a much worse surge than any time before – 600 deaths per day – while only about 20% have been fully vaccinated. And many are loudly protesting the gov’t’s efforts to improve the rate – including one MD neurologist they interviewed who was shrieking that vaccines are poison. Education is no guarantee.
@25 WMDKitty — Abdul Jabbar was on Celebrity Jeopardy, maybe 20 years ago, with, say, Sarah Jessica Parker or Courtney Cox, and some dick of an actor, a Tom Cruise sort, and he killed them. Alex Trebek was clearly rooting for him after a while, the 7’3″ black Muslim jock, it was a great episode. He won handily.
I agree Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has a right to feel offended. But I am also certain he has way too much class. He has personally faced a lot worse and is just doing a public service in writing this essay.
PaulBC:
So you agree (with whom?) that he has a fundamental right to be offended, but you are certain that he has way too much class.
The inevitable implication is that you are certain he should not be offended, due to his class, despite his right to be so.
So, basically, he’s doing it wrong, in your estimation.
(Is that really what you intended to convey?)
JM@29
Ya got me! I am sure that most readers and not the pedant-in-residence took it that way.
As Schnitzel alluded to: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a literal Bruce Lee boss, Aaron Rodgers doesn’t even show up to the field.
Kareem is and always has been a thoughtful intellectual. I met him in the UCLA COOP (dining hall) where he was playing chess, back when he was Lew Alcindor. I was playing on the other side of the table next to him. At one point he stood up and I thought he was going to go through the ceiling.
” the best science suggests that if your goal is maximum immunity, the ideal is to get sick and then get vaccinated”
“suggests” is doing a lot of work there. The evidence indicates that getting infected by the virus and later being vaccinated results in a swiss-army-knife type of immunity that guards you not only against Sars-CoV-2 but other coronaviruses as well, but it doesn’t tell us that this is the maximal protection. For instance, getting vaccinated and then getting infected might have the same or a stronger effect, but it hasn’t received the same attention because there are fewer cases and we don’t infect vaccinated people in order to find out.
Its tempting to ignore people who spout dangerous nonsense, because you can’t change their minds. However never forget there is an audience who can get the spouted nonsense unopposed, or they can hear your argument and perhaps be immunised against the nonsense.