A red herring is a fish with a pungent smell, especially when dead.
What’s a Red Herring fallacy, then?
First, one origin story on where this fallacy got its name:
To train their dogs to hunt foxes, owners would drag a fish carcass along forest trails. Staying focused on the fox was harder for dogs when the scent of Red Herring distracted them.
A modern example is how Earl Woods would scream or jingle coins in his pocket during Tiger’s backswing. The distractions were Red Herrings meant to train Tiger to stay focused on what’s relevant: his golf swing.
The Red Herring fallacy is a logical error we all make from time to time. It’s committed when we dismiss an issue by distraction rather than debate.
For example:
‘Can you believe people are crying about wheelchair accessibility on sidewalks when disabled babies in China are being killed?’
The wheelchair accessibility argument gets dismissed without being addressed. A distraction – a different issue altogether – is used to throw people off like dogs losing their focus on foxes, and onto the Red Herring.
Can you imagine...?
Imagine telling Canadian women in 1917 that fighting for their right to vote is stupid because there’s a World War happening?
What if we told Canadians in 1977 to shut up about protesting against discrimination from employers because there’s genocide happening in Cambodia?
Or telling Canadians in 1994 to shut up about protesting for gay rights because of genocide in Rwanda?
These would all be Red Herring fallacies. (Presumably, these protestors were met with such claims.)
Also Red Herring fallacies:
“The Truckers should just shut up and check their privilege – Indigenous people don’t even have clean drinking water!”
“The freedom protestors should shut up when there are innocent people in Ukraine being murdered. Oh boo hoo you have to wear a mask in a mall – how would you like being murdered!”
The Fight Must Go On
This is a human rights issue of personal bodily autonomy that was violated and should never happen again.
Every one deserves freedom to make personal medical decisions with voluntary consent. When institutions and government exclude you from jobs, education, grocery shopping, restaurants, travel, sports leagues, arenas, and museums, that’s coercion.
Coercion is not consent. Coercion makes you do things you don’t want to do. That’s not choice, but submission.
Whether it’s from a future variant of covid, or something different altogether: you deserve to choose what goes in your body, and your child’s. Not your government.
But isn't this all a thing of the past?
While restrictions are getting lifted, media is priming us for a return to medical coercion and apartheid. (Examples: 1, 2, 3.)
No matter your stance on the vaccine mandates, this issue is bigger than covid. It’s about who owns your body.
Our politicians tend to say whatever gets them more votes. So the best way forward is to welcome as many people we can into this Freedom movement.
The good news:
The Freedom movement consists of both vaccinated and unvaccinated people. Everyone is welcome. We are Team Inclusion (not segregation).
The bad news:
We’re up against the same politicians who coerced us in the first place, and the same media that runs cover for them, hoping to score another bail out.
This will be no little potato. We must focus on the fox, or get horse-trampled like an Indigenous Grandmother on a mobility scooter.