David Craig, on January 6th, 2022Friday/weekend blog
Below are just a small sample of the comments made by Times readers to an article about tennis player Novak Djokovic being denied access to Australia to play in the Australian Open which he has won about 9 times.
A serious newspaper?
The Times is supposed to be one of the world’s leading newspapers. And the only people allowed to comment on articles are those with a paid subscription – serious readers. So, you might have expected the standards of readers’ comments to be reasonably high compared to other newspapers. Instead, we get the garbage I have quoted above.
There are two issues these comments bring up:
Issue 1 – Why so bitter?
Although tennis just involves hitting a soft ball over a net, it is an incredibly demanding sport. To be able to keep serving at over 100 mph and keep returning shots for two or even three hours is an extraordinary feat of physical endurance. And Djokovic is one of the world’s greatest athletes.
I obviously don’t know what the people commenting on the Times�website have achieved in their lives. But I suspect most have achieved rather less than Novak Djokovic.
He may not have the charm of a Federer, but that is hardly a reason for readers of a supposedly serious newspaper to call him a ‘nasty little man’ and� a ‘d!ckhead’ and a ‘c*nt’.
As for the idiot who wrote: “Wham! Got him right in the wallet! Good job Oz”�- Djokovic is worth over $220m so I rather doubt he’ll miss the couple of million he could have won in Australia.
Issue 2 – Why so ignorant?
When I heard Djokovic was possibly concerned about vaccination, unlike many Times readers, my first reaction wasn’t to start hurling abuse at him. Instead, I looked at the possible reasons he might have to reject vaccination.
The obvious first reason may be the fact that even the Chinese-run, ludicrously misnamed World Health Organisation (WHO) has confirmed that the mRNA vaccines have resulted in many cases of inflammation of the heart muscles:
The COVID-19 subcommittee of the WHO Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety (GACVS) issued a statement regarding reports of myocarditis and pericarditis following COVID-19 mRNA vaccines (1). Cases of myocarditis and pericarditis, although rare, have occurred more often in younger men (adolescents or young adults) and after the second dose, typically within a few days after vaccination with the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. As of June 2021, US VAERS surveillance data estimated crude reporting rates of 40.6 cases per million second doses among males and 4.2 cases per million among females aged 12-29 years (2). Current evidence suggests a likely causal association between myocarditis and the mRNA vaccines.
This inflammation seems to last for about 2 to 3 months. Most vaccinated people won’t notice this as they seldom put their heart under great strain. But for professional athletes like Djokovic, this could be fatal and over 100 young athletes have have suffered heart problems (and in some cases died) following mRNA vaccinations. Moreover, Djokovic would have access to medical advice from the world’s leading doctors and so probably knows slightly more about the possible side-effects of mRNA vaccines than most Times readers.
Why mention this?
I’m not taking a stance on whether Djokovic should or shouldn’t be vaccinated r whether he should or shouldn’t be allowed to play in Australia. I merely thought these readers’ comments were interesting in the way they reveal how low the level of public debate has sunk. Nowadays, people no longer seem able to see both sides of an argument to try to arrive at a balanced, informed conclusion. Instead they instinctively lash out with furious insults, usually based on total ignorance.
If you don’t grovellingly prostrate yourself to the accepted woke�BBC/Guardian politically-correct, supposedly ‘progressive’, libtard narrative on every issue, there is no discussion. Instead you’re immediately branded a ‘homophobe’ or a ‘denier’ or an ‘anti-vaxxer’ or a ‘racist’ or a ‘fascist’ or other such insults. Moreover, failure to comply with the ‘progressive’ orthodoxy can get you cancelled and even destroy your career.
It seems people are incapable of reasoned discussion any more. They just hurl abuse and threats and send the cyber-pitchfork-wielding, witch-hunting mob to lynch you.
No wonder the West is falling apart while the Chinese take over the world.
Why can nobody take a balanced view?
A couple of hours after writing this, I noticed that most UK newspapers have decided to launch anti-Djokovic tirades to insult and ridicule the Serb. As far as I can see, in the mainstream media’s ‘let’s see who can kick Djokovic hardest’ competition, not a single supposed ‘journalist’ has chosen to mention the very real risk of heart problems for professional athletes following mRNA vaccinations.
What a disgrace our media are!
Category: 
A more simple answer might be that he might just be frightned of needles. I suffer from this myself which is why I never took up knitting.
Look at this another way. Your blog does not attract people like this. Your followers might have different views but I have never seen any insults. I hope it stays that way.
I am sure I made a comment about The Times on this blog some time ago. I subscribed and got insults for my views on climate change. I complained to The Times but they did nothing. They have conditions for commenting that are supposed to prevent those comments, but they do nothing about it. I ended by subscription. I haven�t read a paper for years.
The important point is that this attitude prevents public debate. I imagine The Times was also critical and had no balance in its reporting. Do we have to see a player collapsing on the court to bring these people to their senses? Why the anger and bitterness? Because they can get away with it on social media. In real life they will not do it, but remember they will be thinking it. What an awful world we now live in.
I think it’s not so much that Djokovic may have misgivings abut receiving the covid vaccine – understandable from some points of view – as that he has refused to state his vaccine status. If he fears adverse cardiac consequences, then why not say so? The vast majority would, I am sure, whilst perhaps disagreeing with his view, nevertheless respect it. Why should this one man, because he is at the moment the world’s greatest tennis player, be given carte-blanche to enter a country where even its own citizens or long-time, property-owning residents, have been denied entry? At the moment he comes across as arrogant and priviliged, with an attitude of expecting the Government and inhabitants of Australia, the latter of whom have suffered far more severe lockdown policies than most of the rest of the world, to concede to his exceptional tennis skills. I reckon that HAD he been permitted to play, his reception on Court would have been far from welcoming. He’d do best to accept early removal from the country rather than embark on a litany of complaints (almost certainly of sound foundation) concerning the standard of accommodation and nutrition in a quarantine hotel.
An endless supply of purposefully misleading and stupefying statistics, put out for ideological purposes, must be at the top of the list of how people are being mislead and confused by the PTB.
TOM UTLEY: 99% of Belgians have more than the average number of legs. That’s why you can’t trust statistics –
An excellent article by Tom Utley for once on how misleading statistics often are. – Well worth sharing.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10377283/TOM-UTLEY-99-Belgians-average-number-legs.html#newcomment
Now, with these unpleasant comments by the ignorant about a top sportsman, there’s anecdotal evidence for mental side-effects from all these jabs on their willing recipients.
Apart from all the VAERS-listed post-vax reactions, such as death, it now seems there’s a more insidious effect: Angry Stockholm Syndrome (ASS).
Lashing out at anyone not following ‘the narrative’, usually anonymously on Twatter etc., these sad, soon-to-succumb pin-cushions are the cheerleaders for their own demise, a sort of DIY population-reduction team. Bye!
Have a look at Saturday’s Neil Oliver show on GB News.
It opens, as usual, with his usually excellent monologue and then moves on to an eye-opening interview with Pfizer’s former chief scientist, Mike Yeadon.
Yeadon exposes all of the lies that are being perpetrated.
Move up to 30:00 minutes into the show to see the interview.
GB News – Neil Oliver Live | Saturday 8th January –
It�s difficult to sympathise with someone who became a multimillionaire merely as a result of an unusual ability to successfully bat a ball across a net. Had the above-mentioned Serb actually done anything useful, it would be a different matter.
Much more worrying is the current condition of a once British-oriented society �down under� which meekly acquiesces in its transformation into a replica of a 1950s Iron Curtain state. Why we worry about defending them from China continues to elude me.
One takes small comfort from the fact that Dame Dick�s rainbow policepersons invariably run like fun from any confrontation with the likes of BLM and ER, and have to receive psychological counselling afterwards. So they are unlikely to be able to replicate the Australian police�s �Brownshirt� tactics should our �British� LibLabCon Uniparty politicians require it of them.
Beating up female protesters in public parks and lecturing peaceful individuals about �transphobic� tweets appears to be the limit of their capabilities.