JAQing off, Tucker Carlson vaccine edition
John Oliver had a great segment a while back on vaccine hesitancy, in which he shows Tucker Carlson asking absurdly loaded questions about the safety and efficacy of the covid vaccines. You can see the clip here, the Tucker Carlson bit is around 6:15 to 7:45.
I bring this up not to praise Oliver or dump on Carlson, but to point out that Carlson’s disingenuous schtick has a name – “just asking questions”, or JAQing off:
Just asking questions (also known as JAQing off) is a way of attempting to make wild accusations acceptable (and hopefully not legally actionable) by framing them as questions rather than statements. It shifts the burden of proof to one’s opponent; rather than laboriously having to prove that all politicians are reptoid scum, one can pull out one single odd piece of evidence and force the opponent to explain why the evidence is wrong.
“…rather than laboriously having to prove that all politicians are reptoid scum…”
[That was not a good example. Were it not so preposterous then at least it would be a labor of love or, more appropriately, a labor of hate. In any case, it would be very emotional. However, the premise “that all politicians are reptoid scum” requires no proof, but rather stands on its own merit as accorded “We hold these truths to be self-evident” since it has been true long before anyone imagined “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” which seems far more preposterous and far fetched an idea.
Yes, I should be ashamed of myself, but I would never be ashamed of John Oliver. Tucker Carlson, OTOH…]