Book Review: David Kirby, When They Come for You, St. Martin’s Press
Note: On this, the final day of the month, year and decade, we are happy to share this review of David Kirby's latest book, When They Come For You. David's book Evidence of Harm and his work on Huffington Post brought many readers into the AofA fold. And like everyone who dares to question anything about vaccinations, he paid a price. Please join us in congratulating him on this book, and we encourage you to support his work with a purchase. Thank you to AofA Contributor Jonathan Rose for his review.
A revealing book about how government, law enforcement, and bureaucratic interests are seizing our property, our children, our savings, and our fundamental American rights—and how to fight back. St. Martin's Press
By Jonathan Rose
David Kirby, When They Come for You, St. Martin’s Press, hardcover $29.99, e-book $14.99.
For many of us, the penny dropped when we read David Kirby’s Evidence of Harm. My wife and I had watched helplessly as our two daughters gradually descended into autism. The younger one regressed visibly after her fifth-birthday MMR shot, but we did not immediately connect the two events. Doctors offered no explanation, no means of arresting the decline, and no effective treatment (ABA really didn’t work). Shortly after it was published, I took Kirby’s book to read on a business trip. When I arrived at my hotel, I immediately phoned my wife and told her that the culprit had at last been identified.
At the time we had every reason to think that the autism epidemic would be reversed. Evidence of Harm was favorably reviewed in the New York Times, it won the 2005 Investigative Reporters and Editors award for best book, and Kirby was invited to discuss his findings on television talk shows. Though a disastrous medical error had been committed, we were reasonably confident that what are called the “self-correcting mechanisms” of a democratic society – open public debate and free scientific investigation – would set things right.
Of course, that didn’t happen. Vaccine injury – along with an ever-lengthening list of controversial topics – is no longer debatable. And abuses of government power, far from being checked, are ever more pervasive.
This is the subject of Kirby’s latest book, When They Come for You. It devotes only a few pages to compulsory vaccination, but it places the issue in a much larger political context: the protections ostensibly guaranteed in the Bill of Rights are increasingly ignored or flouted by the police, the courts, and bureaucrats. SWAT teams launch warrantless raids on homeowners who have done nothing wrong. Debtors prisons did not end with Charles Dickens: courts today impose fines that impoverished defendants cannot pay and then jail them indefinitely. Police can seize your property even if you are merely suspected of a crime, and they usually keep what they seize.
Acting on anonymous accusations, Child Protective Services removes children from their parents, who are presumed either guilty until proven innocent, or just plain guilty. (Some vaccination advocates have proposed that nonvaccination alone would justify prosecuting parents for medical neglect.) An “unclean home” is considered grounds removing children – and frankly, if your autistic fifteen-year-old is incontinent, your home probably isn’t spotless. Julian Dominguez and Melinda Murphy, two former social workers who have studied allegations of child abuse, concluded that the permanent removal of children was necessary in only 20 percent of cases. The other cases involved either parents who were either completely innocent or too poor to properly care for their children, and the latter could be helped by a more adequate social safety net.
Most troubling of all, freedom of speech, the bedrock of American liberty, is under attack from institutions that used to defend it. Colleges that once upheld academic freedom now impose speech codes. Major news outlets that always stood up for press freedom now insist that alternative websites be shut down. (See a recent op-ed in the New York Times by a New Yorker staff writer, “Free Speech is Killing Us”.) The Internet was at first hailed as a public forum open to everyone: now tech oligopolies have hired armies of censors to enforce arcane, contradictory, and ever-changing restrictions. Scientists once insisted on free inquiry: now they treat “science” as a set of eternal dogmas, not open to debate or revision in the light of new evidence.
Kirby cites the case of Brandon Raub, a decorated Marine Corps veteran whose controversial Facebook page attracted the attention of the FBI. Though he could be charged with no crime, he was forcibly detained in a psychiatric ward under a “green warrant”, a legal mechanism used to detain about 20,000 Virginians whom someone somehow judged to be some kind of threat. (The Soviet Union, in its final days, also tried to confine dissidents to mental hospitals.) Granted, Raub spun some wild theories about government conspiracies – but then, AoA has also alleged conspiracies involving federal agencies, haven’t we?
Kirby isn’t nearly as hostile to the “deep state” as (say) Steve Bannon. He was for a time a New York City employee, and he rightly insists that genuinely dedicated public servants do exist as individuals. But what emerges from this book is that bureaucracies as institutions always tend to accumulate power, pilfer wealth, suppress public criticism, insulate themselves from democratic control, and seek favors from the institutions and corporations they are supposed to regulate (the so-called “revolving door”). As his friend and ally Sharyl Attkisson illustrated in her book The Smear, whenever one of those dedicated public servants turns whistleblower, bureaucracies mobilize to destroy him. Every government department (not just the CDC) has a PR apparatus that can call upon complicit journalists to attack its critics and credulously publish its press releases. (Except for a segment on Sharyl Attkisson’s program Full Measure, the mainstream media has virtually ignored When They Come for You.)
Kirby despises Donald Trump, and he points out some real abuses under the current administration. But he honestly admits that, “Given Obama’s progressive public rhetoric, I was taken aback to discover the Obama administration’s shameful legal record on legal and judicial matters.” Because the electorate cannot control unelected bureaucracies, they tend to become increasingly powerful and corrupt regardless of the election results. And given that big tech companies (also unelected) work hand in glove with government agencies to conduct surveillance of we the people, they become an extension of intrusive bureaucracies.
Kirby describes himself as a “leftist libertarian”, and wryly concedes that this now seems to be a contradiction in terms. When he was growing up in the 1970s, all leftists were fiercely antiauthoritarian and profoundly distrusted government institutions. But now, for reasons that would require a scholarly monograph to explain, that virtually anarchistic countercultural left has evolved into a very establishmentarian “progressivism”, which may be defined as liberalism without liberty. “Woke” college students aspire to bureaucratic jobs in education or tech companies or government where they will be well-paid for surveilling and policing the rest of us. They view the Bill of Rights and civil liberties as obstacles to be overcome. (Kirby may be the only bona fide leftist who supports the Second Amendment.)
However focused we may be on the autism epidemic, we should listen closely to David Kirby, because he sees the larger picture. “They” have come not only for us, but also for millions of other persecuted citizens, and that kind of bureaucratic arrogance has no doubt contributed to the worldwide populist revolt. Politics are all about coalition-building, and a protest movement that concentrates solely on autism will necessarily be small (even if it is growing). Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has attracted a much broader following by taking on all the chronic disorders that afflict the Sickest Generation, including but not limited to autism. If we widen our appeal still further, and join forces with all those whose individual rights have been trampled in the name of the “greater good”, then we will have a large majority.
Jonathan Rose is a Professor of History at Drew University. His most recent book is Readers’ Liberation (Oxford University Press).
I will have to buy this book and see if Mr. Kirby addressed my question of why those in authority can think they can lie to the public, and there will never be an pay back for that?
I would love to know his thoughts on that matter?
Is it because when they lie, they are betting that those that know they lie will not be the majority?
That the majority will never think deeply about it because authority has spoken, and that is good enough for the masses? And so who cares if a large number of helpless people know the truth, too bad?
Is that it?
Visitor; You are initialed to your opinion the first time around. Plus I think it is logical thinking.
Here we are; Book banning Adam Schiff, on the TV every time I turn it on. Life is so unfair.
Posted by: Benedetta | January 03, 2020 at 10:18 PM
Pogo:
Exactly.
A long time ago for me which is a couple of decades or more, I was teaching Physical science. The school had received brand new books. In every chapter there was an assignment about global warming, in every chapter. I was wondering what happened to all the scares of sulfur producing volcanoes causing the ice age I was teaching in Earth Science?
Then toward the middle end, when everybody was distracted by end semester activities, we all got into the unit of gases; the atmosphere, wind currents, molecular movement, volume, pressure, temperature and right in the middle of a chapter they ran into such a tight spot on the facts, that they had to say: Keep in mind that global warming is just a theory. That CO2 could act as a blanket and warm the earth is just a theory. Yeah, a theory that was not working when looking close at the facts. A theory that they put a bright spot light on in every chapter until that one.
John Stone; A clean earth, taking care of the earth does not mean we should concentrate on worthless and wrong theories. There has been intensive research on safe procedures on how to mine from the earth, burn coal, store or use soot.
When it comes to nuclear energy the more we learn the scary it gets.
This little gem of information is enough to give us all pause about nuclear energy. Graphite rods that they push into a chain reaction busting of atoms are present to absorbs those pieces of broken atoms, calming and controlling the chain reaction thus keeping it from melting down the ships or power plants. Those graphite rods have to changed out almost weekly. There is a lot of them too. So changed out often, a lot of them, and they are all now radioactive. What do we do with them? Which would we run out of first; Graphite or a place to bury them. Around these power plants, there are tons of these graphite rods all buried. This waste was what the United States planned to bury all together some where out in the waste lands of the South West at one time. They claim they found an earthquake fault, and they might have, but more likely there was still not enough space.
Posted by: Benedetta | January 03, 2020 at 10:37 AM
Please ignore my earlier post. I have no clue about what is going on with the President, the press, or politics. It all confuses me and I just at times post trying to get some sense of what I am seeing. I also retract what I said about Bill Clinton. I am sure he is a fine man.
Posted by: Visitor | January 03, 2020 at 08:10 AM
Sounds like a very interesting read . A future from the past ?.
A study of the Poor Roll in a Scottish Highland Parish 1864 - 1915 By Peter Laurie 1997
Ba Ba mo Leanabh Beag Christina Stewart Youtube
Healing Threads Traditional Medicines of The Highlands and Islands . Mary Beith 1995
Posted by: Morag | January 03, 2020 at 04:15 AM
Jonathan: Thank you for this fine review, and David Kirby, thank you for the good journalism you are still doing. "Evidence of Harm" was the first vaccine book I read, and it opened my eyes to the horror show that public health policy has become. I was a Trump voter, as the lesser of two evils, and may become one again, although some of his policies, particularly in foreign affairs, are incredibly stupid and counterproductive, but clearly the war on Trump is part of the campaign to capture the entire population as customers for industry. Neither political party can be trusted with our liberty. What we can and must do is raise hell everywhere and at every opportunity. Americans are not sheep, although it often appears so. Our political system is truly broken, as is Medicine. Neither the electoral process nor the courts are capable of fixing them.
Posted by: Gary Ogden | January 02, 2020 at 10:10 AM
@ David Kirby
I want to thank again for your excellent book "Evidence of Harm". I met you once about 18 years ago at a demonstration in Washington, D.C. where I was protesting in the name of my second grandson who had mysteriously "regressed" at 2 years of age .. wearing a tee shirt emblazoned with the photo image of him under the words … 'EVIDENCE OF HARM". Truly … your book opened the eyes of thousands of parents just like my family and WE will ALWAYS remain thankful for your work.
Having said that .. I have decided to buy your book to ascertain for myself as to why you believe President Trump is a "clear and present danger to a free press and freedom of expression in general"? jI suspect we disagree on whether or not we actually have a 'FREE PRESS AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN GENERAL .. or .. whether or not it is Trump's fault we don't??
Buying your book now … again … thanks for all you have done with EVIDENCE OF HARM.
Posted by: Bob Moffit | January 02, 2020 at 08:21 AM
@Sad Catholic - "Like me, he is a lifelong Democrat feeling betrayed by the CA state democrats who REFUSE REFUSE REFUSE to hear us."
I've been a political independent most of my voting life, and I feel betrayed by both parties on a wide variety of issues.
But I'm wondering - do Republicans feel betrayed by the politicians of Mississippi and West Virginia (which like California and New York) do not allow a religious exemption for vaccines? And what about Republican states like Arizona, whose Republican governor refuses to expand vaccine exemptions? https://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2019/02/27/ducey-declares-arizona-pro-vaccination-state-vows-to-kill-vaccine-exemption-bills/
Posted by: Aimee Doyle | January 01, 2020 at 05:17 PM
"I believe he is a clear and present danger to a free press and freedom of expression in general."
On this site referring to Trump and his alluding to taking on vaccine harm before he was elected I said: "He is full of it". There are things about him I don't like, but that has been true of every President I have seen and heard. He is more moral than BIll Clinton. But regarding the above quote I ask; care to elaborate?I did not think he would do a thing about vaccines during his campaign as he promoted, but your statements begs for exactly how he has any power over the press. They have mainly bashed him non-stop from day one. He does call some of them "fake news, but he could not even get Jim Acosta{removed journalist?}from the White House after a judges ruling. The press has only had it's flaws and bias exposed by their political activism run rampant the last few years. They have been like this way before Tromp. Give me a bus load of Sharyl Attkissons. My two cents is that much media is now bought and paid for. CNN and MSNBC are political mouthpieces. Fox is too mainly, but they are small pike of the pie Much of the press does not like him and reports in that fashion because they are often partisan.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/business/media/cnn-acosta-trump.html
from Gallup
https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/xjkfow2specokpgzzd147a.png
Posted by: Visitor | January 01, 2020 at 03:17 PM
Thank you for the positive review, and the support of AOA. For the record, I do not despise Donald Trump, nor did I say anything like that in the book, which takes equal aim at the Obama AND Trump administrations. In fact, the vast majority of the stories I report took place at the state or local level, (both red and blue jurisdictions) and had little, if anything, to do with the occupant of the White House. I DO despise many of Trump's policies, and as I describe in the book, I believe he is a clear and present danger to a free press and freedom of expression in general. But to me, hatred is a wasted, toxic emotion that hurts the hater more than the hated. Thanks.
Posted by: David L Kirby | January 01, 2020 at 02:13 PM
Thanks David, thanks Pogo,
John
Posted by: John Stone | January 01, 2020 at 01:58 PM
From here after - Please let us stay off this topic of a global crisis to preserve our sanity!
Does David Runciman include in his book that Margaret Thatcher had Denis Healey set up the Climate Change think-tank in order to make the privatization of nuclear power appear more attractive to investors (and the carbon tax would cover the losses) . Denis has since said publicly that he does not belive in Man Made Warming (youtube even as him saying it). The German Chancellor also liked the idea as he wanted to catch up with France’s nuclear industry. To this end (and I simplify). The existing ocean and atmospheric dynamic computer models had the Milankovitch cycles and CO2 levels added to the exclusion of other things like solar particle forcing that affect climate. Just as in the ‘vaccine crisis’ where experts in different fields are pretending they know more than they do,. This misleads other experts who take them at their word, rather than analysing the papers
and doing their own reality check themselves. If those that call themselves ‘science journalists ‘ really knew how to read these very convincing papers that they holds up as proof, they would know that, However interesting the results and regardless of the ‘P’ values obtained. If the results require any of the laws of thermodynamics by ignored or Effective Temperature (Teff) (black-body radiation) used as it it was the same as Surface Temperature (‘emissivity’ which can be higher than Teff), ( Oh. I won’t go into all the miss uses of Kirchhoff’s Law of Thermal Emission). Then the paper is not worth reading beyond the method section. Just as in vaccine studies – if the method is crappy, so are the results and conclusions. I could go on about this for pages and pages boring you silly. Anthropogenic Global Warming is NOT a danger. But the weather is going to get far more extreme due to other influences.
I am not alone in actually reading some of the rubbishy papers.
Myth of the 97% consensus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJujb-VnaCM
Posted by: Pogo | January 01, 2020 at 12:33 PM
John Stone,
The "theory of global warming" that has been hysterically adopted belongs in the same category as "vaccines are safe and effective" --- both completely corrupted, propped up by scores of $billions per year and con-man scientists like Offit and Anthony Fauci. Here is a recent piece on the website "www.climate.depot.com" citing 350 climate-science publishings completely ignored by mainstream media, and Al Gore devotees. I am as disappointed as anybody about Trump failing us re Vaccine Safety investigation (can only pray he may appoint such IF he gets a second term and he can then ignore the immensely powerful evil Medical Cabal).
John, THANKS so much for everything; pull this up.
https://notrickszone.com/2019/12/26/350-papers-published-since-2017-subvert-the-claim-that-post-1850s-warming-has-been-unusual-global/
Posted by: david m burd | January 01, 2020 at 08:49 AM
Benedetta
I don’t pretend to know all the answers - I know I think we ought to take care of the planet if we are going to have any choices left. I haven’t read Moore’s book but perhaps Thatcher had not so much given up on global warming but come to mistrust the agendas of its main proponents. Bobby Kennedy has been about the only prominent Green lobbyist to have taken up our issues which has left me mighty suspicious of what most of them are really about. The theory of global warming may or may not be right but it is still essential to look after the planet, whichever way.
Happy New Year!
John
Posted by: John Stone | December 31, 2019 at 06:08 PM
My husband teaches Catholic school and is a student of history.
HE is my ASD son's stepdad. He says that had he never heard my stories about vaccine injury, he would be deeply distrubed by the assaults on religions liberty and the right to conscience with the new ridiciulous vaccine laws in CA. And the reductions in aid to those who don't vaccinate? Why has the press been SILENT about this attempt ( I don't even know if it succeeded but it is the definition of evil. Accept this product, and you get more money from the state, you family that is barely getting by)
Like me, he is a lifelong Democrat feeling betrayed by the CA state democrats who REFUSE REFUSE REFUSE to hear us.
And yet, Trump betrayed us in an even worse way, we all know that he knows. We won't say how. But he knows. And yet he canceled the Vaccine Safety commission.
SO is there any hope in Kirby's book because it feels like all the options are gone.
Posted by: Sad Catholic | December 31, 2019 at 06:00 PM
They came for my family and community before , forgiven does not mean forgotten, and will not be getting repeated !
"As long as grass grows and water runs " John Prebble
The Highland Clearances John Prebble
A Good New Year for 2020
Get the resilience ceilidh started
brochan lom - Calum Kennedy Youtube
Posted by: Morag | December 31, 2019 at 04:08 PM
John Stone:
Wind power and solar power is and will always be limited.
They can be compared to bicycles and horse drawn carriages.
You can put the state of the art gears, pullies, cogs, shocks on them, but in the end they are still bicycles and horse drawn carriages and the same can be said for windmills and solar power.
"Large wind turbines require a large amount of energy to operate. Other electricity plants generally use their own electricity, and the difference between the amount they generate and the amount delivered to the grid is readily determined. Wind plants, however, use electricity from the grid, which does not appear to be accounted for in their output figures. At the facility in Searsburg, Vermont, for example, it is apparently not even metered and is completely unknown . The manufacturers of large turbines -- for example, Vestas, GE, and NEG Micon -- do not include electricity consumption in the specifications they provide. "
Carbon trading is what they are wanting. This right here, this little trick will be all about, not money laundering, but carbon laundering.
How disappointing to me that not only when it came to immunizations: am I caught and hurt to the core in the lie of the government's making. Oh, oh, oh, and my poor family paying, paying too.
But my life's work in the environment is also a big monster liar too.
Posted by: Benedetta | December 31, 2019 at 03:51 PM
You can "despise" Trump, Republicans and Democrats for the deception and failures and at the same time recognize that both Bob Moffit and Cia would have made better Presidents.
Posted by: michael | December 31, 2019 at 03:30 PM
Looks like a good read...the best bit of advice I rember acting on how to fight back was not having a TV License and from there where possible be anti corporate buy- your shopping from the small guys,not easy with a kid with the usual gut issues we do our best.
Times will change we can all do something and that small bit if we all do it ends up massive.
Pharma For Prison
MMR RIP
Posted by: Angus Files | December 31, 2019 at 02:35 PM
OK, one big complaint about the otherwise well-written blurb here.... The former Soviet Union didn't "try to confine dissidents to mental hospitals"....That's like saying "Hitler & the Nazis set up rest camps for Jews".... The Soviet Union used STATE PSYCHIATRISTS, whi INVENTED FAKE "diagnoses", to use to justify INCARCERATING dissidents in LOCK-WARD PRISONS pretending to be "mental hospitals". Yes, persons HAVE been shot & KILLED, when cops came to enforce so-called "red flag" anti-gun laws. The local "community mental health center" actually LIES about people, to cause them to be transported in handcuffs and shackles to the State Loony Bin....without crime, or even a criminal charge! INNOCENT PEOPLE are being KIDNAPPED by the STATE. And AoA talks about mandatory vaccinations!? Despite my minor quibble, above, I say to ALL at AoA:
HAPPY NEW YEAR!, and KEEP UP the GOOD WORK!
(I also have to plug Andrew Yang's book, "The War on Normal People"....)....
Posted by: Bill | December 31, 2019 at 02:00 PM
Cia
Like you … I am a loyal viewer of Tucker Carlson .. who at one time actually interviewed RFK on his show. I am disappointed to learn David Kirby who I greatly admire has felt the need to express he "despises Trump" .. as BOTH parties have failed us when it comes to vaccines.
Good to know we agree on Trump ..
Posted by: Bob Moffit | December 31, 2019 at 01:22 PM
Bob,
I also am disturbed by nearly everything the MSM prints being highly critical of Trump. I voted for him because he was the anti-Hillary, and I shared his expressed views on several issues. Now I’m astounded at all he has accomplished, starting with the stellar economy, the lowest unemployment since 1970 and the lowest unemployment rate ever for blacks.
All of us here go to alternative sources for the truth about vaccines. You might consider checking out Tucker Carlson’s show Tonight, which in just three years has deservedly become one of the most popular programs in the country. I saw last week that Trump might choose him to be vice-president. Also Breitbart and Fox News in general. There are better sources to get your news and commentary from.
Posted by: Cia | December 31, 2019 at 11:26 AM
A long time admirer of David Kirby's work .. especially his book … "Evidence of Harm" .. from which I first associated my beloved grandson's "regression" into "autism" with the vaccines he had received .. beginning with … unbeknown to parents .. a HEP B within hours of birth .. and we believe a second dose of HEP B in his first well-baby visit by a pediatrician who may have been unaware he had received his initial shot in hospital only a few weeks earlier.
I am troubled by the statement: "Kirby despises Donald Trump, and he points out some real abuses under the current administration." The last thing I want to read is a book by someone who admittedly "despises Donald Trump" .. as most everything I read today is published by someone who "despises Donald Trump".
I none-the-less .. with personal reservation's to Kirby's disapproval of our President .. purchase the book as it appears to contain some valuable insight on our government as it continues to gain more and more control over ourselves, our children, our schools, our communities.
Posted by: Bob Moffit | December 31, 2019 at 08:26 AM
Jonathan
We should always be mindful of wider issues - Age of Autism has always cast a somewhat wider net than just autism and vaccines, but finally deprived of autonomy over bodies with neurological impairment and chronic disease rampant our main issue should also be identified as a core issue of human liberty in our time. I also btw read this week in a review by David Runciman of the final volume of the biography of Margaret Thatcher by Charles Moore about how she changed from being an early proponent of global warming theory to being terrified of the prospect of it becoming a vehicle for socialist uniformity. It is not a time, alas, when our institutions exist at a level of maturity that we can easily sort much of this out, but we still have to try. I wouldn’t start from here!
Two years ago you managed to give a plug for AOA on Open Democracy. Sadly,I have come to believe that we are much more open than they are.
John
Posted by: John Stone | December 31, 2019 at 07:14 AM