{"id":7162,"date":"2015-05-13T13:45:31","date_gmt":"2015-05-13T13:45:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2015\/05\/13\/truth-decay\/"},"modified":"2015-05-13T13:45:31","modified_gmt":"2015-05-13T13:45:31","slug":"truth-decay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2015\/05\/13\/truth-decay\/","title":{"rendered":"Truth Decay"},"content":{"rendered":"

'Truth decay' aptly describes the growing lack of concern for truth among influential players in our society.  I got the phrase from Douglas Groothuis.  Truth itself, of course, cannot decay, but truthfulness can and is.  We are in trouble, deep trouble.  Victor Davis Hanson collects some examples in Lying, Inc<\/a>.:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Everyone knows that \u201cHands up, Don\u2019t Shoot\u201d was an outright lie<\/a> [3]<\/sup>. Michael Brown never did or said that. Forensics, logic, and the majority of eyewitness accounts confirm that the strong-armed robber struggled with a policeman, lunged at his weapon, ran away, and then turned and charged him, not that he was executed in polite submission.<\/span><\/p>\n

Does that lie matter? Not at all. \u201cFerguson\u201d is routinely listed as proof of police racist brutality \u2014 and by no less than the president of the United States. Michael Brown is now the Paul Bunyan of the inner city. U.S. congressional representatives and professional athletes alike chant and act out \u201cHands up, Don\u2019t Shoot\u201d dramatics. The public shrugs that although it is all a lie, it is felt to be sort of true on the theory that something like that could happen one day, and thus it is OK to lie that it already has. Most knew that the strong-arm robber Michael Brown was about as likely a \u201cgentle giant\u201d as Trayvon Martin was still a cute preteen<\/a> [4]<\/sup> in a football uniform.<\/span><\/p>\n

Community agitator and frequent White House visitor Al Sharpton has lied repeatedly about his income taxes<\/a> [5]<\/sup> and the reasons why he cannot produce accurate tax records, in the manner that he habitually lied about the Tawana Brawley case, the Duke Lacrosse caper, and the Ferguson \u201chands up, don\u2019t shoot\u201d meme. The public assumes both that Sharpton is an inveterate liar and that to dwell on the fact is either a waste of time or can incur charges of illiberality or worse. Most are more interested in his more mysterious, almost daily-changing appearance than the untruth that he hourly espouses.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton, to be candid, is a habitual fabulist. She entered public life lying about everything from her 1-1000 cattle futures con to the location of her law firm\u2019s subpoenaed legal documents. Recently she has been unable to tell the truth in any context whatsoever. She will lie about big and small, trivial and fundamental, from the immigrant myths about her grandparents to the origins of her own name Hillary to her combat exposure in the Balkans. The subtext of \u201cwhat difference does it make\u201d was something like: \u201cEven if you find out that I lied about the run-up to and follow up on the Benghazi killings, it won\u2019t matter in the least to my career.\u201d She was right, of course, in her assumption that lying had career utility and brought more pluses than negatives, as her current presidential campaign attests.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her press conference on the disappearing emails was unique in American political history in that everything<\/em> Ms. Clinton said was, without exception, a demonstrable untruth. It is not that no one believes her, but rather than no one can possibly believe her when she insisted that she would have needed multiple devices for multiple email accounts, or that public officials routinely alone adjudicate what is and is not public and private communications, or that other cabinet officers apparently created, as she did, exclusively private email accounts \u2014 and servers \u2014 for public business or that security personnel on the premises protect the airwaves from hackers. Even her own supporters know that she lied, and trust that it likely will not hamper her presidential run. Her life has become about as real as that of Annie Oakley\u2019s.<\/span><\/p>\n

Both Hillary and Bill Clinton lied about almost every aspect of the Clinton Foundation. She knew that the foundation was created to spend 90% on travel and insider salaries and benefits, and 10% on direct grants to charities, that it offered thin moral cover to skullduggery, and that it drew donations from zillionaires, who in turn offered Bill Clinton lopsided lecture fees that he otherwise would not have commanded, and expected favorable U.S. government treatment for their cash. Hillary assumed that beneath the skin of a \u201ccharitable organization\u201d the three Clintons ran a veritable shake down operation that resulted in mother, father, and daughter becoming multimillionaires. The Clintons will expect the issue to dissolve, either on the premise that the notoriety cannot do much more damage to the already sullied Clinton name, or that the Democratic Party feels that it can nominate no other candidate who raises as much money and is so recognizable as the proverbial prevaricator Hillary Clinton.<\/span><\/p>\n

President Obama\u2019s approval ratings seem to have gone up almost in direct proportion to the degree he has lied. On over twenty occasions<\/a> [6]<\/sup> in reelection scenarios, Obama lied in stating that he would not issue blanket amnesties and order non-enforcement of current immigration law given that it would be unconstitutional and unlawful to do so. We accept at the time that such assurances were about as truthful as his convenient opposition to gay marriage \u2014 rhetorical constructs that warp and weave according to the realities of the next election. Who objects when Obama\u2019s lying is felt to be for the higher cause of equality of result?<\/span><\/p>\n

Almost every element of his promises about Obamacare \u2014 easy online signups, reduced premiums and deductibles, maintenance of current policies and doctors<\/a> [7]<\/sup>, national savings, and less frequent emergency room use were not just untrue, but realized in advance as simply not possible. Almost every parameter that Obama outlined in advance about the current Iranian talks proved about as true as were his redlines to Syria should it use chemical weapons. As a good community organizer, Obama accepts that his noble goals are government-mandated egalitarianism and that such utopian agendas require any means necessary to achieve them. And so he lies and the public seems bored and apparently appreciates why he must do so.<\/span><\/p>\n

When elites customarily lie without much consequence, the public follows their examples.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

'Truth decay' aptly describes the growing lack of concern for truth among influential players in our society.  I got the phrase from Douglas Groothuis.  Truth itself, of course, cannot decay, but truthfulness can and is.  We are in trouble, deep trouble.  Victor Davis Hanson collects some examples in Lying, Inc.: Everyone knows that \u201cHands up, Don\u2019t … Continue reading “Truth Decay”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180,125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-decline-of-the-west","category-truthfulness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}