{"id":8603,"date":"2013-07-25T14:09:22","date_gmt":"2013-07-25T14:09:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/07\/25\/lying-in-the-age-of-obama\/"},"modified":"2013-07-25T14:09:22","modified_gmt":"2013-07-25T14:09:22","slug":"lying-in-the-age-of-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/07\/25\/lying-in-the-age-of-obama\/","title":{"rendered":"Lying in the Age of Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

This<\/a> may well be the best column Victor Davis Hanson has written.  He meticulously documents the widespread lying, prevarication, and other offenses against truth among our elites, offers a diagnosis, and then addresses the question, Why not lie?  Here is his beautiful answer:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

I end with three reasons to tell the truth. The majority has to tell the truth \u2014 to the IRS, to the police, to the DA, to the census \u2014 if a consensual society is to work. You readers tell the truth so that the society can survive an Eric Holder or Mike Barnicle. Average people must speak honestly or our elites\u2019 lies will overwhelm, even destroy us. If 100 million tell the IRS lies during audits or take the 5th Amendment, our voluntary tax system collapses. We can take only so many Lois Lerners.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two, this often sordid, sometimes beautiful world is not the end. There is transcendence. Lies damage our soul. Selling out in the here and now has consequences later on. If you are religious, your immortal soul is lost. If you are not, at least consider that your legacy, heritage, and remembrance are forever ruined. Ask the ghost of Stephen Ambrose. What good was all that money, all those interviews if based on a lie? All the insight and delight that he brought millions of readers was tarnished. And for what, exactly?<\/span><\/p>\n

Third, we must strive to be tragic heroes, perhaps not as dramatic as Ajax, not as cool as Shane. Would you rather have been Ethan Edwards or Will Kane or have run Lehman Brothers in 2008? Sometimes, in less dramatic fashion, the choices are that Manichean.<\/span><\/p>\n

We must try to tell the truth, not doctor films, edit tapes, erase talking points, or lie before Congress, fabricate heroic war records, or invent false sources. Again, why? Because we seek to do the right thing with the full resignation that in the here and now we will often still lose and will lose often and gladly telling the truth.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe always lose,\u201d says Chris at the end of the The <\/em>Magnificent Seven<\/em> after he did the right thing. Or to paraphrase the cinematic T.E. Lawrence about Auda Abu Tayi, we will not lie, as do our elites, because it is simply \u201cour pleasure\u201d<\/a> [32]<\/sup> not to.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The second reason is the best, though I would add that legacy counts for little: the vast majority of us will be forgotten and our works with us.  We will be lucky to end up footnotes in unread archives, archives themselves slated for eventual deletion.  This world is a vanishing quantity and we who for a time strut its stage even more so.<\/span><\/p>\n

Care of the soul is the solid reason to love and honor truth.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Obama the Sophist<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>The Government Is Us?<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This may well be the best column Victor Davis Hanson has written.  He meticulously documents the widespread lying, prevarication, and other offenses against truth among our elites, offers a diagnosis, and then addresses the question, Why not lie?  Here is his beautiful answer: I end with three reasons to tell the truth. The majority has to … Continue reading “Lying in the Age of Obama”<\/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":[228,125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-truth","category-truthfulness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8603","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=8603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}