There are consequences to lying, and one is that people won't believe you even when you are telling the truth. This is so well known that there has even been a fable about it for millennia.
Some examples...
I believe there are endangered species. I believe that we should make at least some effort to preserve them, for a couple of reasons. Yet now it turns out that the infamous snail darter never existed. It is genetically identical to other fish in other similar environments, and there are apparently plenty of them. But a dam wasn't built, and just now that water would have been useful in SoCal.
I believe climate warming is real, and that human activity is responsible for at least some of it. Yet it turns out that despite the widespread belief that it is causing more and more powerful cyclones/hurricanes, the trend over the last fifty years is neutral, and in one ocean actually a bit less. Tell people that and they will insist you are a climate denier. Claim that the temperature figures are being jacked to make them look worse and you will get sued and ruined by people who have deeper pockets than you.
Many people, especially Boomers, still think the world is becoming overcrowded and don't know about plummeting Total Fertility Rate. At least in the medium-term, it's going to be a lot of problem for a lot of countries.
Covid-19 was real and the vaccines do work, but now there's a lot of people who don't believe in any vaccines and we are seeing a return of conquered diseases. How did that happen? Well, there was something of a conspiracy to lie about the origins for openers, insisting that it must be bat soup instead of the lab next door that was one of the few working on coronavirus gain-of-function. When Trump cut off international flights he was called racist and Democrats made a point of attending Chinese New Year. Then when everyone was feeling cooped up, a spring protest just made for liberals to get out and walk around for an afternoon pops up around George Floyd - a sad case and worth a look and some complaining, but not a poster child for racial injustice. Too ambiguous. Kamala Harris said just before the 2020 election that she wouldn't trust any vaccine that came out under Trump. Donald deferred to the states a great deal and his symbolic actions were sometimes destructive. But the important thing was that he must be blamed - and more people died. Oh gee... too bad, mate.
No one thought that any kind of coup was under way on Jan 6, 2021. People worried that the protest might get out of hand and some people might get hurt or even be killed. But mostly people laughed nervously. The few out of the many had some dangerous characters but were mostly ridiculous. News outlets got lots of up-close action photos. Did they get those at the other protests that year? Or in Ukraine? Or of Mexican cartels? One guy carried off a lectern and my son said "It's clear he was just taking a political stand." Trump's behavior was atrocious, yes. He made things worse when he had at least some power to make them better. But The Insurrection? Really? Yet that is the approved pearl-clutching terminology now, as if we all suddenly holed up in our houses and started living off canned food in fear.
DEI has some nice ideas behind it, but it should not be an overriding value, or we get dead people in Los Angeles. And Chinese universities start outcompeting us in key areas.
Consequences of lying.
11 comments:
One guy carried off a lectern and my son said "It's clear he was just taking a political stand."
Oh my goodness.
I think you are mixing up the "snail darter" with the "delta smelt". The "snail darter" slowed but ultimately didn't halt the Tellico Dam in Tennessee though I think it would be safe to say the outcome has had a chilling effect on similar projects. The "delta smelt" has forced release of water impounded in California reservoirs and redirection of waterflow to the SF Bay area but as far as I know isn't responsible for stopping any water projects. Californian politicians seem quite capable of doing that on their own.
Yes, those are two separate situations. The snail darter is considered responsible for the chilling effect, including "downstream" so to speak, using another fish which you remind me is the delta smelt to divert water. I said all that badly.
Meanwhile "Nazi" has been diluted into a general "You evil scum" insult.
Also, when opportunistic politicians are basically saying that science has shown that we need to give them increased control over our lives, it's no surprise that people want to count the spoons.
"No one thought that any kind of coup was under way on Jan 6, 2021."
The hell you say. I did. I didn't think much of its chances, but that's what they were aiming for.
"But The Insurrection? Really? Yet that is the approved pearl-clutching terminology now..."
'in·sur·rec·tion /ˌinsəˈrekSH(ə)n/ noun: insurrection; plural noun: insurrections
a violent uprising against an authority or government.'
It was an insurrection. They were trying to interfere with the orderly and legal devolution of power.
"Trying to interfere" with the orderly and legal devolution of power is barely a milk-and-water version of insurrection. The news sources against Trump exaggerated the danger and intent from the start. They reported rioters killing others. Oops, it was a heart attack, retraction buried on page 18. The protestors overwhelmingly were there for Congress not to certify the election until investigations were done to their satisfaction. The weakness of many of the cases were often Trump's own fault, as he did not have legal teams on the ground as he should have if he suspected shenanigans. He thought bluster would be enough. But in many cases the evidence was not heard because it was not presented to the courts in a form they could do much with. This seemed good and proper to some, pettifogging nonsense to others. I call that a volatile situation, I in no way call it an insurrection. Over the next few years the evidence slowly trickled in. No Russians - that was made up by the opposition and OUR OWN INTELLIGENCE SERVICES. Oh gee, votes were done improperly in Georgia and other places. Lots of gray area that was sneered at. (Not likely enough to move the election, but...) Oh gee, Hunter Biden really was guilty but it was buried because his father wanted that, and Trump was accused of being the one who was undemocratic over that. Later polling indicated that was election right there. The districts where DC federal workers live vote 70-90% Democrat. Is it too far-fetched to think that 90% of the people in the agencies are Democrats, and that dominates their culture?
'"Trying to interfere" with the orderly and legal devolution of power is barely a milk-and-water version of insurrection.'
This event was not milk-and-water. This surpassed, for political violence in the Capitol, the time Senator Charles Sumner was beaten insensible by Representative Preston Brooks.
"The news sources against Trump exaggerated the danger and intent from the start." You then go on to list several news stories that I either never heard or forgot about. What matters to me is that a rioting gang of Trump supporters burst into the Capitol, intent on halting the completion of the electoral process.
That's insurrection, and trying to deny it that label or to minimize it... No.
"News stories I never heard..." Exactly. My point exactly. One of us has only a highly curated, culturally agreed-upon version of the news. That might be me, I suppose, but I don't think so.
It did exceed Brooks's assault in "political violence in the Capitol," but that is an extremely narrow category, and one that has nothing to do with control of the country. The Capitol was chosen for its symbolic value, not because "HaHA! Now that we control the Capitol building no one will stop us!" The rest o0f the cvountry did not say "Gosh darn it, now that they have the Capitol everyone has to do what they say." It was theater. I do believe some members of Congress were in danger, which is a terrible thing. But less terrible by far than Berniebro James Hodgkinson's shooting of Congressman Steve Scalise with intent to shoot as many Republicans as possible, but heck that was almost as long ago as Sumner...2017, so it dropped out of The News and forgotten. Man-on-the-street interviews found less than 2% of people in DC recognised the name three months later.
Assassination attempts with inadequate Secret Service protection might be a bigger deal as well. It is seldom mentioned in many prominent news sources discussing the election only six months later.
BTW Earl, I did like your "The hell you say" in your previous comment. I have said "Rubbish!" a few times in online discussions. No one liked it, though. A Presbyterian pastor unfriended me on FB over it.
Your Presbyterian sounds very sensitive. "The hell you say" is about as salty as I get, barring extreme pressure.
I don't have to curate my news very hard to preserve the understanding that it was an insurrection, as commonly defined, and a Big Deal(tm) and calling it that should not be minimized it as pearl-clutching.
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