Liars in America

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/sep/16/joe-wilson-sarah-palin-healthcare-obama-liar

It's one thing to cynically lie for political purposes and later take the punch if you get caught – another to cling to the lie after it has been exposed. This is a major abdication of responsibility for public figures, and it serves only to feed the paranoia of a generation of troubled souls unable to come to grips with a country changing before their eyes – demographically and ideologically. While previously the exception, this is quickly becoming the norm in today's Republican party.

Thus we live in an era where, in the depths of ignorance, facts are no longer treated as facts. Outlandish notions are portrayed in the media as legitimate points of view. Debates over credible but differing opinions are being replaced by shouting matches over easily verifiable facts. The truth can so easily be parsed or even snubbed for political gain, and far from facing repercussions, the perpetrators are often rewarded with widespread press coverage and devoted followings.

Thomas Jefferson famously said: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was and never will be." The fabric of American civilisation now faces one of its its toughest tests to date. Only time will tell whether it can it re-emerge from the darkness of ignorance.

[Birthmark]

1. Republicans just want freedom...

...from facts that disagree with their religious and political mythologies.

Is the Guardian against freedom? :sarcasm:

[CJCRANE]

2. "Whether a statement is a lie or not also depends on your own point of view."

(excerpted from one of the comments).

I had a conversation with a Fox News fan who said the same thing. That seems to be their meme - that there is no truth only ideology.

[Zoeisright]

4. And the meme of the M$M seems to be that the truth

lies in the middle of two opinions.

Which is also wrong.

[ixion]

5. This is the core of the wedge that is shattering our society

and making it impossible to have a rational discussion. If you operate on the premise that anything anyone says can be a 'fact', then you have ceased to be having a rational discussion.

It will not end well.

[HamdenRice]

3. Sadly, the unreality of the Bush right has now infected much of the anti-Obama left

I don't see any difference between Sarah Palin ranting about death panels and the anti-Obama left claiming that the Obama administration has given away trillions to banks -- without being able to cite any new TARP type program since January -- or that the Obama administration is continuing Bush's extraordinary renditions, when he passed executive orders ending them.

That's the new politics: Make Shit Up.

[Demeter]

7. If You Followed the Subject With Any Attention

you would know that the banks are getting trillions, and it isn't through TARP. And it's ongoing.

[HamdenRice]

8. I've followed it very closely, so please provide a link

showing new bailout programs by Obama, because I haven't seen any such programs.

[Doctor_J]

9. That's because many DUers are also hate radio and Fox News addicts

so they hear something come out of Becks' piehole that THEY don't like (TARP) and ru with it, not caring that it is just as big a lie as everything else that comes from King Glenn.

[necso]

6. A problem with perspective

(specifically, in the absence of any common, "absolute" perspective) is that people can cling to -- and propagate -- inutile, dysfunctional, counterproductive points-of-view. (Of course, perspectives can (generally) be evaluated in terms of utility, bearing on reality, etc; but it can be difficult, even impossible, to make this case to those inclined to see otherwise: There are none so blind as those who will not see.)

And generally, being, like we are, rather distant (relatively) from more-basic selection, there aren't the same timely, appropriate negative-consequences for being wrong.

For example, for millions of years of human evolution, the idiot who took (acted upon) some dangerously dysfunctional perspective ("Those lions aren't dangerous.") generally was pretty quickly erased from society (culture, the gene-pool). (And since others often paid a price for this idiocy, there was a powerful, widely-present incentive to frown-upon, discourage this sort of thing.)

Today, some clown (hireling, flunky, bootlicker, serf, lunatic, traitor) who does a good job of selling dangerously dysfunctional perspectives, as opposed to bearing the cost of his idiocy, can even be rewarded (essentially, through self/social selection) with wealth, power and influence.

This can't turn out well.

...

Overnight was a good example of the warm-nights "phenomenon".

Forecast: "Overnight: Clear, with a low around 58. Calm wind."

Recorded low: 64

KCAMOUNT16: 46

[depakid]

10. Glad to see other nations finall recognizing America for what it is: a culture of lies

Been that way for a while now- and so it will stay unless and until the corporate media is de-consolidated and re-regulated.