Here is the difference with Trump; despite his comments being shown to be false, they are repeated and acted on. Truth no longer plays a part in the dialogue, nor in the actions they entail.
No, but unlike some people I don't have to hide from the truth. It seems that you want to pretend you live in a different world than you actually do.You really do live in an alternate reality. — Michael
my eye there is a difference not just in degree, but in kind, between the lies of previous presidents - which I do not deny - and the ubiquitous disregard for truth that is evident in the present administration. — Banno
Trump surely puts lying into a whole new dimension, basically that lying simply doesn't matter at all.
The usual way is just to pick the facts that help or advance your agenda and forget deny facts that are against your agenda. That's the typical way politicians work... to avoid straight out lying.
Then there are the lies that can hypothetically be true, like the lie before the Iraqi invasion that Saddam Hussein still had "a vast ongoing WMD program" even after Operation Desert Fox. You can get away with that kind of lie simply by saying "one didn't know back then". Blame "bad" intel.
How Trump is different is that there isn't some agenda, some reason to twist truth, but everything is just rhetoric, objective facts don't exist. Lying doesn't matter as the rhetoric is much more about emotions and promoting an ideological view. Everything is subjective and basically a statement. With Trump, everything is about himself, the petulant, ignorant and mentally lazy narcissist. Someone who basically lacks the basic leadership skills that a President would need.
Because that kind of focus, just as checking if Trump lies, is in the post-truth World just playing into the hands of your enemies, the evil Obamas and Clintons of the World. Everything is just rhetoric that plays to one's emotions.
After all, "post-truth" means after truth, which logically implies that lying or telling the truth doesn't matter.
My impression is that you don't actually believe Trump was elected because Americans, suffering from a pomo fascination with the word discourse, failed to properly assess him. — Mongrel
From the OP onward I've been sniffing bullshit. Didn't you just want to poke at Landru? That's what Trump does. Speech is a tool for expressing aggression. — Mongrel
Trump is terribly dishonest, but you're acting like we were honest saints before; we weren't. — Thanatos Sand
Yeah, they might even know that they are lying, but the real thing is if something can be shown as a lie. A lie we can see is a lie that is knowingly and purposely made. If I promise to do something, but I am not successful in doing it, am I a liar? If I quote one batch of economists and not others, mention certain facts but not other, am I lying? If we are making forecasts about the future and choosing what would be the optimum policy for the best outcome and then the future is totally different, were we lying when making the forecast and picking our actions?No, politicians straight-up lie all the time. They lie in campaign promises they know they will never keep, they lie about their opponents, they lie about the influence lobbyists and big donors have on their decisions. They also make straight up lies on policies with huge ramifications — Thanatos Sand
Actually, just how the White House pushed for the Iraqi invasion is quite well documented. And as intelligence paid a role, then it's quite logical that there allways is possible that something is missing.No, these lies couldn't hypothetically be true, anymore than Trump's lies, since Bush and company knew damn well they weren't true, and he continued to send Americans to die and kill many Iraqis. The fact you see these lies as better than Trump's is pretty sad. — Thanatos Sand
So, everything is already so f***ed that there's no use complaining about how f***ed Trump is.
The fact that you put all of your opinions in bold face just makes it seem like you're shouting at everyone, which is also the tone of your posts. (I know this will elicit more vitriol, but I'm feeling charitable.)
Yeah, they might even know that they are lying, but the real thing is if something can be shown as a lie.
If I promise to do something, but I am not successful in doing it, am I a liar?
If I quote one batch of economists and not others, mention certain facts but not other, am I lying? If we are making forecasts about the future and choosing what would be the optimum policy for the best outcome and then the future is totally different, were we lying when making the forecast and picking our actions?
No, these lies couldn't hypothetically be true, anymore than Trump's lies, since Bush and company knew damn well they weren't true, and he continued to send Americans to die and kill many Iraqis. The fact you see these lies as better than Trump's is pretty sad.
— Thanatos Sand
Actually, just how the White House pushed for the Iraqi invasion is quite well documented. And as intelligence paid a role, then it's quite logical that there allways is possible that something is missing.
For instance, if it wasn't for one incompetent Syrian official having secret data on his laptop outside of Syria, basically the Israeli intelligence wouldn't have known of the Syrian nuclear weapons program that they later destroyed. Reason was that Syrians were extra carefull of having anything electronically out of the project. Hence the possibility of Saddam having a WMD Project was there, even if actually very improbable.
Besides, politicians quite often start to believe their own ideas that help their agenda. These ideas you would call lies.
The post truth world is - on my view - a consequence of very few folk knowing what sorts of things can be true and what makes them so, and that has very very far reaching consequences(it underwrites everything about politics), not to mention that it goes against a sense of universal trust in others that we all must have in order to acquire language.
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