Always someone left to lie to...

American Thinker ^ | 24 Jan, 2022 | Thomas Buckley

[MtnClimber]

"It takes two to lie -- one to lie and one to listen."

The late lamented Christopher Hitchens wrote a book about Bill (and to a lesser extent Hilary) Clinton entitled ‘No One Left to Lie To.” While Hitchens was a brilliant polemicist whose notorious wit could turn instantaneously from sledgehammer to scalpel and back again, he was not, it appears, a terribly good prognosticator.

There are still people left to lie to and, sadly, there always will be.

Imagine, if you will, the parable of ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf” updated for today. Instead of the boy's lie being confined to one small village, it would - through social media, etc. – be out there for the whole world to hear and not necessarily at the same time.

SNIP

Lying is an extremely selfish act as it denies the existence of – or at least a tiny sliver of – an actual shared reality for one’s own personal benefit. Of course, not all lies are equal and “little white lies” are different – agreeing with your spouse that their new hair style looks fantastic even if it is an abomination against Man and God will not make the world stop turning and will ensure that you will not be spending the next four days sleeping on the couch legitimately worried that you could be woken up at any moment by the couch being set ablaze. But even in this scenario there is a modicum of self-interest at play as making the other person happy also benefits the “liar.”

Selfishness and lying can create a feedback loop in which each amplify the other to ever greater effect to the point that the self-regard of the liar becomes so greatly magnified that they know longer understand that they are lying.

[MtnClimber]

I wonder if politicians even realize they are lying when it becomes part of their way of manipulating people to survive even though they have no real talent.

[No Party Affiliation]

That is rhetorical, right? The answer is obvious.

[Sans-Culotte]

I wonder if politicians even realize they are lying when it becomes part of their way of manipulating people to survive even though they have no real talent.

The ones that start braying about "gun control" after a shooting definitely know they are lying (that would include all 'rats). They know most of their "gun control" legislation won't be passed, and they know that it would be ineffectual if it did; but they like to pose as people who care and who are trying to do something when they know they aren't.

[T-Bird45]

As I commented in another thread earlier today, any reasonably competent 10-year-old can make a lie believable for a while. To become a truly accomplished and venal liar, as discussed in the article, requires government funding of the project, secure employment/pension, and some pliable statistics. Piece of cake after that...