Hard News: The Political Lie
177 Responses
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Still more random observations…
“If circumstances change so that a promise must be broken, does that make a lie of the original promise?”
Keynes: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”
Burke would agree that intention or objective takes precedence over words: “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”
As would Disraeli: “We have no permanent friend. We have no permanent enemies. We just have permanent interests.”
Now repeat after me: We have always been at war with Eastasia…
(I'm actually very surprised that the discussion has got this far without any mention of Orwell, who wrote copiously on the political abuse of language.)
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Kracklite, in reply to
That’s what gets my goat.
Yep.
Loved the episode...
I thank you for justifying my procrastination.
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I’m actually very surprised that the discussion has got this far without any mention of Orwell
Or Jonathan Swift?
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Or John Pilger
This is not to say parliamentary politics is meaningless. It has one meaning now: the replacement of democracy with a business plan for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope, every child born.
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Yay, a quote-a-thon.
I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.
Neitzsche.
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Sacha, in reply to
Yay, a quote-a-thon
That's all I've got
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The tribal lie thing is interesting and to the point.
Equally, the pursuit of the lie can just as much be tribally driven: ie, the fact of the lie is relished and exploited for tribal reasons, regardless of how innocuous or irrelevant it may be.
It may be naive in these times to preface an idealistic hope with "Journalists should...", but nonetheless, I think that an important step would be to bear these things in mind and limit ourselves to the pursuit of the really heinous lies, to tear from them their tribal adornments, and to allow passionate repudiation, based on extremely sound principles and facts, to be heard -- perhaps by concomitantly toning down the passion when it comes to the innocuous or irrelevant lies.
For the most part, political lies per se are not much different in my book from rhetorically expedient statements that cannot stand up to half a minute's intelligent review. These are effectively lies too: the speaker is willfully deaf to perfectly cogent criticisms of the position they maintain.
But that's all politics.
The interesting question is whether a given lie is worth pursuing seriously.
And where it is worth pursuing, a strong, non-tribal articulation of why it's worth pursuing is also required (to shake us out of our tribalism for a rational moment or two).
So, Afghanistan detainees? Worth pursuing? If so, why?
Signed painting?
Fundamentalist talk about the need for growth when you still haven't solved the energy problem?
Climate change denials?
Catching up with Australia?The problem I guess is that everyone can make a case for the seriousness of anything -- again, a tribally inflected judgement, more than likely.
Oh Lordy.
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3410,
Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.
- Hitler.
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So I go away for a few hours and you guys are all quoting Nietzsche and Keynes to each other ...
Lolz.
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Page five, and no Mac attack?
ETA:
So I go away for a few hours and you guys are all quoting Nietzsche and Keynes to each other ...
Umm, yeah, so there goes that positive ethos we had going.
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James Butler, in reply to
And made knowing nothing almost feasible.
Only a day late, XKCD nails it.
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Alex Coleman, in reply to
Page five, and no Mac attack?
Never mind the mac:
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One more. I just thought it was too apposite to pass up.
At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religous or political ideas.
Aldous Huxley.
Only a day late, XKCD nails it.
As always.
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
So I go away for a few hours and you guys are all quoting Nietzsche and Keynes to each other ...
That's it, lower the tone of the neighbourhood... ;-)
Meanwhile in quotesville...The main parliamentary parties are now devoted to the same economic policies - socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor - and the same foreign policy of servility to endless war.
This is not democracy. It is to politics what McDonalds is to food.
Pilger again.
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So I go away for a few hours and you guys are all quoting Nietzsche and Keynes to each other.
I'm going to use that.
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So I go away for a few hours and you guys are all quoting Nietzsche and Keynes to each other.
You should be so lucky,
I am trying to chat online, solve sky decoder problems for the olds on the landline, send pixts of rearranged furniture to the north on the mobile,cook morocan soup for dinner, email seller of coffee machine which I won on Trade me, get hold of courier on his lanline voicemail and learn about the value of antiques on TV all the while hearing about t'other half blaring Spongle in the bush and he is suggesting listening to a bit of music! Meanwhile here I am writing away between the ads
As you were.... -
And.... my TV show finished.
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Islander, in reply to
Courage good person!
And, can I offer these perfectly beautiful& fully functional tentacles (at a modest price?)They make life sooo much easier!
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
I was just commenting today of your ability to make me smile :))
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DexterX, in reply to
Good point - That is the thing and if it goes unchecked it is a rapid spiral to state of perpetual dishonesty – which is why the “thang” needs to be challenged vigorously.
The Singh/Papatoetoe vote factory will be interesting when it goes to court.
Labour’s personal attacks on Key’s integrity/ honesty are flawed me thinks.
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Sacha, in reply to
I'm going to use that.
quote it, you mean :)
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Islander, in reply to
O cool!
It's nice to feel useful!
(Tentacle sizes come in Pacific octopus right up to gargantuan squid- livliness is your hands, no responsibility taken if ...anything...escapes...) -
Kracklite, in reply to
It will be an exemplary case of "I wish I'd said that." "You will, Oscar, you will."
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
Labour’s personal attacks on Key’s integrity/ honesty are flawed me thinks.
Nahah
How would you ever know.? You are but little fish.Who you gonna call? (ghostbusters quote) How deep are you pockets?.Mr Key happily states he doesn't know what happens to his own money.Do you think he will get his peoples to call your people?
Nahah.
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