Stop Believing The Big Lie - Washington Is Not The Solution
Aug 22, 2019 4:42:05 GMT -5
Post by avordvet on Aug 22, 2019 4:42:05 GMT -5
Stop Believing The Big Lie That Washington Can Solve All Our Problems
Too many think all governing ourselves requires is passing a law. We no longer need to roll up our sleeves and work, bottom-up, to earn a growing economy, a just society, or a stronger nation.
By Alex Castellanos, August 21, 2019
There is an exceptional amount of lying in Washington these days, and our media and politicians are entranced by it. Lies must achieve extraordinary bulk and quality to impress the sport’s most ardent practitioners: Only a particularly nasty outbreak of mendacity could draw Washington’s attention to a subject it knows with such intimacy and depth.
Most Americans are unsurprised. Long ago, they learned lies are the oxygen of the political world. They know the phrase “political deception” is a redundancy, like “false pretense,” “free gift,” or “foreign imports.”
Most electoral lies, they’ve found, are dandruff on the body politic, pedestrian deceits they can brush unremarkably from their shoulders. Besides, Mark Twain’s dictum that “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes” is no longer true: A tiny tweet can hunt down the ordinary political lie in a mouse-click in our hyper-connected world.
Big lies are tougher prey. They are protected by their boldness, because most people find it difficult to believe others would lie about something so big, instead of “little white lies.” Then, then a noble purpose cloaks the Big Lie, when we want it to be true, it grows exponentially attractive. It becomes the unchallenged truth, as evident as the law of gravity, as pervasive as our atmosphere, as inescapable as rent.
thefederalist.com/2019/08/21/stop-believing-big-lie-washington-can-solve-problems/
Too many think all governing ourselves requires is passing a law. We no longer need to roll up our sleeves and work, bottom-up, to earn a growing economy, a just society, or a stronger nation.
By Alex Castellanos, August 21, 2019
There is an exceptional amount of lying in Washington these days, and our media and politicians are entranced by it. Lies must achieve extraordinary bulk and quality to impress the sport’s most ardent practitioners: Only a particularly nasty outbreak of mendacity could draw Washington’s attention to a subject it knows with such intimacy and depth.
Most Americans are unsurprised. Long ago, they learned lies are the oxygen of the political world. They know the phrase “political deception” is a redundancy, like “false pretense,” “free gift,” or “foreign imports.”
Most electoral lies, they’ve found, are dandruff on the body politic, pedestrian deceits they can brush unremarkably from their shoulders. Besides, Mark Twain’s dictum that “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes” is no longer true: A tiny tweet can hunt down the ordinary political lie in a mouse-click in our hyper-connected world.
Big lies are tougher prey. They are protected by their boldness, because most people find it difficult to believe others would lie about something so big, instead of “little white lies.” Then, then a noble purpose cloaks the Big Lie, when we want it to be true, it grows exponentially attractive. It becomes the unchallenged truth, as evident as the law of gravity, as pervasive as our atmosphere, as inescapable as rent.
thefederalist.com/2019/08/21/stop-believing-big-lie-washington-can-solve-problems/