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Tuesday 27 April 2021

The last illusion



For the purposes of this blog post I needed a lie uttered by a leading political figure. After a quick look around I found this example from the few days ago. It wasn't at all difficult to find and there are some bonus lies too - three lies one after the other.

President Joe Biden on Thursday vowed the US would do its part to cut greenhouse gas, pledging America will cut its emissions blamed for climate change by 50 to 52 percent by 2030, compared with 2005 levels, and to set America on a path of zero emissions economy by no later than 2050.

'The signs are unmistakable. The science is undeniable. The cost of inaction is mounting,' the president said in his speech kicking off his Climate Summit.


The signs are not unmistakable, the science is entirely deniable and the cost of inaction is not mounting. Joe Biden is lying. No surprises there but political lying never is surprising. Political actors putting truth before expediency – that would be surprising. Even astonishing.

Not truth, but error has always been the chief factor in the evolution of nations, and the reason why socialism is so powerful to-day is that it constitutes the last illusion that is still vital. In spite of all scientific demonstrations it continues on the increase. Its principal strength lies in the fact that it is championed by minds sufficiently ignorant of things as they are in reality to venture boldly to promise mankind happiness. The social illusion reigns to-day upon all the heaped-up ruins of the past, and to it belongs the future. The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.

Gustave Le Bon - The Crowd; study of the popular mind (1895)


We are so, so familiar with elites lying to us. So familiar has it become that they clearly have no interest in what we used to call ‘truth’. Because? The masses have never thirsted after truth.

As with many other words, ‘truth’ is losing its meaning and has become little more than a feeble flag of probity for those old-fashioned enough to think the flag is still worth waving. A state of affairs which has been building for a long time.

In the age of the internet, it is even more apparent how populations divide between those who value truth and those who only use it to assess true bank statements, or true house prices or true football results. As if those with little talent but plenty of ambition are allowed to plug the talent gap with lies if they have that burning ambition to climb the greasy pole. So they do.

4 comments:

Scrobs. said...

As the prime originator of distinctive thought, Scrobs has issued a comment (on BiasedBBC), that 'Bidenballs' is now officially launched!

The meandering of such a confused mind in someone plonked into such a dangerous position in the world just cannot be tolerated, especially when the only real press opposition seems to come from Australia, with The Bolt Report!

You can rely on the awful BBC piddling about as usual, but I wish we had some real commentators like they do down under!

https://biasedbbc.tv/blog/2021/04/25/start-the-week-26th-april-2021/comment-page-3/#comment-1116054

MrMC said...

Statistic are interesting but many choose to ignore numbers because numbers can be racist :

It’s true that around 13 per cent of Americans are black, according to the latest estimates from the US Census Bureau.

And yes, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, black offenders committed 52 per cent of homicides recorded in the data between 1980 and 2008. Only 45 per cent of the offenders were white. Homicide is a broader category than “murder” but let’s not split hairs.

Blacks were disproportionately likely to commit homicide and to be the victims. In 2008 the offending rate for blacks was seven times higher than for whites and the victimisation rate was six times higher.

As we found yesterday, 93 per cent of black victims were killed by blacks and 84 per cent of white victims were killed by whites.

Alternative statistics from the FBI are more up to date but include many crimes where the killer’s race is not recorded. These numbers tell a similar story.

In 2013, the FBI has black criminals carrying out 38 per cent of murders, compared to 31.1 per cent for whites. The offender’s race was “unknown” in 29.1 per cent of cases.

What about violent crime more generally? FBI arrest rates are one way into this. Over the last three years of data – 2011 to 2013 – 38.5 per cent of people arrested for murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault were black.

James Higham said...

Polly’s bitchute on the lies told, the faux facade kept up, the core of the attacked institution rotten:

https://www.bitchute.com/video/qDyh0IYpUeuv/

A K Haart said...

Scrobs - 'Bidenballs' is good but it implies he has a complete set.

MrMC - the Democrats appear to think they can tackle this by pretending the stats are the other way round. Yet huge numbers of people must be aware of the situation. It can't end well unless some realism is injected into the debate.

James - I'll bookmark that for later.