Thursday 5 December 2019

Trust in liars


An inveterate and pathological liar who can happily say one thing today and the complete reverse tomorrow came to London this week and declared that his country had no interest whatsoever in opening up the NHS to private companies.  His host, another inveterate and pathological liar, who can happily say one thing today and the complete reverse tomorrow said that it didn’t matter what the first liar said, because he would not allow it in any case.  The only surprising thing is that some parts of the media regard the statements of either or both as being enough to settle the argument once and for all.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

An inveterate and pathological liar = talented politician set for a second term!

John Dixon said...

"Talented", not really, but "set for a second term" quite possibly. That may say more about the electors than the candidate, though.

Gav said...

A while back we had a young person, a student, working part-time behind the bar at my local, who was a fervent Trump supporter. "He speaks the truth!" they said. I suggested that might not always be the case, and gave a few examples. "Yes", they replied, "but he speaks the truth about the things that matter."

[In fairness to them, "Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus" is itself a bit dodgy.]

Jonathan said...

It is true that Trump said that the crowds at his Inauguration were big, when they were not. But it is not true that he's a liar generally. The situation in the US is this:
Democrats - are not like the UK left. The Democrats scarcely deal in objective reality at all.
1. They are at home with "my truth" which is subjective and
2. Like a lot of Americans, influenced by Hollywood, they are happy to put out a story that sounds great, but is not actually true. Eg Schiff on the Trump/"Godfather" conversation, Biden on awarding medals. Warren on ethnic origins, son's education, (not) eloping, getting sacked for being pregnant etc etc.
3. Most of the broadcast tv channels cooperate to peddle the Democrat theme for the day, amazing if you're used to the BBC. Which is why Americans watch Fox, and the BBC itself and read The (London) Times.
Republicans - they do not have the problem of lying. They are OK with objective reality. But they are held back by the bribery culture in Washington, eg big donations to block Health Reform for example. This also hold the Dems back.
Trump is only partly Republican. He nearly ran as a Democrat. His stance on health would include
- he is waiting for House and Senate Republicans to come up with a Health Plan which American would actually like. Oddly, it is slow to appear (bribery)(Dems are no better, they are fixated on impeachment with no grounds, and are also bribed on health.)
- he does not know much about the UK or Europe, being American. But he and Americans do understand that Europe does health differently.
- he is very practical. I think he found May, Farage and now Boris somewhat shallow/ineffective because we still have Remain. And he won't push the UK to privatise health more than a certain amount, as long as he's seen to help US big Health companies. He knows it won't actually fly in the UK. So he's right again.
Two countries separated by a common language....

John Dixon said...

Jonathan,

You make some interesting points, but I doubt that there are many who would say of Trump that "...it is not true that he's a liar generally." There are just too many instances of him saying things which are obviously untrue.

Anonymous said...

I think Jonathan might be the only person on the planet that think there are no grounds for the impeachment of Trump. The Republicans who oppose his impeachment don't for one minute think he's innocent - it's the way he will always have done business. The point is that they simply don't care he's guilty - there are much more important things than justice and stamping out corruption.