[I was pondering a recent essay from Victor Davis Hanson when I remembered the following piece, which first appeared at Eternity Road on June 6, 2006. — FWP] *** Have you ever wondered why politicians and their affiliates lie? Why they betray their oaths and scamp their duties by deliberately misinforming the public? …
Category: truth
Sep 14 2024
Can You Believe It?
No one knows any longer – for any value of “It.” “What do we really know of the time of our greatness? A few names of worlds and heroes, a ragtag of facts we’ve tried to patch into a history. The Shing law forbids killing, but they killed knowledge, they burned books, and …
Jan 10 2024
Look Sharp: Narrative Engineering In Progress!
Beware the narrative engineers in government and the media, the ones who craft fear and suspicion from quite ordinary things. Have an example: In December of 2021, the Pentagon furthered the ‘white rage’ narrative, warning that ‘extremism’ within the ranks was on the rise, which would require ‘detailed new rules’ to prohibit service …
Sep 19 2023
A Thought-Provoking Statement
Vaclav Havel provides one, via Professor Randall Smith: [W]hen it comes to ideology, I prefer to turn to someone who spent a lot of time living with it and opposing it: poet and one-time president of the Czech Republic, Václav Havel. “Ideology,” wrote Havel, “is a specious way of relating to the world. …
Sep 12 2023
And once again, we were right
Not the Royal “we” but the thousands and thousands of people who have been telling anyone who would listen that the jab is worse than the Kung Flu. The Vaccine is the Virus.
Sep 01 2023
The Vilest Slanders
He who dares to tell the exact truth about some popular fraud will always be reviled: as a hysteric, a liar, a troublemaker, perhaps as a fraudster himself. The reason is simple: people prefer comforting lies to upsetting truths. They don’t want their illusions shattered. They will cling to those illusions even as the …
Aug 15 2023
Window Of Credibility
“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.” – Attributed to Hassan-I Sabbah, founder of the Hashshashin When contradictions, deceits, and miscellaneous frauds have multiplied past a certain point, the very existence of truth is called into question. This has a curious, anti-intuitive consequence: propositions previously on the borderline of credibility become much more credible. …
Jul 30 2023
On Deceit
A huge number of people are running around who are determined to deceive others about something. It’s not news to any Gentle Reader of Liberty’s Torch that systematic deceit has become the hallmark of our politics. What’s on my mind this morning is the pervasiveness of deceit in ordinary life. Spouses lie to …
Jul 25 2023
Among Friends
Today, there are things one cannot say: Out loud; In public; Without unpleasant consequences. That’s indisputable. The reason is the militancy of those who differ with you: i.e., the contemporary Left. They’ve learned that militancy is the trump suit: that militant tactics – from slander to outright violence – won’t be effectively opposed. …
Jun 10 2023
Reality And Its Detractors
In this universe, which is kept running by the often invisible operation of inviolable natural laws, we can observe various kinds of order. Natural order – the reliability of various cause-and-effect relations – is what makes life possible. Men use their knowledge of those relations to organize their activities in pursuit of sustenance and …
Mar 12 2023
Important Truth
Good morning, Gentle Reader. I had a terrible night – a lot of pain and no sleep – so if what follows seems to come out of the Bizarro dimension, please bear with me. The subject on my mind strikes me as important enough to risk it. *** At The Catholic Thing today, …
Feb 11 2023
Prescience Or Naivete?
The following was written in 1972: A fiercely combative system characterized by a high degree of tension must eventually overload and collapse. There are only so many put-ons that man can sustain before his entire system of interrelationships becomes ambiguous and, ultimately, meaningless. Twenty years ago, the need for a book probing the …
Sep 28 2022
On The Sun Rising Tomorrow
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able …
Aug 26 2022
A Deficit Of Rationality
A man said to the universe: “Sir, I exist!” “However,” replied the universe, “That fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.” — Stephen Crane — I’m in one of those moods this morning. I could slather you with the reasons, but as I’m also feeling charitable, I’ll spare …
Jun 26 2022
Distortions And Evasions
My responsibilities to my Gentle Readers are more extensive than you might imagine. Yes, I’m here to provide analysis and commentary. Yes, I’m here to dissect the statements of others who don’t always express themselves clearly. But alongside those duties, I’m also here to pull the wool off your eyes – to tell you, …
Mar 18 2022
Theorizing Unbounded
First, a few quotations – hey, quotations are my thing, you know: “The Shing law forbids killing, but they killed knowledge, they burned books, and what may be worse, they falsified what was left. They slipped in the Lie, as always. We aren’t sure of anything concerning the Age of the League; how …
Mar 07 2022
The Left’s Approach To Facts And Truth
Dig this: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been taking some punches by activist media for “bullying” a group of young men by explaining to them that they don’t need to wear masks that are useless just to virtue signal mask compliance, and saying that people need to cut it out with the ridiculous …
Sep 01 2021
A Comment On Commentary
Back in the heyday of blogging, everyone and his halfwit Uncle Herman had a blog. There were, at peak, over 50 million such sites. Most, of course, were of no broad consequence: little was posted there, and most of that was worthless. However, they gave their “proprietors” a sense that they could be listened …
Aug 24 2021
It’s Happening Again
…but then, it was to be expected. Yea verily, even by those who claim that it’s not happening. There are phenomena whose geneses we understand – “we” being interpreted to mean “those of us who study such things” – perfectly well. We cannot plausibly claim that we didn’t expect them to happen. Yet …
Apr 13 2021
The Political Strategy Of The Usurper Regime…
…is to lie. Continuously. About everything. Two examples follow – and believe me, I could have produced more without any exertion. First comes a scathing article from John Lott and Thomas Massie: There were so many lies in Vice President Kamala Harris’ and President Joe Biden’s presentations on guns Thursday that …
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