The irrelevance of "truth" in modern America is a subject to which I have devoted considerable thought in my personal and political life and in my professional life as a lawyer. Hawkins, by reminding me of Rathergate, has punched one of my buttons. and I simply have to sound off...in support of what he said.
There are 3 phenomena I have noticed in personal life that, to me, indicate that Hawkins is on the money when he says that truth is a competitive disadvantage in our society.
These are subtle changes in mass behavior and speech that possibly are hallmarks of fundamental shifts in subconscious thinking.....perhaps showing that on a subconscious level people have a dim awareness that something is wrong, something has changed, and not for the better.
"THIS IS A FREE COUNTRY, ISN'T IT?"
and "YOURE A LIAR":
When I was a child, I used to here the phrase repeated fairly commonly, "It's a free country, isn't it?"
This was usually said when someone tried to unreasonably control someone else's behavior or speech.
I haven't heard anyone say "It's a free country, isn't it" in a very long time. I would like to believe that this reflects a subconscious recognition by the herd at large that this is NOT a free country any more.
Likewise, along the lines of what Hawkins says here, it was a big deal when I was a kid if some kid said to another kid, "You're a liar" or "That's a lie."
Such a statement often led to a fist fight. A thoughtful kid was careful about accusing another kid of being a liar.
It was an important thing to us kids that we not be thought of as liars but as guys who spoke the truth.
Nowadays, such remarks don't seem to matter. They don't provoke much response.
Conversation just moves on. Nothing of note here.
I suspect the lack of response indicates the fact that it doesn't really matter any more whether someone is lying. Lying is so common, so socially acceptable, that an accusation along these lines is just shrugged off....not important enough to warrant notice.
"I DON'T NEED THIS!"
There's a new phrase that has come into use in our language:
"I don't need this."
One might ask, what does this phrase have to do about the status of truth in our society?
Well, IMO it has quite a lot to do with the status of truth in our society.
Right off the bat, someone who says, "I don't need this", has relegated TRUTH to a subordinate position.
By saying "I don't need this" the speaker has made his position clear - the question is not whether the statement us true. The critical thing has become how he FEELS about the statement.
Saying "I don't need this" becomes a clever way of halting consideration of whether the statement that has provoked the person who asserts that he doesn't need it is true or not.
Scrutiny has been moved from truth to the subjective and often petty emotions of the one who "doesn't need this."
Truth no longer matters. How he feels trumps the issue of truth.
It's an important matter, a slight of hand, that we ought to take note of.
To me, the fact that the offended person will not deal with the facts of the matter face on, but chooses instead to make his own vanity the subject means in 99 cases out of a 100 that what was said is true.
And, from my experience, in all cases in which someone tries to block consideration of truth by objecting that he doesn't need this, in fact he does need it. He needs to think about it, engage in some moral introspection and amend his ways.
"I don't need this" shares something with the statement "He thinks he's better than me."
Invariably, the statement "He thinks he's better than me" means that the person in question is in fact better than the huffy, "insulted" person.
I doubt that the late Queen Elizabeth in her entire life said of someone employed in the kitchen, garden or stables of one of her palaces, "He thinks he's better than me." I don't think the Queen ever said this about anyone at all. She knew at all times that she was better than others so the haughty behavior of others never impacted her sense of self worth. At heart, she didn't give a damn what they thought.
But I digress and should return to the subject.
"THIS IS INSENSITIVE."
Moving on to something that will especially please Hawkins:
Have most of you noticed how use of the word "insensitive" has exploded in our times?
Liberals LOVE the word insensitive.
They regard it as magic.
As with the statement "I don't need this", employing the word "insensitive" immediately and trickily shifts the focus from whether the statement is true onto whether it isn't sensitive to the emotions of some member of one of the Regime Support Groups (my semantic invention) who are special and who must never be offended.
By saying "John Doe's remarks on this subject are insensitive", it's usually intended (and it works!) to ring down the curtain, stop confronting and dealing with the truth of what was said and to shift the subject to the supposed entitlement of the specific Regime Support Group in question (Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, illegal aliens, American Indians, Asians, homosexuals, the transgendered, the handicapped, the noble "street people" (or as we much now call them "the unhoused"), women....you all know who the Special People are and you could probably add more Regime Support Groups to this list) to an immunity from criticism.
I have never heard anyone except an ideological liberal, a self-righteous, conniving, sneaky liberal at that, use the word "insensitive" in this manner. By declaring that the remarks are "insensitive" a liberal can avoid dealing with unpleasant facts that intrude upon his fantasy world....irrefutable facts like the fact that Jewish members of Congress who are "dual citizens" of both Israel and the United States clearly have divided loyalties, the fact that a Black is over 20 times more likely to kill or rape a White person than a White person is likely to kill or rape a Black person, the fact that Biden's illegal admission of 25 million aliens is the most important factor in raising rent and housing costs, the fact that homosexual sex acts are intrinsically dangerous and potentially fatal, the fact that the unhoused are the bottom drawer of human society, the fact that men make better soldiers than women.
Here again is evidence that truth doesn't matter.
These are low level, day to day, speculative semantic indications that truth no longer matters.
They lend some collateral support to Hawkins' idea that truth puts you at a competitive disadvantage in a profoundly sick culture and society like we "enjoy" in modern America.
Hawkins understates his case.
Truth not only is a competitive disadvantage. Truth is far more disgusting and repellent than that.
The "truth of the matter: is that to modern Americans in general and to liberals in particular, truth is repellent and disgusting.
Truth is racist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, antisemitic, male chauvinist...as well, of course, invariaably being "far right", "fascist" and "White supremacist."
This is an excellent comment; thank you for posting it. What really resonated with me was the "insensitive" kill switch; as if any actual fact does not matter; it's all about the feelz. Just watch the lunatics in Minneapolis scream about ICE, or the race hustlers in Madison screaming about a(nother) black man murdered by the cops! The only slight exception I might make is about classifying "Jews" as a "regime support group." It seems to me that they have largely been moved from "victim" to "target" post Israel's response to the October 7th massacre. The Left will always label Israelis as the oppressor, and because they are the only Jewish nation in the world, anti-semiticism pops up on the Left and the "Horseshoe" right.
WheelHorseman: I understand your dissent from the inclusion of Jews as a Regime Support Group based on very recent events in Gaza. However, over its history the Left has avidly supported Israel and it will inevitably return to that history as the memory of Gaza is allowed to recede into the background. Likewise, Jews with some resplendent exceptions have supported the Left. I have read that the majority of Jews in New York City voted for Mamdani. Such is the hammer hold grip that leftism exerts on Jewish people. What stands out in my mind as an illustration of how much the Left hates White people is that leftists have simultaneously fervently supported Israel and the Jews' right to self-determination while denying White Europeans' our right to nations of our own. For instance, the Antidefamation League says that supporting Palestinians is anti-semitic because it denies Jews their right to self determination. The ADL has spent over a century lobbying for open borders and condemning White Americans who want a state of their own as "racists." The blatant hypocrisy and virtual schizophrenia demonstrated by ADL in simultaneously demanding a state of their own while denying our right to states of our own scream out from that. In opposing antisemitism one should not close one's eyes to things like this which IMO are the sources of antisemitism. It is not a service to Jews to abstain from criticism of things they do that are obviously wrong and indefensible. The example I cited in my comments - the facile rejection of the issue of dual loyalty as "antisemitic - falls flat when one looks at the Jews in the U.S. Congress who have dual citizenship in the US and in Israel. The obvious question that cannot be dismissed becomes: which of these 2 states is the Congressman more loyal to? The worst example is the Congressman from Florida (Fine, I think, is his name) who dresses himself in a uniform of the Israeli Defense Force as he sits in our Congress. Loyal Americans of all types must instinctively recoil at that. We cannot close our eyes and minds on such behavior out of a desire to oppose antisemitism. Facts must be faced head on...even in America. (Smiling!) Thanks for your reply which I appreciate.
The irrelevance of "truth" in modern America is a subject to which I have devoted considerable thought in my personal and political life and in my professional life as a lawyer. Hawkins, by reminding me of Rathergate, has punched one of my buttons. and I simply have to sound off...in support of what he said.
There are 3 phenomena I have noticed in personal life that, to me, indicate that Hawkins is on the money when he says that truth is a competitive disadvantage in our society.
These are subtle changes in mass behavior and speech that possibly are hallmarks of fundamental shifts in subconscious thinking.....perhaps showing that on a subconscious level people have a dim awareness that something is wrong, something has changed, and not for the better.
"THIS IS A FREE COUNTRY, ISN'T IT?"
and "YOURE A LIAR":
When I was a child, I used to here the phrase repeated fairly commonly, "It's a free country, isn't it?"
This was usually said when someone tried to unreasonably control someone else's behavior or speech.
I haven't heard anyone say "It's a free country, isn't it" in a very long time. I would like to believe that this reflects a subconscious recognition by the herd at large that this is NOT a free country any more.
Likewise, along the lines of what Hawkins says here, it was a big deal when I was a kid if some kid said to another kid, "You're a liar" or "That's a lie."
Such a statement often led to a fist fight. A thoughtful kid was careful about accusing another kid of being a liar.
It was an important thing to us kids that we not be thought of as liars but as guys who spoke the truth.
Nowadays, such remarks don't seem to matter. They don't provoke much response.
Conversation just moves on. Nothing of note here.
I suspect the lack of response indicates the fact that it doesn't really matter any more whether someone is lying. Lying is so common, so socially acceptable, that an accusation along these lines is just shrugged off....not important enough to warrant notice.
"I DON'T NEED THIS!"
There's a new phrase that has come into use in our language:
"I don't need this."
One might ask, what does this phrase have to do about the status of truth in our society?
Well, IMO it has quite a lot to do with the status of truth in our society.
Right off the bat, someone who says, "I don't need this", has relegated TRUTH to a subordinate position.
By saying "I don't need this" the speaker has made his position clear - the question is not whether the statement us true. The critical thing has become how he FEELS about the statement.
Saying "I don't need this" becomes a clever way of halting consideration of whether the statement that has provoked the person who asserts that he doesn't need it is true or not.
Scrutiny has been moved from truth to the subjective and often petty emotions of the one who "doesn't need this."
Truth no longer matters. How he feels trumps the issue of truth.
It's an important matter, a slight of hand, that we ought to take note of.
To me, the fact that the offended person will not deal with the facts of the matter face on, but chooses instead to make his own vanity the subject means in 99 cases out of a 100 that what was said is true.
And, from my experience, in all cases in which someone tries to block consideration of truth by objecting that he doesn't need this, in fact he does need it. He needs to think about it, engage in some moral introspection and amend his ways.
"I don't need this" shares something with the statement "He thinks he's better than me."
Invariably, the statement "He thinks he's better than me" means that the person in question is in fact better than the huffy, "insulted" person.
I doubt that the late Queen Elizabeth in her entire life said of someone employed in the kitchen, garden or stables of one of her palaces, "He thinks he's better than me." I don't think the Queen ever said this about anyone at all. She knew at all times that she was better than others so the haughty behavior of others never impacted her sense of self worth. At heart, she didn't give a damn what they thought.
But I digress and should return to the subject.
"THIS IS INSENSITIVE."
Moving on to something that will especially please Hawkins:
Have most of you noticed how use of the word "insensitive" has exploded in our times?
Liberals LOVE the word insensitive.
They regard it as magic.
As with the statement "I don't need this", employing the word "insensitive" immediately and trickily shifts the focus from whether the statement is true onto whether it isn't sensitive to the emotions of some member of one of the Regime Support Groups (my semantic invention) who are special and who must never be offended.
By saying "John Doe's remarks on this subject are insensitive", it's usually intended (and it works!) to ring down the curtain, stop confronting and dealing with the truth of what was said and to shift the subject to the supposed entitlement of the specific Regime Support Group in question (Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, illegal aliens, American Indians, Asians, homosexuals, the transgendered, the handicapped, the noble "street people" (or as we much now call them "the unhoused"), women....you all know who the Special People are and you could probably add more Regime Support Groups to this list) to an immunity from criticism.
I have never heard anyone except an ideological liberal, a self-righteous, conniving, sneaky liberal at that, use the word "insensitive" in this manner. By declaring that the remarks are "insensitive" a liberal can avoid dealing with unpleasant facts that intrude upon his fantasy world....irrefutable facts like the fact that Jewish members of Congress who are "dual citizens" of both Israel and the United States clearly have divided loyalties, the fact that a Black is over 20 times more likely to kill or rape a White person than a White person is likely to kill or rape a Black person, the fact that Biden's illegal admission of 25 million aliens is the most important factor in raising rent and housing costs, the fact that homosexual sex acts are intrinsically dangerous and potentially fatal, the fact that the unhoused are the bottom drawer of human society, the fact that men make better soldiers than women.
Here again is evidence that truth doesn't matter.
These are low level, day to day, speculative semantic indications that truth no longer matters.
They lend some collateral support to Hawkins' idea that truth puts you at a competitive disadvantage in a profoundly sick culture and society like we "enjoy" in modern America.
Hawkins understates his case.
Truth not only is a competitive disadvantage. Truth is far more disgusting and repellent than that.
The "truth of the matter: is that to modern Americans in general and to liberals in particular, truth is repellent and disgusting.
Truth is racist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, antisemitic, male chauvinist...as well, of course, invariaably being "far right", "fascist" and "White supremacist."
This is an excellent comment; thank you for posting it. What really resonated with me was the "insensitive" kill switch; as if any actual fact does not matter; it's all about the feelz. Just watch the lunatics in Minneapolis scream about ICE, or the race hustlers in Madison screaming about a(nother) black man murdered by the cops! The only slight exception I might make is about classifying "Jews" as a "regime support group." It seems to me that they have largely been moved from "victim" to "target" post Israel's response to the October 7th massacre. The Left will always label Israelis as the oppressor, and because they are the only Jewish nation in the world, anti-semiticism pops up on the Left and the "Horseshoe" right.
WheelHorseman: I understand your dissent from the inclusion of Jews as a Regime Support Group based on very recent events in Gaza. However, over its history the Left has avidly supported Israel and it will inevitably return to that history as the memory of Gaza is allowed to recede into the background. Likewise, Jews with some resplendent exceptions have supported the Left. I have read that the majority of Jews in New York City voted for Mamdani. Such is the hammer hold grip that leftism exerts on Jewish people. What stands out in my mind as an illustration of how much the Left hates White people is that leftists have simultaneously fervently supported Israel and the Jews' right to self-determination while denying White Europeans' our right to nations of our own. For instance, the Antidefamation League says that supporting Palestinians is anti-semitic because it denies Jews their right to self determination. The ADL has spent over a century lobbying for open borders and condemning White Americans who want a state of their own as "racists." The blatant hypocrisy and virtual schizophrenia demonstrated by ADL in simultaneously demanding a state of their own while denying our right to states of our own scream out from that. In opposing antisemitism one should not close one's eyes to things like this which IMO are the sources of antisemitism. It is not a service to Jews to abstain from criticism of things they do that are obviously wrong and indefensible. The example I cited in my comments - the facile rejection of the issue of dual loyalty as "antisemitic - falls flat when one looks at the Jews in the U.S. Congress who have dual citizenship in the US and in Israel. The obvious question that cannot be dismissed becomes: which of these 2 states is the Congressman more loyal to? The worst example is the Congressman from Florida (Fine, I think, is his name) who dresses himself in a uniform of the Israeli Defense Force as he sits in our Congress. Loyal Americans of all types must instinctively recoil at that. We cannot close our eyes and minds on such behavior out of a desire to oppose antisemitism. Facts must be faced head on...even in America. (Smiling!) Thanks for your reply which I appreciate.