The secret source of fake news. Its discovery can change America!

by Fabius Maximus 

Summary: Our leaders have made a discovery of the sort that changes the destiny of nations. It explains much of modern American politics. We have become gullible, seeing the false beliefs of others but credulously believing what our tribal leaders tell us. The avalanche of “fake news” is the logical response by our ruling elites. {I was going to respond to recent news, but realized that this post from two years ago says it all.}

“in a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
— A saying for our time, although not by Orwell.

Logical contradiction

We caused the rising tide of fake news

After WWII our ruling elites have grown increasingly bold in their lies (see the Big List of lies by our government). They have seen how we credulously believe even the most implausible stories, and that we inflict little or no penalty when their lies are discover (even Bill Clinton’s conviction of contempt of court and disbarment for lying under oath didn’t dent his popularity among Democrats).

The rising tide of fake news naturally results as awareness of our gullibility spread among our ruling elites. We see the lies of our foes but remain delusionally ignorant about the lies of our tribe. This is comically obvious on comment threads, where attacks on tribal truths are brutally repulsed, but politically pleasing and outrageous lies go without contradiction or protest.

The Right muttered about Obama’s missing birth certificate while describing Obama as a radical leftist anarchist commie Muslim Nazi. They believe that cutting income taxes usually increases tax revenue, that torture produces reliable answers (it doesn’t), and that foreign armies usually defeat local insurgents (they don’t). Their websites overflow with lies about gun rightsabout economicsabout history, and scores other subjects.

We are primarily funded by readers. Please subscribe and donate to support us!

The Left is no better. The IPCC was the “gold standard” description of climate science research — the most reliable statement of climate scientists’ consensus. By 2011 activists were saying it was “too conservative”, which became a widespread response to the release of AR5 in 2013 (e.g., see Inside Climate NewsThe Daily Climate, and Yale’s Environment 360). Propagandists like Phil Plait misrepresent or even hide the science. After three decades of hysterical predictions of doom (wild exaggerations of mainstream climate science), the public rates climate change low on its list of public policy priorities (Hillary almost never even mentioned it in 2016).

For fifty years Leftists doomsters arouse the faithful with fake stories, and still the Left eagerly believes the next one. For years their articles and comments casually mentioned destruction of humanity or even the biosphere. They believed that 30,000 species go extinct every years. Now they casually discuss the imminent collapse of the Republic, with gulags and no election in 2020. They look at Team Trump’s collection of right-wing politicians, CEOs, and billionaires but seeing fascist revolutionaries.

Fake news

The secret about fake news: it’s logical

“Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal.”
— From Robert A. Heinlein’s novella “Gulf” (1949), later published in Assignment in Eternity

Each year our diet of fake news becomes more professionally designed and executed. It is what we should be fed. If you address an audience of dogs, would you read to them from Plato?

Just as Mao brought fourth generation warfare to maturity, so that foreign armies seldom afterwards defeated insurgents, Campaign 2016 brought fake news to maturity. Trump learned that the Right prefers exciting lies to hard truths. Clinton weakly responded with the I’m Not Trump – Anything But Issues campaign. In defeat the Left did what they accused Trump of planning: attempting to delegitimize the election. Their attack is the epitome of fake news, laughably weak evidence that Russia hacked the election by telling Americans hidden truths.

This is 21st century America. Ignorance is our nature. For more about this see…

Views:

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.