{"id":826,"date":"2018-05-04T07:51:14","date_gmt":"2018-05-04T11:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=826"},"modified":"2018-05-04T07:51:14","modified_gmt":"2018-05-04T11:51:14","slug":"the-post-truth-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2018\/05\/04\/the-post-truth-era\/","title":{"rendered":"The Post Truth Era"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Post Truth Era<\/p>\n

James Comey was fired for his handling of the Hillary Clinton emails; or he was fired for failing to end the Russia investigation; or for not publicly stating the President was not a target; or failing to pledge loyalty to the President.\u00a0Donald Trump didn\u2019t know Stormy Daniels; didn\u2019t pay Stormy Daniels; didn\u2019t know Michael Cohen paid Stormy Daniels; paid Cohen back for paying Stormy Daniels.\u00a0 The United States is going to build a wall on the Mexican border, we are building a wall on the Mexican border, we are repairing existing walls on the Mexican border.<\/p>\n

We have entered a new era, when the \u201ctruth\u201d ain\u2019t<\/em> true.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t only a Donald Trump phenomenon, this is a widespread occurrence, almost normal in daily life.\u00a0 There is little that is universally accepted as true; every political, religious, and cultural faction has their own version of the truth.<\/p>\n

We stop listening to those things we don\u2019t believe are true.\u00a0 We tune (or are tuned by our media) to see and hear our OWN TRUTH. \u00a0When an \u201copposing\u201d truth slips in, we immediately see it as an outlier, not real, or in the President\u2019s term, FAKE NEWS. \u00a0 Our media sources will do this for you, selecting stories that you agree with and weeding out those that you don\u2019t. It’s in the “algorithm.”<\/p>\n

As someone with a political cross-section of friends, I still get to see some of the \u201cother sides\u201d truths.\u00a0 One of my \u201cannoying traits\u201d (I suspect) is that when I see a clearly outlandish claim, I go to work to check it against fact (even if it\u2019s not their<\/em> truth.)\u00a0 I never get thanks for that, more often, my sources of \u201ctruth\u201d are attacked.\u00a0 For example, George Washington NEVER SAID the following about the Second Amendment:<\/p>\n

A free people ought not only be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s out there on the internet, you can see it with a nice portrait of the first President on Facebook.\u00a0But he never said it.\u00a0 Several fact checking groups including Snopes<\/a> agree, as well as the Mt. Vernon Historical Society<\/a>.\u00a0 But beware of questioning someone else\u2019s truth.<\/p>\n

Speaking of George Washington, he didn\u2019t say, \u201cI cannot tell a lie,\u201d either.\u00a0 A later biographer, Parson Weems, made that up along with the cherry tree. \u00a0But it doesn\u2019t seem quite so long ago that there was a price to pay for telling a lie.\u00a0Bill Clinton said, \u201cI did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.\u201d\u00a0 He said that to the public, and then again under deposition.\u00a0He later said he believed oral sex wasn\u2019t sexual relations, but the House of Representatives voted to impeach him for perjury, and he stood trial in the Senate (where he was NOT removed from office.)<\/p>\n

Full disclosure:\u00a0 THEN and now, I believe Clinton should not have been impeached.\u00a0 I did and do believe he should have resigned for disgracing the office of the President, by taking advantage of an intern. If he had, Al Gore might have been President instead of George W Bush and the world would be a very different place.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Agree or not with the actions taken, \u201cback then\u201d even the ultimate politician, Bill Clinton was held to some standard.<\/p>\n

Today, it\u2019s not so much.\u00a0Today there is a media network devoted to one truth, Fox News, and there are other networks closer to what may be REAL truth, including my addiction, MSNBC.\u00a0 But there is no common denominator, no common set of facts that can serve as a bridge from one view to another.\u00a0 We are in a \u201cpost-truth era.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what happens in our new era?\u00a0 When I was in high school, I read \u00a0George Orwell\u2019s \u00a0\u201c1984.\u201d\u00a0 In that book, the enemies of yesterday (Russia?) become the friends of tomorrow, and the Ministries of Truth, Love, Peace and Plenty told lies, hate, fought wars, and rationed goods.\u00a0 Today we have an Environmental Protection Agency that has stopped protecting, a Justice Department that is struggling to be just, a Homeland Security Department that rounds up people, and a State Department that gave up diplomacy.\u00a0 Words no longer have the same meaning.<\/p>\n

Our view of politicians is so low that we no longer hold them to any standards.\u00a0 If it was known that President Kennedy was having affairs in the White House, or that Woodrow Wilson\u2019s stroke was so severe, would they have remained in office?\u00a0 In 1988, Colorado Senator Gary Hart was running for President.\u00a0 He challenged rumors that he was having an affair, almost saying \u201c\u2026catch me if you can.\u201d\u00a0 The press did, and Hart was done.\u00a0 Today, he could have simply called them all liars, purveyors of Fake News, or paid Donna Rice off with a \u201cdo not disclose agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a recent Ohio political campaign, a candidate wanted to make a point about his opponent. \u00a0In a commercial, he took a picture of the opponent shaking hands with President Trump and “Photoshopped” it so that the opponent was shaking hands with Hillary Clinton. \u00a0When he was called out for it, it was simply “creative campaigning,” another version of Fake News. \u00a0There was no apology, no retraction, no withdrawal from the campaign.<\/p>\n

We get what we accept.\u00a0While there are a lot of reasons that \u201cgood\u201d people avoid politics (raising money for campaigns is one huge factor) another is that they are afraid to sully themselves in the field.\u00a0 We get what we deserve if we don\u2019t hold politicians, and certainly, the current President, to a higher standard.\u00a0 The standard set by Speaker Ryan, \u201c\u2026don\u2019t listen to what he says, watch what he does,\u201d is unacceptable if we want something different and better than what we are getting now.<\/p>\n

The real danger is the one prophesied in 1949 by Orwell in \u201c1984.\u201d\u00a0 When we no longer value truth, when we no longer share a common knowledge of fact, then our government can do what it wants, whether it\u2019s in our interest or not.\u00a0 We will lose our democracy if we don\u2019t find a common truth.\u00a0 Big Brother will do more than watch.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Post Truth Era James Comey was fired for his handling of the Hillary Clinton emails; or he was fired for failing to end the Russia investigation; or for not publicly stating the President was not a target; or failing to pledge loyalty to the President.\u00a0Donald Trump didn\u2019t know Stormy Daniels; didn\u2019t pay Stormy Daniels; … Continue reading “The Post Truth Era”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Post Truth Era : Our America - 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