Why is it that we have difficulty with liars? After all most of our lives we have met them. Once, as children, we discovered that a lie got us out of trouble we added it to our arsenal and used it whenever we could to save ourselves pain, embarrassment or retribution. We also soon were able to identify liars and knew how to handle them. Liars were named and shamed back then.
Many a time though I have heard quotes from known liars used as facts. When queried the person knew they were liars but thought this time it was the truth. Why? Well why would they lie in this instance? That question seems to be why liars seem to cause so much trouble. After a while they not only tell lies to cover up their deeds but tell lies to discredit others and enhance their own position. Personally, I know very few liars and the best way to deal with them is to ignore anything they say if you can’t validate it via a reliable third party. So, after decades of dealing with liars it seems we still cannot recognise them and handle them appropriately. That amazes me as we seem to learn that hot plates burn, Marmite tastes horrible and non PC jokes are the really funny ones.
So here we are in an age where politics is not so much about telling the public what you are doing while obscuring your real intention with weasel words that whilst true actually don’t give you the true information you actually want but is where they actually tell downright lies or lie by changing the raw data to exclude or include what point they want to make. One way is to regularly change the base data such as Gordo has done by adding carefully selected items to the shopping basket to mask the true rise in the cost of living. So they can tell the truth, ‘The cost of living index has remained the same for the last four years’ while in reality it would have changed dramatically if they had not adjusted it. Now they are not named and shamed by their lies they start to use them all the time. We should be bringing them up on their lies.
An example of old style politics as a way of misleading us provided by Labour at the start of their term.
Objective : Government wants to make its subject dependant on it and unable to defend themselves. It needs to disarm the public and make them rely on plod.
Action : Make a policy ‘We will protect you from criminals using guns’
Process : They take all the guns off the law abiding.
Result : All the law abiding people disarmed. Criminals still armed and we know from the crime figures how well that is working.
An example of the new way of misleading us provided by Labour in their (hopefully) final term.
Objective : Politicians want us to join the EU knowing that most in the UK don’t want it.
Action : Make a policy statement ‘We will have a referendum’
Process : They just don’t bother and tell us to get lost as they are in charge.
Result : Unless something happens in other parts of the EU the traitors will win and we will be in it up to our ears.
Yet, we still find people that believe what these people say. People blame the media but it’s only partly their fault. You see Hitler was right, he said ‘If you state a big enough lie often enough, people will believe it.’ It was good enough for Hitler and then the Soviets and through all the other Socialist and Communist countries until it is now used in the UK and the US. Telling actual lies was never a policy under any other regime. It might have been for a few politicians but never the party line. Now it seems it is rare to actually get a truthful answer. One the plus side even though Cameron is clearly a Blair clone and a useless git to boot it is interesting that instead of lying and saying we would have a referendum even if the Constitution Lisbon Treaty is ratified he is still skirting around the subject and trying to avoid saying it. Old style politics, no real lies just old fashioned making meaningless statements and hope it goes away. Maybe that’s the difference between a posh nob brought up with certain morals and a puritan brought up to hold on to beliefs even when there are no supporting facts at all and simply lying as a tool to defend your position.
The problem is that although I believe every politician that votes for the Lisbon Treaty should be executed for treason our entire political class actually believe that they are getting away with ripping us off and serving their own agendas instead of ours. From resigning over their expenses by not standing next election. How laughable. They know that they would never get voted in anyway so they still maximise their time at the trough. We get paid too much by them from their deliberately complicated benefits system they don’t understand themselves and get pilloried to get it back. They personally fiddle their own expenses to maximise their already exorbitant income and they blame it all on a misunderstanding. Even the guys at the top are doing it. Never in the history of our country have our politicians done so much damage to our country. No traitor ever has damaged us so much as this lot have.
So, why is it even now people still believe Gordo when he says we don’t need to do any cuts or the economy is improving. The whole world knows that we are bust. If we were treated as a corporation or as an individual we would be bankrupt. Only a country gets credit whilst in the state we are in where income is significantly less than outgoings and even the most optimistic predictions, from the people that got us in this state, say it’s going to get worse before it gets better in a few years time. No one can have an income less than what they spend and still continue the way they do. Well, there is one exception, someone who is dying or intending to just run off somewhere and leave the problem behind and thus they won’t have to pay it back. Mmmmm. Fingers crossed on that one.
Anyone who has any common sense will treat liars like liars and not believe what they say but we clearly think that this time it is different, this time they are telling the truth, this time they wouldn’t do it to us. We know better. But we clearly don’t. Every time there is a massive group that believes everything they say even when they have seen with their own eyes that the person is a liar and has lied repeatedly. It’s almost as if they were working together but as it’s the believer that is being screwed along with you so you know it can’t be true.
So what is the cure? Well sadly I don’t have a workable solution. You see I think the media should point out their lies and untruths and that would cure it but the media does not. Bloggers are not powerful enough yet either. So there is no natural solution. Personally I hate liars and would like them executed but as I’ve been heavily involved in office politics I can appreciate a bit of smoke and mirrors and thus am guilty of telling a few half truths myself in my management roles. But I’m happy if we limit the execution to politicians. Besides that until our general population wake up, and that won’t happen soon, we need to just keep plodding on until they do, long wait, bloggers become the new media and they are exposed or some portable voice technology comes on line that can detect when someone is lying. Imagine that on Parkinson or Jay Leno. A little voice saying ‘Liar’ every time they made a false statement. It would need to be mains powered as batteries couldn’t handle the load. Although I wonder what happened to the technology that the SS were going to use on benefit claimants during phone calls. How is that going? Could we already have a decent lie detector we could use on their speeches? I’ll have to check.
Q: How can you tell if a politician is lying?
A: Their lips are moving.
Politicians would never appear on TV again and that probably is a good thing. It would of course be interesting to look at some old clips and try the device out there. Be some interesting results. Of course it would make the boring old Parliament Channel a lot more interesting especially at PMQ time. Gordo would be unavailable every time. I can already imagine him throwing the shiny new lie detector across the House of Commons as it shouted ‘Liar’ for the tenth time in thirty seconds.
One day John came home with a robot that John claimed was actually a lie detector. It was about 5:30 that afternoon when Tommy, their 11-year old son, returned home from school.
Tommy was over 2 hours late.
“Where have you been? Why are you over 2 hours late getting home?” asked John.
“Several of us went to the library to work on an extra credit project,” said Tommy.
The robot walked around the table and slapped Tommy, knocking him completely out of his chair.
“Son,” said John, “this robot is a lie detector, now tell us where you really were after school.”
“We went to Bobby’s house and watched a movie,” said Tommy.
“What did you watch?” asked Marsha.
“The Ten Commandments,” answered Tommy.
The robot went around to Tommy and once again slapped him, knocking him off his chair.
With his lip quivering, Tommy got up, sat down and said, “I am sorry I lied. We really watched a tape called Sex Queen.”
“I am ashamed of you son,” said John. “When I was your age, I never lied to my parents.”
The robot walked around to John and delivered a whack that nearly knocked him out of his chair.
Marsha doubled over in laughter, almost in tears and said, “Boy, did you ever ask for that one! You can’t be too mad with Tommy. After all, he is your son!”
The robot walked around to Marsha and knocked her out of her chair.
Of course it would make our lives more interesting too. Technology really doesn’t care does it.
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. — Douglas Adams (1952 – 2001)
Lies, Damn lies and half truths
Why is it that we have difficulty with liars? After all most of our lives we have met them. Once, as children, we discovered that a lie got us out of trouble we added it to our arsenal and used it whenever we could to save ourselves pain, embarrassment or retribution. We also soon were able to identify liars and knew how to handle them. Liars were named and shamed back then.
Many a time though I have heard quotes from known liars used as facts. When queried the person knew they were liars but thought this time it was the truth. Why? Well why would they lie in this instance? That question seems to be why liars seem to cause so much trouble. After a while they not only tell lies to cover up their deeds but tell lies to discredit others and enhance their own position. Personally, I know very few liars and the best way to deal with them is to ignore anything they say if you can’t validate it via a reliable third party. So, after decades of dealing with liars it seems we still cannot recognise them and handle them appropriately. That amazes me as we seem to learn that hot plates burn, Marmite tastes horrible and non PC jokes are the really funny ones.
So here we are in an age where politics is not so much about telling the public what you are doing while obscuring your real intention with weasel words that whilst true actually don’t give you the true information you actually want but is where they actually tell downright lies or lie by changing the raw data to exclude or include what point they want to make. One way is to regularly change the base data such as Gordo has done by adding carefully selected items to the shopping basket to mask the true rise in the cost of living. So they can tell the truth, ‘The cost of living index has remained the same for the last four years’ while in reality it would have changed dramatically if they had not adjusted it. Now they are not named and shamed by their lies they start to use them all the time. We should be bringing them up on their lies.
An example of old style politics as a way of misleading us provided by Labour at the start of their term.
An example of the new way of misleading us provided by Labour in their (hopefully) final term.
Yet, we still find people that believe what these people say. People blame the media but it’s only partly their fault. You see Hitler was right, he said ‘If you state a big enough lie often enough, people will believe it.’ It was good enough for Hitler and then the Soviets and through all the other Socialist and Communist countries until it is now used in the UK and the US. Telling actual lies was never a policy under any other regime. It might have been for a few politicians but never the party line. Now it seems it is rare to actually get a truthful answer. One the plus side even though Cameron is clearly a Blair clone and a useless git to boot it is interesting that instead of lying and saying we would have a referendum even if the Constitution Lisbon Treaty is ratified he is still skirting around the subject and trying to avoid saying it. Old style politics, no real lies just old fashioned making meaningless statements and hope it goes away. Maybe that’s the difference between a posh nob brought up with certain morals and a puritan brought up to hold on to beliefs even when there are no supporting facts at all and simply lying as a tool to defend your position.
The problem is that although I believe every politician that votes for the Lisbon Treaty should be executed for treason our entire political class actually believe that they are getting away with ripping us off and serving their own agendas instead of ours. From resigning over their expenses by not standing next election. How laughable. They know that they would never get voted in anyway so they still maximise their time at the trough. We get paid too much by them from their deliberately complicated benefits system they don’t understand themselves and get pilloried to get it back. They personally fiddle their own expenses to maximise their already exorbitant income and they blame it all on a misunderstanding. Even the guys at the top are doing it. Never in the history of our country have our politicians done so much damage to our country. No traitor ever has damaged us so much as this lot have.
So, why is it even now people still believe Gordo when he says we don’t need to do any cuts or the economy is improving. The whole world knows that we are bust. If we were treated as a corporation or as an individual we would be bankrupt. Only a country gets credit whilst in the state we are in where income is significantly less than outgoings and even the most optimistic predictions, from the people that got us in this state, say it’s going to get worse before it gets better in a few years time. No one can have an income less than what they spend and still continue the way they do. Well, there is one exception, someone who is dying or intending to just run off somewhere and leave the problem behind and thus they won’t have to pay it back. Mmmmm. Fingers crossed on that one.
Anyone who has any common sense will treat liars like liars and not believe what they say but we clearly think that this time it is different, this time they are telling the truth, this time they wouldn’t do it to us. We know better. But we clearly don’t. Every time there is a massive group that believes everything they say even when they have seen with their own eyes that the person is a liar and has lied repeatedly. It’s almost as if they were working together but as it’s the believer that is being screwed along with you so you know it can’t be true.
So what is the cure? Well sadly I don’t have a workable solution. You see I think the media should point out their lies and untruths and that would cure it but the media does not. Bloggers are not powerful enough yet either. So there is no natural solution. Personally I hate liars and would like them executed but as I’ve been heavily involved in office politics I can appreciate a bit of smoke and mirrors and thus am guilty of telling a few half truths myself in my management roles. But I’m happy if we limit the execution to politicians. Besides that until our general population wake up, and that won’t happen soon, we need to just keep plodding on until they do, long wait, bloggers become the new media and they are exposed or some portable voice technology comes on line that can detect when someone is lying. Imagine that on Parkinson or Jay Leno. A little voice saying ‘Liar’ every time they made a false statement. It would need to be mains powered as batteries couldn’t handle the load. Although I wonder what happened to the technology that the SS were going to use on benefit claimants during phone calls. How is that going? Could we already have a decent lie detector we could use on their speeches? I’ll have to check.
Politicians would never appear on TV again and that probably is a good thing. It would of course be interesting to look at some old clips and try the device out there. Be some interesting results. Of course it would make the boring old Parliament Channel a lot more interesting especially at PMQ time. Gordo would be unavailable every time. I can already imagine him throwing the shiny new lie detector across the House of Commons as it shouted ‘Liar’ for the tenth time in thirty seconds.
Of course it would make our lives more interesting too. Technology really doesn’t care does it.