Search This Blog

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Now is not the time for civility

This is an open letter to the newly (in)famous Rep. Joe Wilson, of "You lie!" fame.

I've never heard of Mr Wilson, and it goes without saying that he has never hard of me. So, naturally, I have no expectations of him seeing this post.


Dear Mr. Wilson,

I read [Speaker Pelosi agrees to plan to scold Rep. Wilson for 'You lie' outburst] that the Democrats (and, doubtless, the RINOS) have agreed to a plan to scold you for your so-called outburst in "speaking truth to power," unless you humiliate yourself on the House floor.

My advice, for what it's worth, is to tell them all to go to Hell: you spoke the truth; that they don't want that truth spoken is their moral failure, not yours. Having spoken the truth, it would be a severe moral failure on your part to deny it -- apparently, you've already started down that path by personally apologizing to That Man, the alleged-President.

So, you had an "outburst." Big hairy deal. Are you a man or are you a passive-aggressive pussy-man? Men tend to be blunt -- even though bluntness tends to distresses the passive-aggressive pussies in our midst. On the other hand, passive-aggressive pussy-men scheme in the corners and stab in the back.

This is, in fact, no time for "civil discourse" -- as defined and controlled by the Democrats and other "progressives." These people are set to destroy the nation, and many of them *know* what they're up to.

Of what use to you or to your descendants or to anyone else will it be to have gotten a patronizing pat on the head from those lying "liberals" once they've destroyed the country?

3 comments:

MathewK said...

Well said and i agree though i will say this. They can scold him and all that, he can even apologize, but it's no longer about Wilson anymore, people out there have figured out that obama did lie and continues to do so.

They have figured out that he is out to destroy the country and turn it into yet another useless socialist shithole. The wicked witch of congress can't make everyone apologize and fall into line, the people don't care what she thinks, they're all calling obama and his ilk what they are, lying weasels.

Nick said...

He should not have apologized. Of course, in my opinion, both Democrats and Republicans are hypocritical, as ALL Presidents (including Dear Leader Obama's predecessor) are liars and worse.

Ilíon said...

SE,
Are you sure you've not operating under a childish understanding of the word "lie?"

We teach children, or try to, that any deliberate non-truth is a lie (of course, most children miss the "deliberate" part). Now, this teaching isn't actually true, it's truncated and vastly simplified ... but it's the best we can do with children: just as most of them totally miss the nuance about deliberateness, almost none of them would understand what a lie really is. And, since children begin to lie almost before they can talk, we can't wait until they're old enough to properly understand before we try to do something about it.

A lie a not simply an untrue (or "half-true") statement, deliberately told. A lie is the deliberate attempt to deceive another or withhold information to which the other is morally entitled, generally to one's benefit and/or to their or someone else's ruin, when one actually has the moral obligation to not deceive.

Thus, it is not a lie to deceive the enemy in war (it is, in fact, morally obligatory to attempt to do so).

On the other hand, it is a lie to withhold information in a court-of-law ... or to present it, yet do so in such a way that it will be understood falsely. This is why Clinton was such a good liar: his lies were generally made of statements which were technically true individually, but said in such a way that most people misunderstood the truth of the matter.


As an example, from the TV show, Lost. In the first season (or was it the second?), after the accident which ultimately claimed the life of Boone, Locke carried him back to camp. When Jack ask what happened, Locke replied that Boone had fallen off a cliff. Now, that was true; but it wasn't the full truth, and Jack needed to know that Boone's leg had been crushed by a crate which fell on him. Locke lied, fatally so, even though everything he said was technically true.

Another common way to lie is to take so long to get to the key facts (which others need to know and have the right to know) that others stop listening.