If You Bought the Russia Hoax, Why Should I Trust You on Anything? Ever?

 

If you bought the Russia Collusion hoax, why should I ever trust you about anything?  Of course, you believed it.  That’s not the issue.  The issue is why you believed it.  You believed what you needed to believe in order to silence the cognitive dissonance (look it up, it’s more than a catchphrase) between two narratives.  On the one hand, you had a healthy conservative distrust of most things government and, in particular, the Democrats’ stories about Republicans. On the other hand, you had this on-its-face ridiculous set of assertions being touted by the leftist media.  The further left, the more they loved it, and you went right ahead and loved it too.

Everybody needs to live in their own space.  If your wife is further left than you are, and stronger than you are, then you are likely to adopt increasingly leftist positions, to watch leftist news, to believe leftist stories, and to repeat the stories told by the left about the right.  About us.  How are you not simply a member of the left at that point, regardless of your personal (but unspeakable at home for fear of upsetting your wife), deeply-held, cherished beliefs about how you are a conservative?

There’s a difference between engaging in academic debate over tax rates and equivocating when confronted with a choice to make.  You had a choice, and you blew it.  Years down the road now, and the coup which you unbeknownst-like aided and abetted was successful.  There’s no going back and there’s certainly no going forward — not for us.  The Durham Report is out, and much like the Mueller Report and the Barr Report, “all it says” is that some things happened that shouldn’t have happened, and other things may not have happened.

This was a mutiny and a coup.

I try to keep my despair on a tight leash, but let me tell you, it is a powerful motivator.  Nothing contributes to a sense of urgency like a desperate need for change.  There’s a handy way to avoid making this sort of choice, however.  Believe the ridiculous story told to you by Nancy Pelosi and Rachel Maddow, and accepted by your wife and her friends, or your coworkers, or your Reddit buddies, or the crowd of losers who follow you on your favorite loser social media conformity system.

With apologies to Churchill, you were given a choice between fighting and lying.  You have chosen to lie, and now you will have to fight.  Good luck with that.  I already know that I can not trust you.

Who is Ray Epps?  You are.

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  1. DaveSchmidt Coolidge
    DaveSchmidt
    @DaveSchmidt

    BDB (View Comment):

    No Caesar (View Comment):

    John Brennan not only bought it, he sold it, actively and aggressively. As some of his actions were undertaken while he was head of the CIA, he should receive the ultimate penalty. Yes, he should be executed by firing squad. After a public trial in Missouri, or Tennessee, some centrally-located jurisdiction.

    Well, I’ll leave the sentencing to the duly constituted authority.

    But yes.

    Send them to Guantanemo [spelling?] 

    • #31
  2. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    BDB (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    BDB (View Comment):

    Confirmation bias is when honest observers perceive best what they expect to see.

    Cognitive dissonance is what happens to liars when the lie is more comforting than the truth, and it’s time to start bending facts into mindshare.

    None of us is all one or all the other. Meaning all of us are human, and therefore have a tendency (among more noble ones to be sure) to embrace the comforting lie. Jmho.

    We’re not in the mood for soothing words or platitudes. There’s a reason they scourged the women who had lain with Nazis in France.

    Because they believed they had a say over whom the women could sleep with.

    No doubt each woman had a good story and real needs. But real French men were killed fighting against the Nazis, and society was right to *at least extract a social cost* of those who betrayed society for them to gain re-admittance. And French women who fought and who enabled other resistance died horribly while the sob-story sisters lay back and thought of Vichy.

    Or fell in love. Or just wanted to have sex.

    There is a highly adaptive social purpose behind vengeance, and a great justification for making the cost of re-entering society after betrayal enormously socially expensive. Without vengeance, without justice, without enforcement of norms (and these are three different things) our human society will not work.

    So save it for the pages of The Times of Wherever. Conservative America has some house-cleaning to do.

    You need to win first.  You don’t get to tar and feather women until then.

    • #32
  3. CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill
    @CarolJoy

    JustmeinAZ (View Comment):

    Yeah, I’ve been browsing despair posters also.

    https://despair.com/collections/posters

    What fun to browse thru those posters!

    • #33
  4. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    Zafar (View Comment):

    BDB (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    BDB (View Comment):

    Confirmation bias is when honest observers perceive best what they expect to see.

    Cognitive dissonance is what happens to liars when the lie is more comforting than the truth, and it’s time to start bending facts into mindshare.

    None of us is all one or all the other. Meaning all of us are human, and therefore have a tendency (among more noble ones to be sure) to embrace the comforting lie. Jmho.

    We’re not in the mood for soothing words or platitudes. There’s a reason they scourged the women who had lain with Nazis in France.

    Because they believed they had a say over whom the women could sleep with.

    No doubt each woman had a good story and real needs. But real French men were killed fighting against the Nazis, and society was right to *at least extract a social cost* of those who betrayed society for them to gain re-admittance. And French women who fought and who enabled other resistance died horribly while the sob-story sisters lay back and thought of Vichy.

    Or fell in love. Or just wanted to have sex.

    There is a highly adaptive social purpose behind vengeance, and a great justification for making the cost of re-entering society after betrayal enormously socially expensive. Without vengeance, without justice, without enforcement of norms (and these are three different things) our human society will not work.

    […]

    You have no skin in the society game beyond your own pleasure, and you do not understand what makes society work.  Or not work.  Enjoy yourself.

    • #34
  5. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    BDB (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    BDB (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    BDB (View Comment):

    Confirmation bias is when honest observers perceive best what they expect to see.

    Cognitive dissonance is what happens to liars when the lie is more comforting than the truth, and it’s time to start bending facts into mindshare.

    None of us is all one or all the other. Meaning all of us are human, and therefore have a tendency (among more noble ones to be sure) to embrace the comforting lie. Jmho.

    We’re not in the mood for soothing words or platitudes. There’s a reason they scourged the women who had lain with Nazis in France.

    Because they believed they had a say over whom the women could sleep with.

    No doubt each woman had a good story and real needs. But real French men were killed fighting against the Nazis, and society was right to *at least extract a social cost* of those who betrayed society for them to gain re-admittance. And French women who fought and who enabled other resistance died horribly while the sob-story sisters lay back and thought of Vichy.

    Or fell in love. Or just wanted to have sex.

    There is a highly adaptive social purpose behind vengeance, and a great justification for making the cost of re-entering society after betrayal enormously socially expensive. Without vengeance, without justice, without enforcement of norms (and these are three different things) our human society will not work.

    […]

    You have no skin in the society game beyond your own pleasure, and you do not understand what makes society work. Or not work. Enjoy yourself.

    How to win the Culture War and tar and feather as many women as you want to:

    Step 1: dismiss other people’s investment in society as of less worth than your own….

    • #35
  6. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    Zafar (View Comment):

    BDB (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    BDB (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    BDB (View Comment):

    Confirmation bias is when honest observers perceive best what they expect to see.

    Cognitive dissonance is what happens to liars when the lie is more comforting than the truth, and it’s time to start bending facts into mindshare.

    None of us is all one or all the other. Meaning all of us are human, and therefore have a tendency (among more noble ones to be sure) to embrace the comforting lie. Jmho.

    We’re not in the mood for soothing words or platitudes. There’s a reason they scourged the women who had lain with Nazis in France.

    Because they believed they had a say over whom the women could sleep with.

    No doubt each woman had a good story and real needs. But real French men were killed fighting against the Nazis, and society was right to *at least extract a social cost* of those who betrayed society for them to gain re-admittance. And French women who fought and who enabled other resistance died horribly while the sob-story sisters lay back and thought of Vichy.

    Or fell in love. Or just wanted to have sex.

    There is a highly adaptive social purpose behind vengeance, and a great justification for making the cost of re-entering society after betrayal enormously socially expensive. Without vengeance, without justice, without enforcement of norms (and these are three different things) our human society will not work.

    […]

    You have no skin in the society game beyond your own pleasure, and you do not understand what makes society work. Or not work. Enjoy yourself.

    How to win the Culture War and tar and feather as many women as you want to:

    Step 1: dismiss other people’s investment in society as of less worth than your own….

    We’re not hosting a session on reasonableness here.  Your efforts to let the perpetrators off the hook, to explain away the crime, to get us sympathize with the depraved on account a they’re deprived — are unwelcome.

    That’s kinda the point of the post.  Reasonable and forgiving, docile and compliant got us a mutiny and a coup by people who took their chances.  They read it right.  Republicans and decent people in general are insufficiently wrathful to survive.  We’re losing our country without a fight.

    This must change.  There are worse things than becoming an angry mob. 

    The tolerance game is an exercise in limits, and a great number of us have figured it out.

    • #36
  7. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    Zafar (View Comment):

    BDB (View Comment):

     

    We’re not in the mood for soothing words or platitudes. There’s a reason they scourged the women who had lain with Nazis in France.

    Because they believed they had a say over whom the women could sleep with.

     

    Or fell in love. Or just wanted to have sex.

     

    You need to win first.

    Indeed, and we won’t win with an attitude eaten away by a derelict tolerance for being subverted.

    You don’t get to tar and feather women until then.


    Shaving and shaming, thank you.  Tar and feathers are reserved for His Majesty’s tax agents, and judges who incentivize rapine and murder.

    To strain the analogy even further, you’re welcome to open your own Whorehouse of the Damned and take in all the collaborators you wish.  Don’t expect it to be popular or supported by this society.

    • #37
  8. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Dude, I’m just saying we’re all human. I don’t see how being unreasonable about that helps anybody – you or them.

    • #38
  9. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Dude, I’m just saying we’re all human. I don’t see how being unreasonable about that helps anybody – you or them.

    People should be angry.  Furious, in fact.  This is the moment.  I’m not interested in your vacillations about our domestic enemies, some of whom nestle comfortably on “this side,” but through contemptible cowardice fail to arrive at the necessary conclusion until it’s too late.  Those who prefer the “tranquility of servitude”.

    I encourage holding these people in contempt.

    Your folksy, aw-shucksy, just-saying-isms are rather more on the problem side of things than the solution.

    “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”

    Sam Adams

    • #39
  10. GlennAmurgis Coolidge
    GlennAmurgis
    @GlennAmurgis

    Compare the treatment by corporate media the election interference 2016 vs 2020. Both acts intended to affect an election (Jan 06 vs Russian Collusion).  The people who participated in in Jan 06 are in jail. Those who did Russian Collusion have a sweet gig on cable news.

    • #40
  11. GlennAmurgis Coolidge
    GlennAmurgis
    @GlennAmurgis

    Other than Erik Wipple, you won’t anyone in corporate media and the “principled conservatives” who hammered this narrative apologize and once again, the permanent bureaucracy will get away bad behavior.

    • #41
  12. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    Ed G. (View Comment):

    BDB (View Comment):

    Ed G. (View Comment):

    […]

    Could it be that this was simply smokescreen for Obama/Biden/Clinton corruption…. and it started working as a weapon against Trump administration on top of being a coverup?

    Absolutely. People have said so here, and not only in the Baltimore Stockbroker sense.

     

     

    Yes, I’ve said it here. Many more before and after me too, I’m sure.

    Now I’m going to have to lookup Baltimore Stockbroker. Is that an nsfw search?

    From Wikipedia (TLDR bolded):

    The Baltimore Stockbroker scam relies on mass-mailing or emailing. The scammer begins with a large pool of marks, numbering ideally a power of two such as 1024 (210). The scammer divides the pool into two halves, and sends all the members of each half a prediction about the future outcome of an event with a binary outcome (such as a stock price rising or falling, or the win/loss outcome of a sporting event). One half receives a prediction that the stock price will rise (or a team will win, etc.), and the other half receives the opposite prediction. After the event occurs, the scammer repeats the process with the group that received a correct prediction, again dividing the group in half and sending each half new predictions. After several iterations, the “surviving” group of marks has received a remarkable sequence of correct predictions, whereupon the scammer then offers these marks another prediction, this time for a fee. The next prediction is, of course, no better than a random guess, but the previous record of success makes it seem to the mark to be a prediction worth great value.

    The scam relies on selection bias and survivorship bias and is similar to publication bias (the file-drawer effect) in scientific publishing (whereby successful experiments are more likely to be published, rather than failures).

    This particular scam received its name as a result of Frank Deford’s novel Cut ‘n’ Run (1973), in which a stockbroker in Baltimore goes to several different bars and predicts the outcome of the upcoming Johnny Unitas-era Baltimore Colts’ next game. He makes an equal number of win/lose predictions and never returns to the bars where he is wrong. For the final bet, he predicts in one bar that the Colts will lose, and they do. After seeing him correctly predict six football games in a row, the patrons are enamored when he returns to the bar the next week and claims “football is a hobby, my real business is the stock market”. He receives an influx of new business and tells his new customers that the market is “adjusting” any time the Dow-Jones Industrial Average drops.

    • #42
  13. Ed G. Member
    Ed G.
    @EdG

    BDB (View Comment):

    Ed G. (View Comment):

    BDB (View Comment):

    Ed G. (View Comment):

    […]

    Could it be that this was simply smokescreen for Obama/Biden/Clinton corruption…. and it started working as a weapon against Trump administration on top of being a coverup?

    Absolutely. People have said so here, and not only in the Baltimore Stockbroker sense.

     

     

    Yes, I’ve said it here. Many more before and after me too, I’m sure.

    Now I’m going to have to lookup Baltimore Stockbroker. Is that an nsfw search?

    From Wikipedia (TLDR bolded):

    The Baltimore Stockbroker scam relies on mass-mailing or emailing. The scammer begins with a large pool of marks, numbering ideally a power of two such as 1024 (210). The scammer divides the pool into two halves, and sends all the members of each half a prediction about the future outcome of an event with a binary outcome (such as a stock price rising or falling, or the win/loss outcome of a sporting event). One half receives a prediction that the stock price will rise (or a team will win, etc.), and the other half receives the opposite prediction. After the event occurs, the scammer repeats the process with the group that received a correct prediction, again dividing the group in half and sending each half new predictions. After several iterations, the “surviving” group of marks has received a remarkable sequence of correct predictions, whereupon the scammer then offers these marks another prediction, this time for a fee. The next prediction is, of course, no better than a random guess, but the previous record of success makes it seem to the mark to be a prediction worth great value.

    The scam relies on selection bias and survivorship bias and is similar to publication bias (the file-drawer effect) in scientific publishing (whereby successful experiments are more likely to be published, rather than failures).

    This particular scam received its name as a result of Frank Deford’s novel Cut ‘n’ Run (1973), in which a stockbroker in Baltimore goes to several different bars and predicts the outcome of the upcoming Johnny Unitas-era Baltimore Colts’ next game. He makes an equal number of win/lose predictions and never returns to the bars where he is wrong. For the final bet, he predicts in one bar that the Colts will lose, and they do. After seeing him correctly predict six football games in a row, the patrons are enamored when he returns to the bar the next week and claims “football is a hobby, my real business is the stock market”. He receives an influx of new business and tells his new customers that the market is “adjusting” any time the Dow-Jones Industrial Average drops.

    I looked it up, and I admit a twinge of disappointment that it was entirely safe for work.

    • #43
  14. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    BDB (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Dude, I’m just saying we’re all human. I don’t see how being unreasonable about that helps anybody – you or them.

    People should be angry. Furious, in fact.

    Okay.

    I encourage holding these people in contempt.

    This only works for you if they care what you think.

    Your folksy, aw-shucksy, just-saying-isms are rather more on the problem side of things than the solution.

    They’re just less flattering than is comfortable.  Flattery won’t lead you to a solution.

    • #44
  15. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    Zafar (View Comment):

    BDB (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Dude, I’m just saying we’re all human. I don’t see how being unreasonable about that helps anybody – you or them.

    People should be angry. Furious, in fact.

    Okay.

    I encourage holding these people in contempt.

    This only works for you if they care what you think.

    Your folksy, aw-shucksy, just-saying-isms are rather more on the problem side of things than the solution.

    They’re just less flattering than is comfortable. Flattery won’t lead you to a solution.

    Ignoring unless you have something to contribute.

    • #45
  16. CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill
    @CarolJoy

    The thing is, I haven’t trust “them” on much of anything since the Zabruder film was shown on a college campus near me in 1975.

    I cannot think of one official US policy narrative that I have believed in.

    • #46
  17. CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill
    @CarolJoy

    GlennAmurgis (View Comment):

    Other than Erik Wipple, you won’t anyone in corporate media and the “principled conservatives” who hammered this narrative apologize and once again, the permanent bureaucracy will get away bad behavior.

    No one in politics ever apologizes. It is like all of them were schooled by Ray Cohen, former buddy and attorney of McCarthy during the McCarthy hearings in the 1950’s.

    • #47
  18. Charles Mark Member
    Charles Mark
    @CharlesMark

    Zafar (View Comment):

    BDB (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Dude, I’m just saying we’re all human. I don’t see how being unreasonable about that helps anybody – you or them.

    People should be angry. Furious, in fact.

    Okay.

    I encourage holding these people in contempt.

    This only works for you if they care what you think.

    Your folksy, aw-shucksy, just-saying-isms are rather more on the problem side of things than the solution.

    They’re just less flattering than is comfortable. Flattery won’t lead you to a solution.

    I often disagree with you, but I respect your equanimity and civility on this and other occasions. 

    • #48
  19. DonG (CAGW is a Scam) Coolidge
    DonG (CAGW is a Scam)
    @DonG

    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill (View Comment):

    GlennAmurgis (View Comment):

    Other than Erik Wipple, you won’t anyone in corporate media and the “principled conservatives” who hammered this narrative apologize and once again, the permanent bureaucracy will get away bad behavior.

    No one in politics ever apologizes. It is like all of them were schooled by Ray Cohen, former buddy and attorney of McCarthy during the McCarthy hearings in the 1950’s.

    Useful idiots are unlikely to discern that they are useful idiots.   In fact, the sheeple would rather preserve their biases than admit they were duped. 

    • #49
  20. AMD Texas Coolidge
    AMD Texas
    @DarinJohnson

    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill (View Comment):

    GlennAmurgis (View Comment):

    Other than Erik Wipple, you won’t anyone in corporate media and the “principled conservatives” who hammered this narrative apologize and once again, the permanent bureaucracy will get away bad behavior.

    No one in politics ever apologizes. It is like all of them were schooled by Ray Cohen, former buddy and attorney of McCarthy during the McCarthy hearings in the 1950’s.

    I believe you are thinking of Roy Cohn. 

    • #50
  21. CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill
    @CarolJoy

    Charles Mark (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Charles Mark (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Unsk (View Comment):

    “If you bought the Russia Collusion hoax, why should I ever trust you about anything? “

     

    BDB, It’s a great question, but also a much deeper question than you may realize. Why have millions bought so easily all the utter crap our Ministry of Truth media spews out at us over the years? It is not just the Russian Hoax, but so many other issues like Global Warming, J6, the efficacy of the VAX, the election fraud, etc. The list goes on and on.

    I don’t think it is Cognitive Dissonance. I think there is something deeper; some sort of willful blindness to the Truth from the conservative point of view. I fear it is somehow an ingrained brainwashing/ psychological conditioning kind of thing where there seems to be a great fear of agreeing with any conservative issue; perhaps a fear of social ostracism or cancelation because the resistance to agreeing on any conservative issue is so strong.

    To be fair, pick a subject where Conservatives clearly buy Brooklyn Bridge.

    It’s a human tendency – to agree in order to align with the perceived in group.

    To be fair, this obvious hoax was designed to delegitimise the duly-elected President of the United States. It has eroded trust in politics and in the media (such as it was in either case) and, by the way, it did untold damage to the reputation of the United States. It certainly was the political “crime of the century”. It went well beyond keeping in with the in crowd.

    Look, I don’t disagree with you on much of this, but I think you underplay the role confirmation bias and the urge to align with the group played in it.

    People just couldn’t believe that Americans would elect Donald Trump. What explanation for his win would fit their confirmation bias? SNIP

    Was this used cynically and, let’s say it, malignly to decrease public trust in American governance and the government’s legitimacy? … But those very human tendencies were the tools that were used.

    Snip I’m more concerned about the people in the media/political establishment who knew every bit as well as you and I did, that it was all a pack of lies, but nevertheless purveyed those lies shamelessly and exponentially. Snip  the wagons are being circled … liars will give the deluded as much comfort as they need that this is all just a “nothingburger”.

    Rachel Maddow has already come out to formally state that as much as she is aware that journalism is about presenting 2 sides of an issue, due to the evil that the side opposing hers is employing, she will only present news relating to positive developments for the side that she is on.

    This most likely will not entail her doing anything differently going forward as she has done in her reporting since at least April 2016.

    • #51
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