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Quote of the Day: Solzhenitsyn on the Liars
“We know they are lying, they know they are lying, they know we know they are lying, we know they know we know they are lying, but they are still lying.” – Attributed to Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
I believe the United States has seen a new level of deliberate disinformation from the media, the government, and major corporations. This jumped to a new level with the efforts to hobble the Trump administration. I think when the institutions saw that they could get away with it, they have doubled down. Now we have Facebook and Twitter helping to preserve the lies.
I know we need to fight back, but I am not sure how.
Published in Politics
Geez, I’d love to duct tape that to Jen Psaki’s forehead…
Or perhaps a neck tattoo?
There has long been something known as “plausible deniability.”
Quite a while back we entered new territory: “implausible deniability.” That’s what you have when, for example, someone apologizes for having said out loud what we all know they’re really thinking. Strangely enough, that works — at least if you’re on the correct side of the political spectrum.
Another form of lie: The double standard, which, of course, is never admitted.
As Glen Reynolds says “if they didn’t have double standards they wouldn’t have any standards at all.”
And then there is “implausibly undeniablility,” when a person struggles to explain away something that’s actually true, because the truth has suddenly become inconvenient or politically incorrect. The problem is that, as Churchill pointed out, it’s really hard to explain away the truth, because no matter what, “there it is.”
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This is the Quote of the Day. Our sign-up sheet for April is here.
There are only two empty days left: April 26 and 27 (I think). Hurry and reserve your slot, because they aren’t making any more of them, and if you miss them, they’ll be gone forever!
Another ongoing project to encourage new voices is our Group Writing Project. April’s theme is ‘April’s Showers Bring….‘ If you’re looking to share your own thoughts rather than those of others, please sign up for Group Writing too!
Even better…
This was the main theme of Klavan’s podcast Friday. I encourage y’all to listen.
Joe needs a new liar. Jen’s all lied-out.
Let me circle back on that….
I suspect that when it comes to lying, Jen’s a one-woman, non-stop assembly line. I’m a bit surprised that her former partner in deceitfulness, Marie Barf, hasn’t joined her.
She’s gone private sector; lying for the big bucks on Fox News.
When is Brit Hume getting back from vacation?
It appears that Solzhenitsyn may not have said this–or at least did not originate it. I have seen that attribution very frequently (no surprise, given the corrupt times we live in) but never with a citation of a specific source. Nor have I seen it in any “curated” collection of Solzhenitsyn quotes. I personally suspect that it is an old saying whose origin among the Soviet people cannot be determined, much like so many of those old Soviet jokes. However, a variation on that quote may be found in a recent memoir about life in the Soviet Union:
(found via this discussion of the Solzhenitsyn quote.)
Good thing I’m enjoying an elegant cocktail, and taking tiny sips. Because the last one came out my nose.
Mr. She was particularly good at the alternate universe of talking head names, thus: Snot Simon, Croaky Roberts, and Nina Totalb***h.
Yes, I found the quote at the bottom of a Watt’s Up With That post and tried to find a good attribution. The one I used came from Reddit. I suppose I should update it to say “attributed to” Solzhenitsyn.
I did also come across the Gorokhova quote, but the last phrase makes it unusable as I don’t pretend to believe them.
Careful with that alcohol abuse. I just finished the lawn and creaked my first Warsteiner.
“Shooting a black girl trying to kill another black girl is racist.” We can see the video and no that you are lying but we are forced to believe what we know is a lie.
A very useful blog.
It’s frustrating how many quotes are published without attribution. The internet is awful, but even printed books of quotations can be a problem that way, and newspapers/magazines are little better than the internet.
Hear, hear!
How can you be so disrespectful to National Pravda Radio?
Not soon enough for me. One of the Old Line of journalists who really believe it’s their duty to give the facts and nothing but the facts…
Every once in awhile, one of the Fox people will make an out-of-rightfield remark and Brit will steer them back to the middle. He’s a real professional; the last of a dying breed.
https://www.steynonline.com/
I’m ashamed that she graduated from an Ohio high school. Thankfully, she left the state. Hope that she doesn’t come back…
Here is the thing about the whole situation that amazed me as I watched the video from the officer’s body cam. To recap, three policemen arrive on scene and the obese 16 year old female attacker first goes after some young “plus size” female in shorts, who falls down backwards and gets kick in the head by a young slim black male in sweat pants and hoody. Then the 16 year old attacker goes after the “hefty” young girl in pink (with a small dog and talking to the police) – with a knife in her right hand. The 16 year old attacker first goes for a low upward thrust into the stomach, but the lady in pink drops the dog, pulls her right knee up to her stomach and covers her upper chest with her right arm. The 16 year old attacker then stops her upward thrust into pink’s bowels, and goes for an over hand stab to the upper body, face and/or neck. That is when the policeman shots the attacker. Here is what amazes and puzzles me, use to be in a street fight when the police showed up, everyone scattered and nobody sees anything. In this incident, not only does anyone not run away (except to get away from the knife wheedling 16 year old), but starts a knife attack in full view of the police knowing they have body cams. They just didn’t seem to care.
Yeah, well. I’m old enough to remember that it was a Leftist who first said, “if they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”
Solzhenitsyn’s related aphorism is, “Live not by lies.” I’m afraid this generation doesn’t know any other way.
She, David Mamet had Sean Connery say it first.
Obama never thought up anything on his own.
Evening Clavius,
Havel has some thoughts about how to resist; https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/wp-content/uploads/1979/01/the-power-of-the-powerless.pdf
Terrific movie. David Mamet’s an interesting dude. So’s his wife:
Yes, we need to learn from those who had to resist.
Thank you.
Nice voice! I’ve seen her in a couple of his movies, but I didn’t realize she sang.