How Liars Lie

We know liars are lying right away, possibly due to an unconscious deductive process or because of some other innate human trait. The signs are unmistakable, perhaps because the words just don't seem to parse properly, or because the statement does not square up to the facts.

The problem is that we have to go through an elaborate dissertation-styled argument to prove it for the benefit of the skeptical, or for the didactic need by the obtuse, or to quiet the zealots that support the liar.

Or worse. Some of us have to go through great lengths when we call a liar a liar in order to expose violations of the public trust, demonstrate environmental crimes, or to prevent the country from further sliding towards the vacuous abyss of ignorance and dependency.

This week we were fortunate enough to read how a great mind called the president a liar. In a brilliantly penned article, Dr. Thomas Sowell did just that. In addressing the President's pathetic attempt at a puerile threat to the Supreme Court, Dr. Sowell wrote:

"In short, he [the president] is simply lying. Now there are different kinds of liars. If we must have lying presidents of the United States, I prefer they be like Richard Nixon. You could just look at him and tell that he was lying. But Obama is much smoother. On this and on many other issues, you would have to know what the facts are to know that he is lying. He is obviously counting on the fact that, in this era of dumbed-down education, many people have no clue as to what the facts are. One of the many ways of lying smoothly is simply to redefine words.

Here on Marco Island, where the U.S. Constitution melted into amorphous whittles of brilliant hues that elsewhere is still a construct for freedom and civil rights, and where the dumbed-down electorate created by the misinformation promulgated by the syndicate re-elect whomever they are told to vote for, we have been treated to the same type of bullying and an analogous form of lying.

No one here on Marco Island is smooth as the President. We could only be so lucky for at least we could be entertained. Here we get diatribes suffused with factoids taken out of context and mischaracterized over protracted syncopated nauseating discourses that by the time we regain consciousness from having succumbed to the mental anguish of proving the lie, there is a backhoe on our front yards and the new appreciably higher water bill is past due. Or we get sued.

A case in point. So, exactly how long has the water rate problem been discussed, analyzed, repeated and been used to divide the community? If you can listen long enough to the city council meetings and to the puppeteers before succumbing to anaphylactic shock you will realize that you are being lied to.

Another case in point, described by Dr. Sowell, occurred here too. Asbestos became fiberglass. Yes, of course, it looks the same as asbestos, ipso facto, they could lie and who would know? But when the syndicate concocted yet another lie that septuagenarians planted the stuff, notice that the propaganda was that the geriatrics planted asbestos – not fiberglass.

And an even clearer case of lying by liars was when it came time to do something with our septic tanks. Two locals turned their deprecated septic tanks into cisterns. Both went to the city, city council, the county, and the state, and proved unequivocally that the septic tanks could be converted to state and county approved cisterns for under $1,000. One cost less than $500 and the other, a more sophisticated version with electric pump and all, for less than $1,000. Plans were shared, costs made public, installations inspected and the water-saving success stories widely reported on in the local "press." With a state grant available to all homeowners to the tune of $750 each – making the conversion FREE, what was the word out of the syndicate? In a formal city council meeting, "staff" reported that a septic tank-to-cistern conversion would cost "upwards of $5,000." The amount was parroted by the syndicate councilors and by the local "press". The results? No one applied for the grant and no one else converted to cisterns. The lie worked.

We don't need to analyze this $5,000 ruse, akin to Dr. Sowell's constitutional analysis that proved the President is a liar. The claim itself was prima facie evidence that it was a lie. Sure, a cistern could cost $5,000 if it was lined with gold and the unneeded electric pumps were powered by a farm of solar panels (like the ones that the syndicate wanted to build on Track "K" in order to sell the electricity to the middle school they control.) But obfuscate a microscopic reality long enough with incongruous and irrelevant factoids to make it believable and any lie can be camouflaged. It is the exact same process that we would teach our children not to do for it would be a … lie.

The President is smooth and likeable when he lies. Here they are vulgar, syncopated and sickening when they lie. They are but two versions of how liars lie. Both prostitute society and expedite its decay.

The good news is that there is a federal court system that protects those that call liars liars, as the case is with Dr. Sowell, hence he need not be concerned. If he had made such comments against any of the local pols, he by now would have had, using the words of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, been subjected to a high-tech lynching in Collier County Court.