May 31, 2025

Examples

We learn by example.

The Bible is full of examples. So are Harvard MBA courses.

For example, in the 1930s, the self-made Jewish immigrants who ran Hollywood decided there was too much money to be made in Nazi Germany, so they self-censored and collaborated.

Again, history is full of examples.

Whitewashing.

Here are examples from just the last week.

With this clever phrasing The Washington Post editors attempt to thread the needle: did he suffer the attacks or perpetrate them?

For now, history will note his active support of white nationalism, his bribing of voters, his illegal raiding of federal agencies, etc. (Wiki)

What would motivate the WaPo’s cleverness?

Greed is good.

Some have suggested that morality has no place in business but that would be a lie. Without fairness there is no business, only plundering.

Nevertheless, here’s Bloomberg:

The iconoclasm:

Lying by omission accelerates autocracy but The New York Times remains committed to their bit:

The New York Times, after Trump’s recent, “wacko” red-capped West Point commencement address really didn’t get the job done: “Trump Gives Commencement Address at West Point, Stressing a New Era.” The British publication, The Independent, saw it more clearly: “Trump gives rambling speech about trophy wives, golf and the ‘great, late’ Al Capone in politically charged West Point address.”

A few weeks ago, the same editors couldn’t be bothered to include the historical image below when they covered this depravity as a comms strategy story.

White Lies.

Clever people can come up with all sorts of clever rationalizations but self-censoring to stay in the good graces of a political movement that extols cruelty is collaboration.

It’s likely our media elites have convinced themselves they can only serve the public interest if they lie low – i.e., lie by omission.¹

But just as there’s no such thing as a little bit of HIV, or a little bit of sexual assault, there’s no such thing as a little bit of lying.

Reporting some of the truth, some of the time does not promote trust.

And trust is the bedrock of a free society. (Just as cynicism guarantees tyranny.)

We must fully reckon with the likelihood that our traditional news media, commercial purveyors of the truth, were not in fact in the business of finding and circulating the truth: they were in the business of advertising.

And bullshit is now a more cost-effective ad platform.

O’er the Ramparts…

What other institutions have served the purpose of determining and affirming what is true and fair?

Our universities, courts and regulatory agencies.

For this reason, the broken men who are importing Orbanism, the greedy men who are hellbent on a high tech king (a General Secretary by any other name), have targeted education, regulation and jurisprudence.

It was always obvious that "the woke mind virus” was not the petty excesses of 20-somethings but the price our immoral elites would pay under a regime of true liberty and justice for all.²

The 3/5ths Compromise has always already been there. A greater lie cannot be told.