@JonahofNinevah
If someone makes a living by speaking “conservative” news & politics, you should not assume that they haven’t seen the truth you had to painfully accept.
If (s)he ignores it persistently, (s)he is doing so intentionally.
Public pundits don’t get the benefit of the doubt.
If a public figure makes a glaring mistake, omission, or misstatement, the burden is on him to show it was a good faith mistake.
They’ve placed themselves into the public forum, and assumed the risk that entails. This is why it’s so difficult for them to sue for slander.
This risk assumption appears in many contexts. There are “strict liability” torts, for example. If you’re in the business of exploding things (mining), & someone gets injured during an explosion, it’s presumed that you handled the explosion negligently until proven otherwise
Why? Because that’s usually true.
In the legal profession, an attorney can be sanctioned or disciplined for anything he signs for filing in a case, if it contains a lie, and he could have discovered the lie with reasonable due diligence. Notice that “intent” isn’t a factor.
In our personal lives, we’ve all counseled friends who are in a relationship with someone who is lying or cheating somehow, whether it be about sex or addiction. Eventually, the counsel is always the same: the person has no credibility.
To some extent, we even apply these standards to our kids:
“I didn’t know xyz.”
“Nonsense. You knew there would be drinking there. You knew you shouldn’t click on that. You knew or should have known …”
This is part of life. This discernment is absolutely necessary.
So, it’s astonishing that seemingly well-rounded people are absolutely incapable of discerning the character of their conservative pundits.
“Oh, he’s just old, mistaken, doesn’t know, too busy, trying to make a point, isn’t allowed to talk about that, etc.”
NO.
They lie. “Conservatives” most often lie by omission, and by playing shell games with information. But they lie directly as well.
How many of you are still listening (or reading) to talking heads who lied for years about Trump? Who lied about Covid, vaccines, etc?
Why? Why don’t you hold them to the same standard you would hold yourself, your spouse, or your kids to? Why do they get the benefit of the doubt over & over again?
It doesn’t matter if they came around 18 months after billions of people were injured. That’s manipulation.
It doesn’t matter if they’re brutally honest 90% of the time, and then are blatantly wrong or silent for the other 10%. That’s calculated, takes more effort than the truth, and only demonstrates that they’re very intelligent, devious, and aware of what they’re omitting.
This absurd naïveté & tribalism presents as mental illness: an inability to engage in reality testing.
It was most obvious with Trump.
His adorers were absolutely convinced that he was a white knight who, if not anointed by God, at least was an honest man who was going to save the country from corruption, while simultaneously believing that he was completely impotent and not to blame for things.
They believed that he was genius and incredibly politically savvy while simultaneously believing that he was old, out of touch with this or that issue, or being manipulated by bad people - whenever it suited their version of reality, in order to maintain their fiction.
People need to stop what they’re doing & think.
Part of the reason this phenomenon is flourishing is that folks have been trained to make judgments based on emotion (“he feels honest … I like him …”).
Folks have been trained to believe that discerning the credibility of others, especially public figures, based on an objective & unemotional application of facts is “harsh” & “judgmental.”
Once someone is trained to discern based on emotion, well, they completely lose the ability to discern - because emotions are unreliable, frequently change, and are extraordinarily easy to manipulate.
Just look at how many people lose their ability to reason after Trump gives a speech … on both sides of the aisle.
When one’s discernment is driven by emotion, one is internally unstable. One has inconsistent inner peace at best, & one lacks true confidence whether he knows it or not. In fact, many believe the opposite, and this manifests as pride.
This sort of inner instability causes people to subvert their own judgment, & seek excuses. They don’t trust their own discernment. It’s too harsh. Too pessimistic, folks say.
“Nobody can be right all the time …They can’t ALL be controlled. That would mean … I must be wrong. He just made a mistake.”
The result is that folks end up applying to themselves and their children a higher standard than they apply to professional liars who make a living for conveying supposedly accurate information. “Conservative, Inc.”
Even worse, they subvert right and wrong for these people.
They give them a pass on God’s law.
It gets weird. For example,
Folks believe that Satan can infiltrate all the way to the Vatican, but not into the heart of a life long partial birth abortion supporting, serial womanizing, 2 time billionaire who is & has been completely surrounded by Talmudic occultists, and is very open about never apologizing to God for anything he has done.
After watching that for years, it’s no surprise what people are willing to “forget” that their favorite pundits have lied to them consistently, for years - because they seem well intentioned.
When we place human beings above objective facts, continue to trust them despite their errors, & continue to believe they are able to conduct themselves with integrity despite openly violating God’s law - we are elevating them above our own conscience & tacitly declaring that they are exempt them from God’s law and the consequences of sin.
This is worship of human beings. It’s an affection and trust that is unreasonable, unjust, and flies in the face of reality - like any form of idolatry.
Facts matter. Our gift of reason matters.
God’s law matters, & the consequences of grave sin are theological truths we are not free to deny.
Every single pundit telling you “the truth” about what is going on in Ukraine has lied to you in the past.
Why in the hell would you still believe anything they say?
