Spin, Falsehoods, and Lies

By Michael Alan Prestwood

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Spin, Falsehoods, and Lies

First, spelling…

lying liars who lie

Do not confuse with “lier” which is someone who rests or reclines.

Spin, Falsehoods, and Lies

There is a big difference between spin, which we all do, and lies. To spin is to present the best presentation of the facts. Knowingly telling a falsehood, is a lie. If someone tells a falsehood, the civil standard is to say they told a falsehood. Calling an act a lie is reserved for when you know the person intentionally told a falsehood. A liar is someone who knowingly tells a falsehood many times over time. A compulsive liar is someone who knowingly tells multiple lies over time.

Governmental Press Secretaries spin. They present the best possible version of the truth. They should not lie, ever, no matter what. After all, they work for us the American people. When pressed, good Press Secretaries say “no comment” if they can’t find a spin or pivot and feel the need to lie. Horrible Press Secretaries dip into lying and should be shunned by all of us no matter what party they are spinning for. The only exception is when the Press Secretary is lying to keep American secrets secret.

Politicians spin all the time. Do not confuse that with telling a falsehood and lying. When a politician tells a falsehood, is corrected, and never repeats the falsehood, that’s okay. That’s acceptable behavior. Why? Because everyone makes mistakes. The goal is to learn from one’s mistakes. However, if anyone, politician or not, knowingly repeats a lie, that’s bad. Very bad, and they should be shunned by all of us.

Trump and Truth

Trump and his supporters are literally disconnected from reality. And, this is unusual. We’ve never had a President who was disconnected from reality like Trump and his supporters are. The Washington Post maintains a database of all Trump’s lies.

As of September 2019, Trump has literally told 4,000+ lies, and he refuses to take any of them back, or even just start telling the truth. On average he repeats a lie 3 times and never corrects himself. All 12,000+ lies are documented for anyone to analyze for all of history.

Check out the database:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/

Michael Alan Prestwood
Natural Philosopher

Mike’s throwback title simply means he writes about philosophy, science, critical thinking, and history with a focus on exploring boundaries and intersections. While his focus is on our rational ideas about empirical observations, he does enjoy dabbling in the irrational. His exploration of human thought led him to develop his Idea of Ideas which allows him to understand what is empirically true, rationally true, and irrationally false.

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