Other examples abound, such as

      - the highly-publicized myths that the Founding Fathers were Secularists, not the Christians they themselves claimed to be.

      - the now receding myth that the Treaty of Tripoli was somehow a proof that religion must be banned from the American Experiment, when it was merely a clause trying to explain to Muslim countries that the USA, unlike all other countries of the day, had no officially supported state religion.

    “Exception becoming the rule” isn’t just for history.  Historical examples are simpler due to Americans’ lack of history education.  Modern-day examples are possible due to Americans’ lack of education in mathematics, rhetoric, & logic.  Relative Morality is truly evil, since it makes a lie or a murder (or any other evil) into a moral virtue whenever the lie/murder/etc can be arguably seen to advance an agenda.

      - NBC planting explosives in a Ford to show how nearly all Fords explode on impact (1978).  (So, a rigged-to-explode pickup is a valid expose on sparks igniting gas tanks ... how?)

      - 60 Minutes rigging visuals to show how jeeps ‘always’ roll over even at very low speeds.  (Note how the powerful visual over-emphasizes a very low statistic merely quietly mentioned in the background narrative?)

      - Diane Sawyer’s recent ‘expose’ on how being armed in a classroom (or any public venue) would get you killed, but cell phones would save lives.  (How does the following filmed play-acting prove anything?  The play-acting paintballing perpetrator enters the classroom, shoots the instructor, then somehow zeroes in on the only armed individual.  Meanwhile, the armed individual is fumbling to grip an unfamiliar paintball weapon in an unfamiliar location -- while wearing bulky gloves?  How does telling the perpetrator 'there is one armed individual' represent reality that there would probably be zero armed individuals in the room?)

Liars lie. Stupid to state the obvious? 

What about …

 - when Liars drown out the obvious in a cacophony of lies?

 - when a culture commonly questions established thoughts not on the basis of weighing competing evidence, but merely because it’s fashionable to question anything already established merely because it’s ‘established’?

1. The problem:

Lies reap often & deeply from ‘the law of unintended consequences’. 

In ‘objective reality’, lies are the true ‘gift that keeps on giving’. Lies spread suspicion, hurt, and resentment -- in ever widening circles. The spread is especially true among cultures around the world that adhere to, as the best available form of justice, versions of any/all of the following:

 - ‘an eye for an eye’

 - ‘might makes right’

 - ‘rule by self-appointed elites’ (Gnosticism, whether secular or theocratic)

 - ‘the ends justify the means’

Politics, nature, and all other forces in the world are as they are, not as Liars would wish them to be. 

 - Liars ignore ‘objective reality’ to their own peril, even if gaining power in the short term. Prestige, wealth, and the other trappings of power, are never secure; they are less so when built on lies. Power built on lies also afflict the Liar with an interior unease, which breeds (among other things) paranoia. In addition to the overt hurts directly from lies, the varying levels of suspicion (even short of paranoia) also lead Liars to spread unease.

 - Lies also afflict the innocent who Liars subjugate. 

 - Lies also afflict the innocent who Liars merely interact with. 

Liars actually often aim to self-aggrandizement via intentionally hurting the innocent. At best, Liars are merely uncaring if their lies hurt the innocent. Even at ‘best’, Liars are incompatible with Inalienable Rights, more-less the Right of Free Will that underpins the specific Inalienable Rights.

2. Current examples:

 - Defense & Deficits. Liars use economic crises, real or invented, to further denude national defense. Liars conveniently ignore that social spending amounts to *more than three times* the spending on national defense, and that social spending has about doubled in the last couple decades, while defense spending declined 40%, then has remained steady or declined until slight increase in 2008. 

 - Pot & Kettle. The liar often has the nerve to compound the lies’ original dissonance, by hypocritically accusing their opposition of ‘politics of personal destruction’ when the opposition dares to point out lies. This is not new. Recall the no longer taught moral tale, about the thief running from the scene of the crime, who shouts “Stop! Thief!” while pointing further ahead, just long enough to make an escape in the lie-generated confusion.

 - Debate. Liars take half-baked science to enact involuntary worldwide wealth redistribution (even economic collapse), and push for U.N. mandates to tax & make binding laws, disguised thinly in the name of an invented human effect on global climate. Then they invent more ‘evidence’ to smear all who would say otherwise, especially including tenuous (and outright invented) ad-hominem attacks (aka “politics of personal destruction”) that don’t actually address the evidence.

 - Free Speech. Liars insist on asserting their world view of morality, in the public square. Hypocritically, they attempt to silence differing moral viewpoints. Liars poison the discussion with doublespeak, not least by asserting a constitutional ‘freedom of speech’ is instead an imposition of morality.

 - Majority Protection. Liars trump up charges, no matter how minor, to ruin their opponents’ reputations. Meanwhile, they ‘circle the wagons’ around their own who are actually guilty of similar and far worse offenses. Compare treatments to Packwood v. Studds, Hillary v. Newt, DeLay v. B. Clinton, among others.

 - History. It’s been fashionable to overturn centuries of knowing Matthew wrote the first gospel. Liars use embedded lies in this one. The only evidence is a presupposition in a “Q” (aka “source”) document. Not only does “Q” not exist today, but all of history fails to mention any “Q” ever existing. One relies on imagined evidence to overturn evidence-based assessments?

 - Guns. Liars claim inanimate objects must be banned, so they don’t kill people.

3. The solution:

It is not the person who calls a lie a lie, who is the dissonant troublemaker. Rather, it is the liar who causes the troubling ‘politics of hate’.  We have forgotten this.

A truth must be lifted again from subduction within rampant cacophony of lies, including lies that question human knowledge merely for the specious sake of engaging in questioning everything: lies keep on giving pain, over & over again; lies must be exposed & snuffed out. This truth is long overdue, and must again be made obvious.

Do we really want arsonists assuming leadership roles in our supposed fight against the fire ???

How long will we remain popularly duped ???

The article (located beneath “Article Begins”) may not be legit; it came in an e-mail with no further attribution than what’s shown below.  It also may not be honestly titled; it wanders among both military and financial issues, despite the title.

Regardless of attribution & focus,the ‘article’ hits all the pertinent hilites but four.

1. Reagan increased military spending. Deficits soared. Why? He was unable to secure “line item veto” he had campaigned for. Shocking increases in social spending was the price Tip O’Neal’s Democrats extracted for Reagan’s military buildup. Reagan’s buildup won the Cold War, and we continue to life off that buildup with a military starting to make Carter’s ‘hollow force’ pleasant by comparison.

2. Bush Sr, after the Kremlin gave up the Cold War, severely slashed (aprox 40%) military spending. Clinton deepened the cuts. Both presidents (Bush Sr and Clinton) dramatically increased social spending, so deficits continued apace. Clinton increased the deficits, until Gingrich came along with his Contract With America.

3.  Democrats and RINOs stopped Bush Jr from heading off the mortgage mess, particularly circa 2005. Democrats ran the last conservative leadership (hilited by Gingrich, DeLay, Lott) out of town, with help from RINOs, and without Bush Jr lifting a finger. The coup was 1998-2002. Deficits continued to soar, and military spending continued to shrink, only at times ‘staying even’ after 9/11, until slight increase in 2008. Social spending increased 40%, now comprising well more than 60% of the federal budget.

4. The ‘article’ focuses on young, idealistic presidents, ignoring the sager heads of their party within Congress. (Congress makes law, including budgets. President can heavily influence, but in the end merely enforces law.)

Yet, as the bottom line says: somehow Democrats have avoided the blame!  

 - The Liberals generally, and Democrats specifically, shifted the blame onto RINOs, calling them conservatives. It’s a fascinating pair of lies, starting to look like Pinocchio’s nose: commit the crime, blame co-criminals and passers-by; venomously assign labels, harkening to previously proffered false threats from the opposition party/ideology ...

 - Conservatives are also afflicted with the blame, falsely in their case. Liberals & RINOs joined to kick the conservative leaders out of office -- the deeply immoral political price for fighting this mess! What a fascinating triple lie: Liberals did it, but claim others did; Liberals blame conservatives, who actually fought it; Liberals invented scandals to remove conservative leadership faster than legal processes could exonerate the accused, so that Liberals could push the agenda that now has us all in hot water.

Jimmy Carter became our 39th president at the young age of 52. He was a one-term governor from Plains, GA, where he managed the family peanut farm and taught Sunday school. He was also a graduate of the Naval Academy and served seven years in the Navy, leaving as a lieutenant.

       He came to power in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the resignation of President Nixon. The public wanted change and someone new, and Carter was an ambitious, hands-on politician who promised better days. As good as his intentions were, however, the things he tried were not successful. In fact, he created far more serious problems than he ever solved.

       The centerpiece of Carter's foreign policy was human rights, and he did achieve one noble success - a peace treaty between Egypt's Anwar Sadat and Israel's Menachem Begin. Unfortunately, that later led to Sadat's assassination at the hands of Muslim radicals.

       Many people felt Carter was a good man who worked hard and meant well. But he was naive and incompetent in handling the enormous burdens and complex challenges of being president. He wrongly believed Americans had an "inordinate fear of communism," so he lifted travel bans to Cuba, North Vietnam and Cambodia and pardoned draft evaders. He also stopped B-1 bomber production and gave away our strategically located Panama Canal.

       His most damaging miscalculation was the withdrawal of U.S. support for the Shah of Iran, a strong and longtime military ally. Carter objected to the Shah's alleged mistreatment of imprisoned Soviet spies who were working to overthrow Iran's government. He thought the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini, being a religious man, would make a fairer leader.  

       Having lost U.S. support, the Shah was overthrown, the Ayatollah returned, Iran was declared an Islamic nation and Palestinian hit men were hired to eliminate opposition.  

       The Ayatollah then introduced the idea of suicide bombers to the Palestine Liberation Organization, paying $35,000 to PLO families whose young people were brainwashed to kill as many Israelis as possible by blowing themselves up in crowded shopping areas.  

       Next, the Ayatollah used Iran's oil wealth to create, train and finance a new terrorist organization, Hezbollah, which later would attack Israel in 2006.

       In November 1979, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other Iranians stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Not until six months into the ordeal did Carter attempt a rescue. But the mission, using just six Navy helicopters, was poorly executed. Three of the copters were disabled or lost in sandstorms. (Pilots weren't allowed to meet with weather forecasters because someone in authority worried about security.)  Five airmen and three Marines lost their lives.
        So, due to overconfidence, inexperience and poor judgment, Carter undermined and lost a strong ally, Iran, that today aggressively threatens the U.S., Israel and the rest of the world with nuclear weapons.
 
But that's not all. After Carter met for the first time with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, the USSR promptly invaded Afghanistan. Carter, ever the naive appeaser, was shocked. "I can't believe the Russians lied to me," he said.

       The invasion attracted a 23-year-old Saudi named Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan to recruit Muslim fighters and raise money for an anti-Soviet jihad. Part of that group eventually became al-Qaida, a terrorist organization that would declare war on America several times between 1996 and 1998 before attacking us on 9/11, killing more Americans than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
 
On Carter's watch, the Soviet Union went on an unrestrained rampage in which it took over not only Afghanistan, but also Ethiopia, South Yemen, Angola, Cambodia, Mozambique, Grenada and Nicaragua.

       In spite of this, Carter's last defense budget proposed spending 45% below pre-Vietnam levels for fighter aircraft, 75% for ships, 83% for attack submarines and 90% for helicopters.

Years later, as a civilian, Carter negotiated a peace agreement with North Korea to keep that communist country from developing nuclear weapons. He also convinced President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to go along with it. But the signed piece of paper proved worthless. The North Koreans deceived Carter and instead used our money, incentives and technical equipment to build nuclear weapons and pose the threat we face today.
  
Thus did Carter unwittingly become our Neville Chamberlain, creating with his well-intended but inept, unrealistic and gullible actions the very conditions that led to the three most dangerous security threats we face today: Iran, al-Qaida and North Korea.

 
On the domestic side, Carter gave us

       inflation of 15%, the highest in 34 years;

       interest rates of 21%, the highest in 115 years; and

       a severe energy crisis with lines around the block at gas stations nationwide.
 
In 1977, Carter, along with a Democrat Congress, created a worthy project with noble intentions -- the Community Reinvestment Act. Over strong industry objections, it mandated that all banks meet the credit needs of their entire communities.

       In 1995, President Clinton imposed even stronger regulations and performance tests that coerced banks to substantially increase loans to low-income, poverty-area borrowers or face fines or possible restrictions on expansion. These revisions allowed for securitization of CRA loans containing sub prime mortgages.

       By 1997, good loans were bundled with poor ones and sold as prime packages to institutions here and abroad. That shifted risk from the loan originators, freeing banks to begin pyramiding and make more of these profitable sub prime products.
 
Under two young, well-intended presidents, therefore, big-government plans and mandates played a significant role in the current sub-prime mortgage mess and its catastrophic consequences for the U.S. and international economies.
 
Hardest-hit by the mortgage foreclosures have been the citizens that Democrats always claim to help most -- inner-city residents who fell victim to low or no down payment schemes, unexpected adjustable rates, deceptive loan applications and commission-hungry salespeople.
 
Now we're having to bail out at huge cost Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the very agencies that were supposed to stabilize the system. In time, this should improve the situation. But the party of Carter and Clinton that midwifed our mortgage mess now wants to be trusted to take over and have the government run our entire system of health care!

       And everyone is blaming Bush for our current problems.

I spent 20 years in uniform. In 20 years, I was betrayed. I swore an oath to 'support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic'. While I 'manned the walls', somebody let the enemies under the walls and into the courtyard: fellow countrymen have allowed internal rot to erode the force & effect of the constitution I defended. Outright betrayal.

Still, a point to amplify: betrayal from arrogance 'reaching across the aisle' to the usual liberal suspects.

As a conservative, I have a memory that I'm not afraid to use. I remember the lies & duplicities of liberals & outright admitted socialists, of 'compassionate conservatives', and of would-be conservatives who behave as if having tumbled gyroscopes for their Jiminy Crickets. Being conservative also means I believe in an immutable standard of right versus wrong, that I'm not ashamed to call a lie a lie, and that I insist all should stick to the agreed rules, like the constitution ... or leave us.

No, the 80% change I want is to take the kid gloves off against those who throw mud to see what sticks. I want to lose the politically correct veneer: the politics of personal destruction is NOT in calling a lie a lie, it's in telling the lie in the first place. Those who speak plainly, unashamed to point out the lies, those are the candidates I'm willing to vote for and support. Conservatism does this. Conservatives will send a Packwood packing just as quickly as sending away a Studds, while the liars will join against Packwood, but circle wagons around a Studds. 

Most of America doesn't give a hoot about 'partisan politics' so much as we want integrity we can trust ... integrity that forbids betrayal. ENOUGH with lies and all the rest of Relative Morality's hidden praise of duplicity!

Conservative victory, the phoenix of integrity ... we need it.

Anybody ever notice that Republican success in national elections is directly related to how conservative the Republican is???!!! ('DumbOxBellowed' blog shows details in a featured essay.)

I wish the 2008 ticket was Palin-Anybody, with a cabinet including Thompson, Gingrich, Alexander, Keyes, DeLay, Lott, Santorum, Thune, etc. (I remember how some of them were tarred & feathered, run out of DC on a rail, then exonerated. THAT is the politics of personal destruction.) No human is perfect, but a cabinet like those names would probably keep each other true to politics of service, away from politics of self-embellishing duplicity. 

It was liberals who enabled – mandated – Fannie & Freddie & all the rest, to create this mess. Obama’s record and intentions are like his fellow liberals: more government to solve a problem created by too much government already.  How can this crisis possibly be benefitting Obama???  Does nobody know the truth???  Possible.  McCain sure isn't telling the real story.  Broadcast media sure won't.  Obama Campaign certainly has nothing to gain, everything to lose ... from truth.

B. The Guilty Parties.

The way it seems to have played out: 

   1. Liberals mandated that Fannie, Freddie, and other banks must find ways to qualify folks with very low incomes and no significant savings, to give them mortgages they couldn’t possibly ever pay off – whether the former standard mortgage or the newfangled interest-only mortgage. Politicians, like Frank, Pelosi, and the rest, must have gone home with such a warm glow that night: they'd legislated wealth redistribution, and corporate America not only has to absorb the price, but also the effort of generation & oversight, and bear the ‘burden of proof of enough low-income mortgages’ to regulators!

   2. Liberals mandated that Fannie, Freddie, and other banks be legally allowed to write mortgages for interest-only payments. Wow! American dream! And banks didn’t fuss too much either … Occupant gets a house much bigger & plusher than he can ever pay for, because his legal mortgage payments are now within his budget … even though he’ll never actually own the house since you never pay a dollar towards principal! Banks write mortgages for homes they never relinquish title to. Wow! Anybody heard of ‘rent’? Always wanted my landlord to be my bank … so I can pay for all the repairs myself …

   3. Then the mortgage bubble starts growing. Ordinary folks seeking ordinary homes financed with ordinary mortgages find the prices getting sky-high for the value of home to be gotten. But all the national economic numbers were looking up, with more & more Americans became homeowners … of homes they’d never be able to pay for and truly own.  

C. Other solutions.

Why couldn’t we just free up money for credit without a government buy-up? 

     - We could indefinitely suspend corporate taxes, assuring executives they’d have at least a 3-month notice before a phase-back-in would commence. 

     - We could terminate all capital gains taxes.  What good are capital gains taxes when the economy is tanked and there are no gains to generate taxes on anyway? Yet, free up the expectation of losing all that cash to tax, and you conversely increase incentive to invest, thus investors ‘find’ cash for loans and all that …

E. How it *could* happen. But won’t.

It seems McCain & Palin would fight corruption in DC.  Probably won't get the chance.

    - But McCain won’t allow the campaign to raise their voices now, naming names. 

Conclusion: insanity.

Insanity: doing the same thing over & over again, and expecting a different result.

    - Politicians want us to believe the government bailout will solve the problem of too much government involvement. Insanity.

    - McCain wants to believe he can remain his old conservative-confounding, liberal-enabling self, and somehow win in November 2008. Insanity.

All things that are knowable, are in one of six categories:

1.  Evidence: a fact pertaining to the problem

2.  Argument: reasoning assessing how evidence relates to the problem

3.  Hypothesis: a possible solution to the problem, built on evidence linked together with argument

5.  Opinion: reasoning that is not necessarily related to the problem, and may not even be based in facts

6.  Viewpoint: a conclusion on ‘how things are’ that doesn’t necessarily take into account even most evidence

Now, this short expose does not address how the ingredients are used. Things like ‘evidence credibility’ and ‘force of argument’ are part of another aspect of logical thinking.

On 10 Sep 2008, various folks received, from a McCain Campaign source:

          "Even before our national convention, the Obama campaign dispatched what The Wall Street Journal called a "mini-army of 30 lawyers, investigators and opposition researchers" to Alaska to dig up dirt for their personal attacks on Governor Palin and her family. FactCheck.org has called the attacks on Governor Palin, "completely false" and "misleading." However, the Obama Democrats continue to launch these attacks, hoping you'll never find out the truth."

No surprise.  Liars lie.  Seems liberals embrace Relative Morality, in which any individual is legitimate in deciding any bad deed is actually virtuous, if the bad deed advances 'the cause'.  Kind of like what some branches of Christians had decided a few centuries ago:  "the ends justify the means".  Liberals, with Relative Morality, have decided it’s virtuous to tell lies that promote liberal causes.  Seems liberals, as a group, have become habitual liars…  10 Sep 2008 was not new …

  - Most of what's not said about global warming is 'lies by omission', though there’s also plenty of both lies of commission and lies by implication. They show us the full-up Three Ring Lying Circus.  One of the leading liberal climatologists, Stephen Schneider, actually overtly and publicly encouraged lying for the sake of the agenda (and was quoted in Discover Magazine, October 1989):

          "Scientists should consider stretching the truth to get some broad-based support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention about any doubts we may have.... Each of us has to decide what is the right balance between being effective and being honest."

 - Remember also the Gore Campaign.  In December 2000, this group of liberals had a very interesting Florida campaign strategy (as reported in Washington Post and New York Times): get Gore votes into the public’s consciousness, loudly & repeatedly, even if you have to quietly take them back later; create the impression of winning.

Intentionally & loudly proclaim the lie, foster a false image. Then quietly just stop talking the lie when it’s found out. Indeed.  Liars won’t stop lying unless forced. 

That’s three ‘big campaign’ snapshots going back two decades. There’s more; it's what they get good at, whether by omission, commission, or implication.  But these three examples are big enough to suffice for a short essay. 

Lying can become an addiction.  Psychology tells us, confirming common sense and a few thousand years of theology, that some liars get so used to lying that they develop an inability to distinguish reality from fantasy. We hope, however, that only the most partisan Relative Morality Liberals have developed a difficulty distinguishing lie from reality. We have a greater hope that ‘inability to distinguish’ doesn’t (yet?) afflict most Americans generally. 

Since most Americans tend to be conservative, when given the chance to assess multiple views of an issue, we have a high level of trust in both hopes.