When White House spokesperson Jen Psaki was asked why illegal aliens were not screened for COVID, she replied, “They’re not intending to stay here for a lengthy period of time.”
There are two things that are unique to American voters. They like to end their sentences with prepositions and they like to be lied to. It is a heritage found throughout our history.
In 1846, President James K. Polk (originally from Pineville) told Congress that “México has passed the boundary of the United States, invaded our territory and shed American blood on American soil.” It was a lie. At the time, Congressman John Quincy Adams said so. Later, a young member of the House of Representatives, Abraham Lincoln, called it “a falsification of history.” Still, this “fake news” was enough for Congress to declare a war on Mexico and take control over territory from Colorado to Arizona.
Not to be outdone by Polk, Franklin Roosevelt tried lying his way into World War II. When the destroyer USS Greer was attacked by a German submarine in late 1941, before Pearl Harbor, the U.S. was officially war neutral. Roosevelt claimed the attack was without cause and “an act of piracy.” The truth was that just before the German attack, the Greer was using its sonar to target the submarine for nearby British warplanes. The Greer engaged in a 3-hour joint effort to sink the U-boat before it fired a shot.
But the lie worked. Before war was declared, the Greer Incident was used by Roosevelt to issue a “shoot on sight” order against German warships. And the people cheered.
Such was also the case when President Eisenhower declared that Francis Gary Powers flying a U-2 over Russia was not on a spy mission. Likewise, at the time, few cared when President Johnson erroneously announced that North Vietnam attacked the U.S. Navy at the Gulf of Tonkin. Congress then capitulated, escalating a small-scale insurgency into a large-scale war.
So why should we be surprised when President Biden said, after he and his family were paid over $30 million from China and Russia, that it was the Trump Family that was compromised by our enemies? More importantly, why should we not be surprised when the bulk of the news media echoed that narrative?
Lies were and are viewed synonymously with Gordon Gekko’s “greed.” Both are “good.”
Indeed, when White House spokesperson Jen Psaki was asked why illegal aliens were not screened for COVID, she replied, “They’re not intending to stay here for a lengthy period of time.” Now, that was a lie. She was not that stupid. She knew that the public was not that stupid. But the lie justified keeping the Southern Border open. It justified the Democrats’ desire to eliminate “oppression “with a program to deconstruct or “un-white” America.
Of course, it was racist. But the lie deflected the racism embedded in the plan. Just as Polk’s false narrative prior to the Mexican War obfuscated his desire to fulfil America’s manifest destiny and Roosevelt’s false narrative obfuscated his desire to join the British war effort, so Democrats’ lies today obfuscate their desire for a new race-based social and political order. It prioritizes “building back better” over infection and COVID death.
Pretending a lie is true is much easier than elevating international migration over 100,000 fentanyl overdoses and 800,000 disease deaths. Unfortunately, it is embedded in our national conversation. That needs to change. It is why we must defend the First Amendment and the inconvenient dissent it spawns. The truth is uncomfortable and often unpopular. It may come from as far away as a truck convoy in Ottawa. But, with the help of our Founders and their Bill of Rights, one day we will build the fortitude to tell the truth, expect the truth and face the truth.
Jack Nicholson was wrong. Whether or not we learn that men can get pregnant…or not… or, Jeffrey Epstein hung himself… or not…. we can take the truth. We can tell Black Lives Matter that their advocacy favoring criminals kills more Black citizens than “Bull” Connor ever did. We can tell Emperor Joe Biden and his Marxist allies that they have no clothes. We can do it by criticizing, but never cancelling or ostracizing free citizens from Whoopi Goldberg to Joe Rogan.
Lies may make life more comfortable; but only “the truth will set us free.” That takes time and the protection of free speech.
