In a comment upon Booman’s recent post Were They Spying on Trump?, Brodie posted:
I’m a facts guy myself, and prefer a Truth rather than belief-based life in all aspects.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, a famous American scientist once said. But as for the anti-Putin claims and now this latest tweet-driven stuff from the Donald, I’d settle for just garden-variety credible evidence of the type that can be presented and tested in a court of law.
If it turns out, after actual evidence is presented, that my guy Vlad did arrange to hack into the DNC/Podesta files to try to influence our election, so be it. The Kremlin doesn’t pay me nearly enough at present for me to care one way or the other, and though it’s rare, I’ve been wrong before. But let’s see some actual evidence first, not just repetition of bare accusations presented as fact. (That includes long-winded biased pieces in The New Yorker …)
Similarly Donald’s accusations might pan out, per the author’s speculative scenarios above, but then again we’re dealing with accusations from someone not particularly known for dealing in the truth. Assertions from a well-known liar on the one hand, and charges from professionals of the IC who are trained in deception and disinformation wars on the other is what we have at the moment. No great surprise I remain a tad skeptical about both sides.
JoelDanWalls responded:
I fully appreciate your skepticism regarding the hacking claims. What I wonder about is what you would consider proof. Even if it were possible to get, say, transcripts of NSA intercepts, I doubt you would be satisfied, and would claim those transcripts were themselves bogus. If an NSA analyst swore under oath that the transcripts were correct, would you accept that, or claim the analyst was a liar? Seriously, what is your standard of proof?
This got me to thinking about what…if any… “standards of proof” we have left in these here United States of Omertica. And I wrote a reply to JDW.
I think it stands alone very well, so I am reprinting it here.
Read on for more.
Standard of proof???
In a false news world, there is no “proof” available.
We are living in a post-factual world now, JDW.
All of the things that we used to think we knew? The things that we accpted as “true” due to our upbringing?
Our social programming?
Our schooling, our media brainwashing, etc.?
Gone down the rabbit hole.
Here’s when the truth about the truth finally came all the way out of the closet.
Until then, only a few people really understood how much “the truth” had been perverted in this country since at least Clinton I’s barefaced statement that he “…did not have sexual relations with that woman…” Go further back, to the assassination years. That’s when it started to get really heavy, this false news, postfactual, truthiness world.
And still, only a few people out of our many millions began to call out the lies.
Later on, only a few saw Watergate for what it was…a contest between liars.
The better liars won.
Duh.
On to this year…
Suddenly the truth about the lies…the lies about what and who Obama really was (A slick, neoliberal frontman, nothing more and nothing less) , the lies about neolib rule, the lies about goddamned near everything that our government says it is…began to penetrate the thick skulls of the hoi polloi.
The result?
Trump.
He called the lies out, one by one. No matter that he too was lying…at least he was telling the truth about previous lies. His first big breakthrough? That line about Hillary Clinton, the money he gave her and her subsequent requisite appearance at his daughter’s wedding. He told the truth about the lies that lay behind what we had almost all been misedumacated into believing to be the way our system worked. It was like he threw a shrapnel grenade into the whole system. The splinters flew out, decimating all the liars with reach. Including…eventually…Trump himself.
And now? Now it is rapidly getting to the point where nobody believes nuthin’!!! And well they shouldn’t. The whole curtain of lies has been torn down, revealing the one fact that we are all beginning to be able to see.
Our Grand Societal Wizards have no clothes on. They are just naked little hustlers, hiding behind a curtain of lying tailors.
Each and every one.
Will I once again be accused of being some sort of a nihilist here?
Maybe, but this is a positive development as far as I can see.
Recovery only really begins once you realize that you are sick.
Watch.
Physicians…heal thyselves!!!
AG
P.S. I got yer “nihilist,” right here!!!
Wake the fuck up.
