The following is a reply to a report in the Washington Examiner for 1/17/2018, “Jeff Flake: Congress needs to denounce Trump’s lies or we will walk ‘a very dangerous path'”, http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/jeff-flake-congress-needs-to-denounce-trumps-lies-or-we-will-walk-a-very-dangerous-path/article/2646169
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Clearly Jeff Flake (R, Ariz.) has animus for Trump and Trump has animus for anyone who crosses swords with him. In that sense, they’re two peas in a pod. But the promiscuous use of the word “lie” is devaluing the term and causing endless and needless hyperventilation. Jeff isn’t clarifying anything, nor is he on the side of the angels. He has joined the alt-right, the Resistance, Trump, much of the professoriate, the college snow flakes, the Dem’s base/leadership, and almost anyone with access to the internet and facility for explosive hyperbole. Please, everyone, including Mr. Flake, take a breath.
First, let’s clear up this willful misuse of the word “lie” by accessing the dictionary. Here’s a classical definition for Mr. Flake and his comrades-in-arms: “an intentionally false statement”. Can a person be simply mistaken without the guilt of “lying”? Can a person be blinded by their own favoritism to believe an untruth to be a truth? Can a person just jump to a false conclusion without lying? Yes, of course. It happens all the time, particularly in Mr. Flake’s chosen profession, politician.
Anyway, an abundant power to divine the mind of a person is required to fulfill the “intentional” part of the definition. Ancient Greeks would read a flock of birds to access the will of the gods.
What do today’s politicians and activists use to see the unseen? I have no answer other than their own unchecked mendacity for their real or imagined opponents. Thus, any weakness of the mind can be contorted into the worst possible violations of the moral code.
Has Mr. Flake joined the ranks of the cranks and crazies? You know, the people occupying the Area 51 zone of the political space. If so, he’ll get more than he bargained for. He’ll get no restrained judges or a government with limits. He’ll end up like the czarist critic of 1917 finding himself in the company of the Bolshevik goons.
Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States Friday — capping his improbable journey to the White House and beginning a four-year term that promises to shake up Washington and the world. / AFP / ZACH GIBSON (Photo credit should read ZACH GIBSON/AFP/Getty Images)
RogerG