Guest Post by Victor Davis Hanson
In a controversial passage in Plato’s “Republic,” Socrates introduced the idea of the “noble lie” (“gennaios pseudos”).
A majestic fiction, he says, could sometimes serve society by persuading uninformed citizens of something good for them.
Ever since, many prevaricators have used the excuse that they lied for the common good.
Take Dr. Anthony Fauci, our point man on the COVID-19 epidemic.
Fauci misled the country about mask-wearing during the pandemic by claiming they were of little use. But he argued that he lied so the public would not make a run on masks, deplete the supply, and thus rob medical professionals of protective equipment.
Fauci also told “noble” lies about the likely percentage of the public needing to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. He kept raising the bar — from 60 percent to 70 percent to 75 percent to 80 percent, to 85 percent.
Apparently, Fauci feared a lower figure, even if accurate, might lull people into complacency about getting inoculated.
Fauci also lied about his own role in routing U.S. aid money to subsidize gain-of-function viral research at the Wuhan virology lab — the likely birthplace of COVID-19.
Either Fauci was hiding his own culpability, or he believed the American people might not be able to fully accept that some of their own health officials were promoting the sort of research that was partially responsible for more than 700,000 American deaths.
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has serially lied about the number of undocumented immigrants who have crossed into the United States. He falsely claimed mounted agents were whipping migrants. He fibbed about the purported lack of federal data of apprehensions, detentions, and deportations. His assertion that the border is secure was a joke.
Apparently, Mayorkas believes the public would go ballistic or his own administration would be roundly despised, if he told the bitter truth about the border: by intent, the Biden administration has apparently deliberately left it wide open.
And it will likely allow 2 million undocumented immigrants into the country in the current fiscal year.
Lots of other unelected federal officials lied over the past five years by claiming or implying that harming the Trump administration was in the public interest.
Former FBI directors Andrew McCabe and James Comey likely misled the nation. McCabe admittedly lied that he did not leak FBI information to the media.
James Comey lied under oath on multiple occasions in congressional cross-examinations and claimed he did not know or could not remember basic facts about his own role in promoting the Russian collusion hoax.
Apparently, Comey and McCabe believed that by being less than truthful, they might better emasculate Donald Trump. And that result would be beneficial to America.
Our former intelligence leaders may have been the most brazen liars. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied to Congress about the NSA surveillance program, though he denied it.
When caught in the untruth, Clapper reverted to the noble lie that he gave the least untruthful answer, apparently on the pretense that he did not wish to damage the reputation of an important intelligence agency.
Ditto John Brennan, the former head of the CIA. On two occasions he lied under oath about the agency’s monitoring of Senate staffers’ computers and the deaths of civilians caused by U.S. drone assassination missions along the Afghanistan border.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley lied for days about the details of an accidental drone strike that killed innocent women and children in Afghanistan.
Either Milley is now lying when he says he warned Joe Biden about the disasters to come in Afghanistan or Biden is lying when he denies hearing any such advice.
Many of the details of Milley’s conversations with authors Bob Woodward and Robert Costa as reported in their recent muckraking book were abjectly denied by Milley.
The list of such lies could be vastly expanded.
IRS functionary Lois Lerner never told the whole untruth about weaponizing the IRS.
Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch spun an implausible yarn that she accidentally bumped into Bill Clinton on a tarmac in Phoenix and never discussed the then-current FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton.
Special counsel Robert Mueller told a whopper under oath, claiming to know almost nothing about the Steele dossier and the misadventures of Fusion GPS. Both were the two catalysts that prompted his entire investigation of “collusion” in the first place.
In some of these cases, when caught and exposed, the liars will hedge by claiming temporary amnesia.
But sometimes they admit they lied but suggest they did so for higher purposes like national security.
In truth, in most cases there was nothing noble at all in their lying. They simply spread untruths to protect their own endangered careers by masking their own wrongdoing or fobbing it onto others.
In other words, “noble lies” are rarely spun for anyone’s interests other than those of the liars themselves.
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Aw yes, those darned “undocumented immigrants”.
If only we had some laws, or something.
Semantics, right?
And 700,000+ Americans have died of Covid.
Sorry, didn’t see that Winchester had already noted this (below).
VDH always buys into (and promulgates) more of the mainstream narrative than not.
Dr. Harvey Risch talked about the noble lie regarding child vaccinations on Life, Liberty and Levin a week ago. I can’t find the link any more, but if you can, it was a great 5 min.
The feds will use any means necessary. I do believe they know they are sitting on a volcanic heap that is about to be released, they scurry like the cockroaches they really are. I never really considered myself an enemy of the state, I do now!
I can assure you, the government has considered you an enemy, if you have posted anything negative about their operations. Twenty plus years ago, I told my Mother I expected to go to war against the government before I died. At 70, I may not see it happen, but it is coming to a neighborhood near you, soon.
As an independent fundamental Baptist Janet Reno under the Obama administration listed me as a domestic terrorist. A badge that even now I wear with pride knowing God is with me. Many say God is on our side. It should be said, I am on God’s side. That is what the Lord requires.
You are not an enemy of the state! You are an enemy of the Usurped States of America
“Either Fauci was hiding his own culpability, or he believed the American people might not be able to fully accept that some of their own health officials were promoting the sort of research that was partially responsible for more than 700,000 American deaths.”
I stopped reading after that paragraph. That number of deaths is a lie the author does not seem to want to expose. 700,000+ Americans did not die from Covid. Most (80%) were old and had serious underlying conditions and most likely would have died anyway. No one blinks an eye when old people croak, but throw Covid into the mix and it is all of a sudden a serious issue. Those people died *possibly with* Covid, not from it. The failed PCR test was most likely a false positive anyway.
Yes! much like the fuckheads who say they recommend the shit shot but it should be individual choice. they are doing us no favors by their ignorant recommendation that fortifies by agreement of effectiveness that the vax police then use in their push to deny individual choice.
One other major correction to the article. Fauxci did not lie when he said masks were not useful. Multiple studies have confirmed that masks do nothing to prevent the spread of this engineered bioweapon. This may be the only truthful statement he has made through the entire scamdemic.
I don’t think there has ever been a scientific study that showed surgical masks as effective in preventing the transmission of any virus.
61 studies say they are of no benefit.I have yet to see one confirming a benefit.
He did use the term “partially responsible” and does not appear to buy the WuHuFlu as the primary cause of death lie put out by .gov.
There is no such thing as a noble lie.
Words become manifest, it’s a wonderful gift we have as a species. Say something and it becomes possible, possibilities become realities.
There is no lesson we have taught our children more important than this- never lie. You not only deceive others, you rob yourself of something you can never get back. Once you become comfortable with fiction, it ceases to be your own life, but belongs to the deceptions you’ve created. In a way you become a slave to something that doesn’t even exist.
The truth is the only path to freedom.
before anything existed, first there was the Word….which made everything manifest.
Whenever I’ve fallen short of that standard, it’s bitten me in the ass.
To further hammer home the point that there is no such thing as a noble lie:
You lied to “help” me. Gee, thanks. Now, how do I know that anything else you have ever said, or ever will say, is not also a lie to “help” me?
The question that never seems to be answered, since many of these people lied to Congress, for example Clapper, Milley (righteous kill – murdered 7 kids) why were they not arrested, lose their job, and prosecuted?
Their cohorts do the same; thus there is the problem, lying is accepted as part of our country’s elite leadership culture.
Milley murdered 7 kids?
Yes. The 7 kids that were murdered for the political headline “terrorist plot stopped with missile” which was a complete fabrication they got caught on.
Only those who oppose the narrative are ever prosecuted.
It is all the media’s fault. If the media called out these lies (and many others), public opinion would demand redress.
Government officials (and most people) will tend to lie to benefit themselves, especially if they know they can get away with it. That is just human nature. The mechanism in our society to address this tendency in politicians is an active, inquisitive and at least somewhat impartial media. The huge problem we have now is a completely corrupt and captured media. A media that is actively supporting the absolute worst elements of our society. Producing propaganda. Ignoring truth. That is the core problem and unless we solve that, we are doomed.
Correctomundo!
Didn’t ‘honest abe’ lincoln have one of the first (acknowledged) captive media?
It was also key to the Revolution. Media control is always important and always has been.
The left are required to lie. No consequences except for having to toss an underling under the bus occasionally to cover up one of the elites proverbial backside. Nothing to see here, move along.