Friday, September 14, 2018

Bearing false witness

A small example here.

Trump lies, and his opponents lie. But not in the same way. I have been struggling to put succinctly how they seem different. It's about bearing false witness. 

Trump lies about the size of his inauguration crowd, Hillary lies about a film maker causing an attack in Benghazi. Trump says CNN’s ratings are down, Kampala Harris says Brett Kavanaugh called the pill an abortifacient. Trump says he ended birtherism, NBC reports Trump told Flynn to collude with Russia during the campaign.

Now, I have chosen some of Trump's less consequential lies for effect, but most of Trump’s lies are inconsequential. Here is Politifact's list of all his statements rated “pants on fire”. Most are puffery or opinion or silly. Very few bear false witness. All the others one I cited do, and they are just the tip of the iceberg.

To me this is an important difference.

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