Yes, Republicans Lie. All The Time
Because it works.
When Paul Ryan delivered his address to the Republican convention, many commentators – even one from the Fox News organization – pointed out that it was quite possibly the biggest pack of lies ever delivered by a politician since Joe McCarthy’s 1950 speech in West Virginia. Some would have given McCarthy the nod for truth on the grounds that he appears to have actually believed that the phantoms no one else could see in the State Department were actually there. Of course, Ryan also believes that he ran a sub 3-hour marathon so it is quite likely that he too has a rich fantasy life where he has a little 28 room, 11-bath cottage in Galt’s Gulch. The thing is that although facts like how fast you have run a marathon or whether your budget will ever be balanced without dismantling Medicare, Social Security, Food Stamps may seem to have a liberal bias, they can have an equally conservative bias if you happen to be conservative and even more so if you are numbered among the “antennas to Heaven” crowd of uber-Christian conservative Christians (like the ones in Todd Snider’s song. Consider, if you will, the humble condom.
When I was in high school (Class of ’69) condoms were hard to obtain if you were a high school student. This often led to comical exchanges between drug store clerks who mistook a request for “some rubbers” as a request for pull-on overshoes especially when the clerk would ask “What size?”. So many young men were forced to fall back on those obtainable (in 5 “vibrant” colors) from vending machines in the men’s rooms of a local gas station and sold “for prevention of disease only”. Now, of course, they have their own aisle at Wal-Mart, Target, and at least 3 feet of shelf space in most grocery stores. Okay, maybe not in your town but here in Snake Collich, Pennsyltucky it’s difficult to avoid them. Clearly, the local merchants have decided that making condoms available to young people is good for business. After all, they not only reduce unwanted pregnancies, they also reduce the spread of serious, life-threatening diseases. What’s not to like about condoms? That’s the liberal point of view – it focuses on the end result which is judged to be a good one. If you are of the opposite opinion which starts with the firm opinion that anything which reduces the risk of extra-marital, hetero-sexual hanky-panky is in and of itself bad because extra-marital sex of any kind (including the non-hetero variety) is evil and therefore making condoms difficult to obtain was a good thing and the current ease of access is due to the moral decline of our nation and that in order to return to a state of moral order, condoms and any other form of birth control, must be controlled.
A recent study (you can read it here if you’re prone to insomnia) looks into this matter more closely and concludes that conservatives tend to believe that condoms simply don’t work. The study put it this way: “..the more participants endorsed the belief that condom education was morally wrong even if it prevented pregnancy and STDs, the less they believed that condoms were effective at preventing these problems, and the more they believed that promoting condom use encouraged teenagers to have sex.”
Republicans lie all the time and get away with it is because their core constituency is just like Elder Price (in The Book of Mormon) who “just believes”. Even when the news media points out that Paul Ryan is lying, his followers continue to believe him.
Don
Don, I for one, am really, really sick and tired of it.
I would like ALL politicians to stop…please…. stop….. insulting my intelligence.
I don’t believe any of them.
1I can go onto Facebook and see the instant parroting by the less informed of friends and relatives. It’s depressing – keeps me off Facebook.
The truth is the Rs lie because there is such a huge group out there ready to swallow it whole. It feeds their own bigotry.
2Those with a profound ‘belief’ in their theology would be likely to take Soren Kierkegaard’s “Leap of Faith” on Ryan’s budget. Otherwise you gotta do all that math and stuff.
As one “69er” to another, let me say we thought it was hysterically funny when, at about 14, we did the calc and discovered our class would be 1969.
3I sent an article about the lies of Romney/Ryan to a friend from my childhood who had posted on facebook Psalm 109. I pointed out to her that it seemed not a Christian thing to do to pray for Obamas failure or death. I prefer to pray for his success. She sent me back about Revelation’s four horses of the apocalipse and asked if I didn’t hear their hooves. How do we answer that kind of religious dogma? I just feel depressed that is a mind so closed and thankful that it is a minority who is manipulated by really evil oligarchs.
4My aunt was a 69’er and lived with us. I was in eighth grade when she was a senior. It was time for me to order my high school jacket and I told my mother I didn’t know what number to put on the arm. She informed me that was the year I would graduate, I was stunned, I thought those 69’ers were just dirty.
5If you can believe that Adam and Eve hung around with and that dinosaurs were also on the Ark you can believe anything.
And no, I don’t hear the 4 hooves of the 4 horses, I think that noise is republicans running away from the truth.
6James Dobson of Focus on the Family used to put on “experts” who claimed the AIDS virus was so tiny it could slip between the holes of the condom. According to well-founded research, kids who are exposed to this and other abstinence-only rubbish are more likely to get pregnant or get STDs than those exposed to real sex-ed. Wonder how many kids were harmed by these numbskulls?
7For several years I was a bartender at a local tavern. Best pizza in town and cold beer. What’s not to love?
Anyway, one night just before closing this car comes screeching up to the front doors (which were open, it was summer.) The door flies open and out jumps this young man.
He comes tearing into the bar and goes running for the men’s room. We all kind of got the giggles because well, if you gotta go, you gotta go! (meanwhile his car is out front still running with the door open)
About a minute later the kid comes running out of the men’s room with the most frantic look on his face. He looks at me and says in a desperate voice “There’s no condoms in your men’s room!” With that he ran to his car, jumped in and sped away!
Needless to say, we all nearly peed our pants laughing!
I do have to give the kid points for putting safety first. Though a little planning wouldn’t have hurt!
True story. Swear to God! 🙂
8IS that Bubba and JuanitaJean Herownself, standing on the front lines on Hardball this afternoon? WHOOPIE~
9And the worst thing about lies is that (studies have shown) if you point out the lie to people, and the truth, they’re more likely to keep believing the lie than if you hadn’t said anything.
Reminds me of a story about a young man running for office in Texas– well-meaning but innocent, and way behind in the polls. His savvy old campaign manager told him, “Whenever you make a speech, you just need to say one thing: your opponent, the incumbent, ****s hogs.” “Oh, my stars– is that true?!” “Of course it’s not true, boy, but if we can make him deny one time, we got him.”
10Good to see you posting Todd Snider ! (( That’s my favorite TS “album” )) ………
11Meanwhile, do us proud, 😉 we’re watching You ((O)(O)) !!
Paul Ryan does live in a 6-bathroom home, in his family for several generations, that is also on the National Trust for Historic Preservation. I am sick of any sob-stories about little Paul.
12I watched Chris Matthews today, too. Were those people REALLY our heroes JJ and Bubba?!? Does anybody know?
Thanks, Rhea, needed the humor.
And thank you, Hilary — I don’t feel sorry for poor little Paul either. And I certainly don’t think the poor Romney’s need ANOTHER tax break.
I don’t think Ryan’s lies about his marathon history are particularly important, but a liar is a liar. If he lies about something as trivial as that, don’t ya just have a problem believing anything he says? And this is the guy who has a big reputation for telling the truth? Meh!
13As far as I know, it wasn’t. We weren’t anywhere near Chris Matthews.
Sorry, but it is difficult, if not impossible, to post from the convention floor. I will try to catch up later. And maybe more pictures later today.
14Lying Ryan is not only a LIAR, he’s a HYPOCRITE! The Nation magazine broke this story today:
http://www.thenation.com/blog/169757/exclusive-paul-ryan-quietly-requested-obamacare-cash?rel=emailNation
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