The awful price of lies

If the statistics of late hold, by this time next week, the United States will have lost one-million people to COVID-19, a number far disproportionate to the rest of the world, where 6,250,452 have died to date, according to Johns Hopkins. Of those, 997,503 are from the U.S.

With 4.25-percent of the world’s population, this nation accounts for 16-percent of global deaths to a pandemic for which such simple things as wearing a mask and taking vaccines proved effective in greatly reducing the mortality rate.

Right now, more than 425 Americans are dying daily from complications of COVID, a viral scourge laughed at by many now dead as a “plandemic,” an affront on our civil rights.

The novel coronavirus hasn’t the capacity to hear our debates or be concerned over our plight. Like the mosquitoes that pester us in spring or the rhinovirus that causes us to cough, sneeze and suffer the common cold, the Novel Coronavirus only does what it do.

We are inconsequential. Our beliefs don’t matter.

Our nation’s failure wasn’t because our physicians and scientists were lacking. In fact, they led the world in deciphering the virus and developing defenses.

No, the reason this nation we like to think of as the greatest on Earth led all the world’s nations in COVID deaths by such a staggeringly wide margin is simple. We were led by a charismatic con man with a propensity for lying. A significant number of our citizens chose to give credence to the easily disproved lies they wanted to hear rather than the truths they didn’t.

I have been called to account of late for disparaging people whose “opinions” differ from mine. For calling them Qpublicans, MAGA morons and all-around idiots just because we differ in our points of view.

It might be unseemly and it’s something I’d never have imagined I’d be compelled to do, but when the lies are so obvious, so far-fetched and egregious yet so widely believed by the gullible that they heed the call of the liar and mount an insurrection on our democracy and its constitution, I think it’s fair to say we are dealing with idiots who deserve to be disparaged.

And I think it wise to label who the idiots are, that we may know them and stand against them, lest they bring down the last best hope of Earth and replace it with an autocracy that imposes the sanctimonious mores and morals of the few on the backs of the many.

In the history of humanity, no nation had ever promulgated a government upon the declared precept that “all men are created equal” until ours, even though it has never even remotely achieved that ideal.

But that wasn’t an oversight by the founders. It was acknowledged plainly in the preamble, the opening statement of the constitution, that “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union …”

Such a government demands at its essence an unwavering search for, belief in and acceptance of truth among a species more susceptible to lies that offer the false hope of superiority.

In the history of mankind, there is no proof that anyone ever crucified for blasphemy was guilty, that any witch burned at stake was, in fact, a witch. There were just idiots who promulgated or bought into the false narrative because it made them feel better about themselves.

There can be no doubt among impartial observers that Vladimir Putin’s military operations in Ukraine are anything other than an invasion, despite his and his media’s insistence it’s but a special operation. His explanation is clearly a blatant lie foisted as propaganda on a people recognizing that letters from sons abruptly stop.

There ought be no doubt here in America that our twice impeached 45th president lied when he denied accusations of collusion after obviously trying to coerce a new president of Ukraine to turn over political dirt in exchange for much needed arms already approved for delivery by Congress. There can be no doubt that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is far and away a more effective national leader than the great falsifier.

And by the way … Trump did lose in 2020. Proven fact.

He isn’t going to save us from a cabal of pedophiles, ANTIFA, Democrats or far left enemies any more than his wall is going to save us from murderous rapists from down south. Those are just lies. False promises to assuage inflamed passions against imaginary threats. Despite what you hear nightly on Fox, Democrats don’t want to impose CRT, groom your children or take your guns. They would ask, however, that you gun-loving right-wing idiots quit going into schools and killing unarmed children.

We can’t blame Donald John Trump, as there can be little doubt that his improbable presidency was only made possible by the simmering resentment of racists and white supremacists bent on “Making America Great Again” after the successful eight year presidency of Barack Obama.

It was an affront too hard for upstanding white folk to bear. And here we are. Post Trump. He is still an idiot and still dangerous.

Were it not for Donald John Trump and his overwhelmingly successful attacks on truth and decency, we would not have in our highest halls of governance such laudable losers as Marjorie Taylor Green, Madison Cawthorn, Jim Jordan, Mo Brooks, Matt Gaetz et al, who do little constructive work but focus instead on promulgating the lies of he to whom they are beholden.

Were it not for Donald John Trump, there would not be so many Qpublicans and MAGA morons in office today or on nearly every ballot in every precinct across the nation in the elections ahead, bent not on serving the public weal but on asserting their superiority, mores and morals on all who disagree … their inferiors, but all to protect a liar and dedicated to putting him or his kind into office in 2024.

There would not be so many Qpublicans and MAGA morons flying U.S. flags upside down in our neighborhoods or urging voters to fall for lies so as to elect the many Qpublicans and MAGA morons on the ballot into office. There would not be so many calling me an enemy for speaking truth.

Forgive me for calling out the extremists who would undermine and destroy the last best hope of the world from within, as Abraham Lincoln worried. Forgive me for calling them disparaging names.

Our union is once again in grave danger, and I will not be silent. Those who question my journalistic ethics or integrity, I invite cogent discussion. Use logic … common sense … your perception of truth.

If history is a guide, I don’t think you can. A lie believed by millions is still a lie. A truth discerned by only one is still a truth.