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HOO BOY.
This is a big one. This Kafka By Way of Orwell logic is something we've been seeing more of, and will see yet more of.
To the fascist mindset, there's no contradiction here. You have to understand that.
This is a big one. This Kafka By Way of Orwell logic is something we've been seeing more of, and will see yet more of.
To the fascist mindset, there's no contradiction here. You have to understand that.
When President Obama was in office, he vetoed a bill that was summed up as being "a 9/11 victims bill" that said families of 9/11 victims could sue foreign governments over it. He was portrayed as anti-American, when he was actually protecting American imperialism. (He did that.)
See, his objection was that if we established a principle that foreign nationals could sue a government for the death of their loved ones.... oh, well, uh. I don't know how to put this.
But.
Um.
We have been raining hellfire missiles on civilian neighborhoods for how long?
But.
Um.
We have been raining hellfire missiles on civilian neighborhoods for how long?
So I want to be very clear that this is not a President Obama Good, Republicans Bad story. It is a case where the cause of the two parties was perfectly aligned in protecting the perceived interests of the United States from consequences of actions by both parties...
...and he gave his objections, and when the bills were passed over them he vetoed it, and when the law was passed over his veto, the GOP leaders realized too late that he hadn't been bluffing, he hadn't been making excuses, exactly what he had said was in fact true.
We have bombed weddings and we have bombed funerals (and funerals for people we bombed) and we had a policy to do the exact thing that in the dystopian Hunger Games was a bridge too far for the decadent Capitol, which is a second round to bomb the medics.
So again, this is not a story of good vs. bad but truth vs. falsehood.
President Obama told them why they shouldn't pass the law, he told them why he vetoed it, and when they realized their mistake... they blamed him, for not telling him.
President Obama told them why they shouldn't pass the law, he told them why he vetoed it, and when they realized their mistake... they blamed him, for not telling him.
And they weren't rewriting history to say that he hadn't said the words he did. They were drawing a distinction between saying those words and telling them, with telling them meaning "He should have found a way to say it so we'd know that he meant it."
We saw this happen with Brexit. After the referendum was passed, the Leavers immediately said that all the NHS money they promised was just talk and surely everyone should have realized that, now can the EU stop lying about their bargaining posture?
Wait, they MEANT it?
Wait, they MEANT it?
So here we have the same thing playing out in miniature, with this eighteen year old boy in CBP custody. All of this could have been averted, they want us to know, if he had been honest from the start and simply told them he was a citizen.
But instead he lied. He was deceitful. They know he lied because he had the cheek to falsely claim he's a citizen.
Falsely claiming he's a citizen is something any lying immigrant might do. It's a distinct and separate act, they are sure, from a citizen simply stating the truth.
Falsely claiming he's a citizen is something any lying immigrant might do. It's a distinct and separate act, they are sure, from a citizen simply stating the truth.
Very much this. They make up their mind about your motives, which colors whatever you say, even if it's the exact right thing and the literal truth, and they will never grant that this is the same as telling them the truth.
No contradiction, to them.
No contradiction, to them.
When things got hot with media scrutiny and politicians getting involved in the teenager's detention, the people he'd pleaded his case to, I guarantee, did not think "Why didn't we listen?" but "Why couldn't he have just told us, the right way, so we'd know he meant it?"
"Falsely claiming to be a citizen" is a distinct enough act in their mind that a ~*certain type*~ of person can manage it, even if they happen to be an actual citizen.
Which just makes it cheekier, of course. The nerve of making them look foolish by falsely claiming the truth!
Which just makes it cheekier, of course. The nerve of making them look foolish by falsely claiming the truth!
I have said many times that Trump isn't clever in shading the truth or telling half truths or playing word games with it, he just outright lies and sometimes believes his lies and just as often doesn't, because the truth holds no special value to him.
He's not special in this regard, except for perhaps in being a pure and simple exemplar of the trope. What is truth to a fascist? The truth is what they say, and only when they say it, only when it is useful.
Back in the days of Bush 43, Karl Rove was shaking his head and tutting at the liberals and progressives as being "the reality-based community" for insisting things like there were no current WMDs in Iraq and no connection to 9/11.
Empires, he said, create their own reality.
Empires, he said, create their own reality.
And so the shock and dismay and outrage of the right when they realize their opponents and targets were telling the truth is genuine, is honest, maybe the most honest thing about them.
They feel cheated.
They feel... lied to.
They feel cheated.
They feel... lied to.
"What do you mean by telling me the truth, just because it's true? That's a dirty trick. I've never seen anything more underhanded, more unscrupulous..."
"Tell the truth and shame the devil."
It does more than shame them, it baffles them.
It does more than shame them, it baffles them.
Incidentally, while in an antihistamine haze I tried engaging wit a learned legal scholar here on Twitter dot com who represented the opinion that the young man was not detained because he was free to leave at any time.
How so, I asked?
"He could have taken deportation."
How so, I asked?
"He could have taken deportation."
Now, "deportation" in this case meant being dumped in a country in which he was not a citizen, with the exit order in his file for this country as a barrier to re-entry, which puts him in an even more precarious position.
The creation of a stateless other is part of the model.
The creation of a stateless other is part of the model.
But I just want to point out the dynamic here.
This young man, this teenager, this boy... was being tortured. He told them the truth. The torture continued. It would have continued, barring external factors, until he agreed to their false reality.
This young man, this teenager, this boy... was being tortured. He told them the truth. The torture continued. It would have continued, barring external factors, until he agreed to their false reality.
His only power to end the torture was to agree that he was An Illegal, agreed he had no right to due process and no right to remain here, and agreed to do what they wanted.
It wasn't true, but it was the only answer the torturers would have accepted.
It wasn't true, but it was the only answer the torturers would have accepted.
Which is the purpose of torture. Not to get at the truth, but to establish something already believed by the torturer as true. Coercing someone to co-signing a reality, forcing them to step into it.
People who defend torture will say "But if it's a matter of saving lives through information we gain"... and I want to emphasize there are reasons beyond strict utility we shouldn't torture... but... you can't gain information through torture. It's confirmation bias through pain.
The torture ends when the torturer hears the truth. "The truth" therefore must be something the torturer already knows, otherwise how can they know it's true?
