Remember the scene in “A Few Good Men” where the Jack Nicholson character yells “you can’t handle the truth!”
IOW, we — the tough and smart people in charge — take care of the hard things and make the bad decisions so you can have your pleasant little delusions and live like free and happy-go-lucky hobbits.
This article reminded me of that.
Monkeypox outbreak sparks debate over guidance on sexual behaviors
Public health officials are grappling with how far to go in advising gay men to alter their sexual behavior as the monkeypox virus spreads mostly through their social networks but is a threat to anyone.
Oh dear. If we say A, people might do X. If we say B, people might do Y. And we absolutely can’t say C, because then people will do Z.
When did we accept the idea that it’s okay for public officials to lie to us to nudge our behavior toward their chosen path? Isn’t that the purpose of propaganda?
Perhaps there are times when the truth would cause more harm than a lie. Perhaps. But we seem to have taken that exception and built a 4-lane highway through it.
We don’t even expect public officials to tell us the truth anymore. It’s understood that they will craft a message designed to get us to behave a certain way.
Only a population of wimps would accept this.
QUOTE: When did we accept the idea that it’s okay for public officials to lie to us to nudge our behavior toward their chosen path?…We don’t even expect public officials to tell us the truth anymore….
Only a population of wimps would accept this.
Agreed. Albeit I understand why, it’s still mystifying that people accept things like the following (just to name a few):
*There was widespread voter fraud during the 2020 election (with no evidence that could withstand scrutiny in a court of law)
* Barack Obama wasn’t an American citizen
*Hydroxychloroquine was an effective cure for Covid
*Men and women are the same
* The January 6 Capitol riot was perpetrated by Antifa
* The Sandy Hook Massacre was a false flag operation