 America finding its way. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Tic-Tac on a given Thursday morning. And today it's Stephanie Dalton and me alone at last, Stephanie. At last, what an opportunity. We're gonna talk about lies, lies, damned lies. We're gonna talk about, you know, how we in our lives have seen lies and we have learned about lies and where they fit in the human condition or at least in America. And in government. But we're in a time now where it's different somehow. And I wanted to examine that with you because, you know, we saw Trump lying right through his four years about everything. And we saw people believing those lies that was interesting. And then we found out, you know, on investigation by the press and otherwise that he'd been lying right through his business career beforehand. He's lied throughout his life. And I guess that's his training. I mean, he's lied about bone spurs going way back when. And so the question is, you know, has lying become more popular, more effective? You know, I mean, just looked it up on Google and apparently a New York court suspended Rudy Giuliani's law license for lying. That's comforting. But it should have been in the courts only. Should it be on a motion made and proved in court? Or should we try to look back to a time when people weren't lying so much and it wasn't so ubiquitous in government? Did you join me? Do you agree with me that lying has become more popular? It seems like in our lifetime, Stephanie. I do agree with you very much, Jay. And it's mendacity. We are in a mendacious era and it's accepted. And how this has come to be is probably something we can talk about. We probably know quite a few points to bring up in regard to how we're in a mendacious era. Why do people lie? One issue regarding that is the integrity issue. I think that we're not doing enough to value integrity. I mean, isn't this what we used to revere the Thomas Moore for? There wasn't there even a Broadway play about Thomas Moore and the people that have died instead of being willing to lie. So we have come a long way down the ladder from the time of integrity that was engulfing of one's life and a totem for the person's life. Well, there's a couple of factors we should throw in the soup here. Number one is I think people lie because they get an advantage out of it. There's a benefit or there's a fear and that they will avoid a detriment either way. They lie. And sometimes it's a kind of deception where they want other people to rely. This is like fraud. This is the definition of fraud I'm giving you. You lie to somebody in order to deceive them and have them act in reliance. That's an essential element of fraud lies. And it's to your benefit and their detriment that they relied on your lie. And I think in this country anyway, we have more of that. Let me add some other thoughts. And that is, you look at our lifetimes, Stephanie and look at the ads. Look at the ads on television. We're barraged with ads. And I've come to feel that a lot of that is not true. A lot of that is either direct or indirect, subtle or express lies. And it affects our lives. And we know at some fundamental level we know sitting there watching that ad or reading that ad, that it's not true. And we accept that and we say to ourselves, I guess that's the way it is. You wanna sell something and have people buy your product or lie on your deception, you can get away with it. You can do that because everybody does. And it's very troubling that their fathers and mothers never taught them, really taught them the basic rule, don't lie. And it's a tipping point, I think. If you had one person violating that one thing is 330 million of us, but if you had 70 or 80 million lying, that would be past the tipping point. And so it's a question of how the society is operating. Do more people accept lies these days? Do more people lie and do more people accept lies? Are we swimming in a soup of lies? A broth, you know, an evil broth where everybody accepts it and cage us in it. And I would suggest to you that in many ways, Madison Avenue has encouraged us to be there. And I also suggest to you that the old rule about how people believed the written word more than they did the spoken word, there go the statute of frauds. There go the idea that if you put it in writing, it's gonna be more credible. Well, it isn't necessarily so. And if you say that that follows like Facebook and social media in general, because it's in writing, maybe it's more believable. I'm not sure where that fits. I don't think you can believe a lot of what is coming at us these days. We're swimming in a world of lies. What do you think? I certainly think you're onto it and explaining it and stimulating me to think of even more modeling of it by the corporate world. I think all of us mostly alive today have come up under the corporations presenting lies and making cases for their lies. And litigating their lies. And of course, of course, it would be the smoking lie. The tobacco didn't have anything to do with causing disease after extended use. They lied and we have television footage of them lying before Congress in committee meetings where they were investigated for this. So, and they're not the only corporations that perform this huge lie and actually cost many, many lives. So we have that in the recent past. And then if we go back further, we have many other conditions of untruths told and people doing things for reasons that were self-serving and not serving the public that are keeping people from getting their vaccines now because of the drastic mistakes that were made again by some corporations, by even the medical profession, luring people into experiments when it wasn't in their best interest to be there. And they were really taking advantage of and lied to and had no idea what was happening to them. So if we stop and think about it, yeah. We're swimming in a pool of lies. I mean, having an integrity, bringing integrity back is gonna take a lot of work because you kind of have to have some blinders on and you certainly have to have some critical thinking to bring to getting through this life and following a path that might be evidence-based and be in your best interest and certainly not be that way without a lot of checking and research. We can't count on the truth being given to us and or the best effort to give us the truth is it's not there anymore. Even then we can bring up the church if we wanna go see something really dark. I mean, that is really another huge example of a major organization. I mean, it's the oldest organization, 2,000 years of church. And it turns out that they were lying and covering up the worst evil possible. So I think your description of us being in a soup of mendacity is right on. We have to figure this out. Yeah, and I would extend. I mean, there's a lot of what you say. There's a lot to unpack there. Speaking of covering up, you know, covering up is a lie too, isn't it? When something needs to be told and you don't tell it by implication, you are saying it didn't happen and it did happen. So you're making a lie or stating something directly or implicitly. That isn't true. And I think we have to watch out for that just as much. That's why the press is so important. The press doesn't do it perfectly, but the press is supposed to tell us the truth, not tell us untruths, and also not cover up anything. So, you know, query whether the press is doing its job in the face of government leaders and leaders, the operative word there, however they got to be leaders, in the face of leaders who would lie. It's a little walk-a-mo game, you know, one pops up here, one pops up there. It's a full-time job finding all the lies and dismissing them. And, you know, then you have a system which doesn't necessarily help you do that. If you may, if you call a lie out, then you might be subject to some kind of lawsuit about it, which Trump does. So it's like creating confusion about the facts. You know, I've been watching a series called The Roman Empire. It fascinates me because it's the story of a once great empire which had all the right sensibilities and understood, you know, how to govern its people. It was really up to that point in time. The best thing had ever happened. But then it began to unravel. And of course, you know, it's fictionalized in many ways and it's acted. But I think one of the teaching points in that, in looking at the Roman Empire, is that they began to have conspiracies. They began to lie to each other and deceive each other. And I say to you, remember the ides of March. Remember how they went after Julius Caesar? That was a conspiracy. They didn't tell him. They didn't face up to him. And then you saw the empire unravel. Maybe he was part of it, but the whole culture had gone out the window. It wasn't too long before there was no Roman Empire. And query whether there's a correlation between the lying we see and which is accepted by millions of people against their own interests, as you mentioned, with the fall of the American Empire. I mean, I don't think this is a drill. I think this is real. And I think we have to study it and talk about it and find solutions. It's one thing for the court in New York to suspend Giuliani's law license. He's not really practicing law anyway for lying. On behalf of Trump. But query, is that where you find consequences in the courts? If you lie quote, under oath end quote, does that make it a greater lie than not under oath? And are people really taking oaths these days and abiding by them? We have 147 legislators who voted against confirming the election on January 6th. They knew damn well that Biden won the election, but they lied in public on behalf of their constituents. That is really shocking. They were lying to us. They were lying and violating their oaths. What's the remedy? You're gonna take them to that same court? Is that court gonna do anything? Can you sue them for a violation of their oath to do the right thing? To not lie? Is the president obligated not to lie? And suppose he does? Most people would say, well, you vote him out of office. Is it that simple? I agree. I think it is not that simple. And we do need to bring integrity back into these roles that are of our leaders. And it's certainly long gone. And we're gonna have to deal with the fact that this model of lying, something is gonna have to happen, I think, to put the meaning of the previous president into the perspective of what? The morality of what he did and what, and how those ways of dealing with the public and communicating with the public are not okay. I mean, so we probably do need to rethink a lot of what we have depended on, the norms and the structures that we've worked with them that are based on belief in integrity and truth and so far as you know it. And we're gonna have to rebuild because what is an oath? And it's on a Bible. And is that something that is making any difference to anybody? So we're kind of in one of those transition places we're having been kicked into facing what it is that actually we're doing in the way of lying or not having integrity as a high, high value which was a basis for the development of this country. We've got to rethink all of this. I think it will take time but we are gonna be going through a process of redefining how we get things done that are going to benefit everyone and not be power plays and not be, you know, mendacious efforts to self serve and how are we gonna do that? I mean, it's a bit really huge question for the democracy, right? Because we're still gonna have the corporations and they're still gonna run their advertisements and they're still gonna make the best cases and do the commission omission thing which is maybe not lie in the way of committing the lie but by omitting something they are still in the love which you brought up earlier which is another dimension of this. So it looks like it's not just civics that we need to have in our schools we also need to be talking about how we value this and the integrity of a person and how important that is for their character and their stay on earth and- Well, you know, it's a question. So Kellyanne Conway back in before the election, you know, she was a part of Trump's election campaign lied, you know, and I watched that. I said, you know, gee, my neck is bristling on this. She's lying in public and getting away with it and doubling down, that's one of Trump's tricks. You're not only lying, you repeat the lie. That's what Adolf Hitler did. That was one of his techniques. You lie, repeat the lie and after a while it becomes common knowledge, but it's a lie. And that's what she was doing. And then, you know, finally she justified that with this thing about all the facts which is, you know, actually just between us that's ridiculous. That's just another fantastic lie is what it is. All the facts, there is a set of all the facts that you can accept. Anyway, I said to myself, gee, what kind of people is he surrounding himself with this outrageous? And the press called him on it and they called her on it. But, you know, this is one of the problems. What can the press do but observe? And opine, but the press can't stop him. The press can make maybe make fun of him but it can't stop him. And just a, just one digression. You know, last night on Rachel Maddow, it was something that actually blew your mind. The fellow's name is Manuel Oliver. He's a Hispanic, who's in Florida. His son was killed in the Parkland shooting, 17 years old, a sweet kid. And Manuel and his wife took it upon themselves to do stuff even though Congress would not, has not and probably will not do anything about this. So what they did is they created a fictitious academy the resident in the state of Nevada. And they hired a great big field in the middle. It was, I think it was the same field where that shooting took place in Las Vegas a few years ago, none of that. And in the field, they built a large, it's amazing story, a large theater-like platform, okay? And they put 3,044 white graduation chairs out there neatly organized in front of this theatrical platform. They invited a couple of guys from the NRA who were spokesmen for the NRA. And they told these guys that this was the graduating ceremony of the James Madison Academy, which was fictitious. They created a fictitious website the whole nine yards. And would they please come down and present, the graduating class with their advice, whatnot? And one of them whose name was a lot came down and he saw these 3,000 chairs in front of him. So what's this? This is, well, just rehearsing. And they had cameras and they had a lot of drones out there taking pictures of the chairs. And this one solitary figure giving a graduation address. And he talked about guns and how important they were and everybody should have more guns and more AK-15s and preserve and protect the Second Amendment and shaft down anybody who opposed the Second Amendment. And he went on and on in this speech. What they didn't tell him was that this was not a real academy. This was not a graduation. There were no graduates. And the 3,044 chairs represented the 3,044 kids who have been killed this year, 2021, by gun violence in this country. And he gave the speech to an empty, huge crowd of chairs and they filmed it and it is a very, very powerful film. This only happened recently, last couple of days. And so I'm sure it'll be in the media soon. But the remarkable thing about it is that they use this creative technique to embarrass the NRA, to make them look like fools. And they did like make them look like fools. It was brilliant. And I say to myself, maybe there's power in that. That's beyond just reporting what happened at Parkland. That is revealing the people who caused Parkland. I just thought it was stunning. I'm so glad you brought it up. It was remarkably impressive and poignant and dramatic and it really put you into reflection about the loss, the degree of the loss of these thousands of youngsters who would have been graduating in this class. So this is the missing class of 2021, that this ploy of graduation speech practice brought these men or this man into to give that outrageous speech with those statements, as you said, that they would surely call out anyone rising against gun ownership or getting in the way of the expansion of the Second Amendment. But it really was a stunning presentation. And it also, well, it brings up the mentality issue too because this man was set up, but he didn't do diligence with looking up the school and he could have gone to the website and found out that it was a very shallow website. He could have found out that there was no such academy if anybody had done his due diligence or if he had done it himself. So they kind of brought it on themselves. But that presentation was very moving and I hope that it's gonna be shown far and wide because it says everything that needs to be said. So, you know, and I remember the Lincoln project, you know, from the election, I thought their ads, their calling out Trump on various things that was also good and healthy. That's what we need. If people are gonna, like Giuliani, I mean, he was involved in this crazy Sasha Baron Cohn movie where he was set up in this woman. I don't know if you saw that, it was gross. They were involved in a sexual act and it was hidden cameras. And Giuliani denied it all. He said he was just fixing his fly. And, you know, people accepted that. I wouldn't have accepted that. So, I mean, what you have is lying going on and you have this kind of tension, this spiraling tension of lies versus reveal versus more lies doubling down. And it's just so far away from the actual truth. And Trump is a master at this sort of thing. And the question I put to you, we don't have that much time left, but the question I put to you is, can we have this broth of lies and a democracy, doesn't a democracy require truth? Well, that's what the Greeks thought and the Romans when they got started until they got into power and power corrupts, of course, as absolute power corrupts, it does so very rapidly. But I think that we have got to confront truth. We have to do things that confront when it isn't true. And I think there's been a reluctance to do that because the truth will out, right? Isn't that a meme? We say that the truth, no, it won't. It has to be protected and it has to be reminded. It has to be delivered. It has to be framed. And we have to do things to make sure we know that we're going in the direction of getting to that truth. Of course, we'll never get to the platonic ideal of truth, but we're gonna be on that track. How do we get on that track? On the track? Well, do we have time, do we have time, Stephanie? Because while these lies are being bandied about, we still see the Republicans do this every day. Incredible that they deny January 6th. They come up with this idea that the FBI organized the insurrection. It's just a huge false conspiracy, QAnon lies. It's all about lies. It's all about distracting us with lies, even though if we had applied, as you said, critical thinking, we wouldn't do that. If we had even looked at it from the point of view of our self-interest, I mean, our true self-interest. I'm thinking of Jonestown. Those people drank the Kool-Aid. They drank the Kool-Aid and it killed them. They probably knew there was something funny fishy about that, but they did it anyway, even at the expense of their lives. And so, they don't wanna take vaccines with the Delta variant and other variants that are gonna emerge from all these cases. That's suicidal. And yet, without critical thinking, they accept Trump's notion that you don't have to take the vaccine. It's a political statement, whatever he's selling out there. Bottom line is, do we have time? Do we have time to fix this before it undermines our entire society and certainly our government, the management of our country? Well, I think that Rachel got at something early on when Mitch McConnell said that he was gonna do nothing and he was gonna ask his Senate to do nothing, to promote or advance or respond to this administration's efforts. So, it was all to be ignored. We were doing nothing for the entire four years. And I believe that she praised that because she's not glad you told us because now nobody has to work that hard and work around all of this and spend all this time. Let's just get on with now we know where you are. So, what I'm thinking is that with all of this lying and pushing things around in untruth, maybe we're getting closer to saying exactly what it is that we want to do because you're gonna move to do things. You're gonna do things to get what you want. And if the what you want is more revealed, is more clear, is made open, maybe we could bypass the lying. Just get right down to this is what I want and I'm gonna do everything I can do to get that to happen as Mitch McConnell is doing now. So, no games, no shades, no stories. It's, this is what I wanna do. And then people are gonna lie to get what they want. So, why not let's just go get what we want and get it a little further down in the visible range of humans. All that considered Stephanie, how are we gonna do on the 2022 elections? Because there's a lot of people still buy the lies. They accept the lies, even though the lies are for many of them are suicidal. They accept the lies and they're gonna run on that and they're gonna double down on that. Josh Hawley is a perfect example. You know that he understands these things are not true and yet he espouses them anyway. And there are voters out there that will buy that. People will buy anything. You know, it's the theory of demagoguery and U.E. Long in Louisiana. It's a theory that you can fool most of the people most of the time, but somewhere along the line and this is, I'm tripping off what you were saying, somewhere along the line, maybe just maybe they wake up, maybe just maybe they say, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, this is not true. We can't go on doing this. It is undermining our society. The question is whether we, all of us have the time before we really go down like the Roman Empire. That's true, but I think again there, it's what do these people want? And if we get off the platonic ideals and the abstract notions of integrity and truth and all of these things and get down to, what is it that you want and how are you gonna get there? And that seems to be the question I have now is like these people that are doing these things and Holly, what do you want, Holly? You think this is gonna make things better for you? You wanna go somewhere to get something that needs to be more outspoken. And so that lying is not the lever that's gonna get you there, what's gonna get you there is being open about what you want. And anyway, it's getting more to that because people are not afraid to lie anymore, so they're not trying to cover that up. So maybe we are unwrapping a lot of these aims and goals that ordinarily were unspoken because they're so unattractive and... Well, I hear in Herenton what you're saying an expression of what I call the fatigue theory. The fatigue theory is my theory about the stock market. The stock market goes up until it gets tired of going up and then it goes down and then it's in the pits and it stays there until it gets tired of being there and then it starts going up. So maybe just maybe in the weird, the evaluation of the species, the fatigue theory will come into play here. People would really get bloody tired of all of this soup of lies all around them and say, wait a minute, maybe we have to return to some other better time. What we learned in school and our parents taught us, what we read in the good books, maybe we should stop doing this and recreate America. But again, is there time? Well, there's all the time in the world. Yeah, yeah. We just, I think, yeah, the time is there to do it one way or the other. I think we will work our way out of this. I think we've been in a period of pressure on doing things in a manner that nobody ever valued but had to come to value to be able to get what they wanted or what they think they wanted to have and we're gonna get. And I don't think they got it and they may not realize yet that they didn't get it and can't get it that way. But we need to work on what's really happening like that. Maybe get other work at that level instead of being so abstract about how we have to do these things in a bigger sense. Let's get what people need and want and make that more reasonably, reasonable achieving. We gotta recognize it, we gotta call it out and we certainly can't afford to have leaders that lie to us. We can't afford that. It's not a matter of just voting for or against them. It's a matter of calling them out every single time, every single time, never letting them get away with lying to us. Anyway, I think speaking of time, we're out of time, Stephanie. Thank you very much. You wanna take a whack at a last comment, what we'd like to leave people with here about their participation in the democracy. I think we've all been very affected by this past president and about the mendacity that he has popularized to the point where when they came out at the National Naval or Medical Center in Bethesda where Trump went for his treatment when he supposedly had the COVID, there was a raft of doctors in white coats that came out and stood in an organized group and talked about how he had COVID. And I was so used to things being lies that I didn't believe that these people in white coats standing in front of the gorgeous building of the medical center out there in Bethesda and I succumbed to it too. So we're all easily taken in by these kinds of repetitions and just being battered by this for years on end. And we do need to rethink it and I think we will. I think Americans will. Okay, well, we're fighting a very difficult kind of virus there because the leaders who lie spread the lies like a virus. And even those doctors, there's been plenty of press about how they didn't tell the truth either about his condition. So if you're around a person like that, you have to be especially careful to deal with the lies that come out of him. Anyway, okay, there's more to come on this, but I thought I'd raise it with you and see how we felt about it and make some analysis on a psychological, sociological basis. Thank you very much, Stephanie. Yeah, very interesting. Aloha.