We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

We did this but we didn’t do this, so stop saying we did this, because we didn’t do what we did

It works the same way in all “democratic” governments – “Yes we attempted to censor them, but we did NOT attempt to censor them!”

For further study on the phenomenon, might I refer to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s definitive “I was in the building that day and I was TERRIFIED FOR MY LIFE, but I was not in the building that day…” Or maybe Doctor ( – I use the term loosely – ) Fauci’s famous retort, “Yes I funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Lab, but I did NOT fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Lab so stop accusing me of it!”

Remember please, the Party is the instrument of History and there are no other valid referents, so if the Party declares both a thing and its exact opposite in the same sentence, it is perfectly correct throughout; and you are mistaken, or racist, or misogynist, or some sort of hater or maybe even male or white or BOTH if you draw attention to it. The good news is that you won’t be taken straight out back and shot, not yet at least – but they’re working on it.

– Commenter Y. Knott

13 comments to We did this but we didn’t do this, so stop saying we did this, because we didn’t do what we did

  • Hypocritical liars found guilty of lying and hypocrisy.

    Film at 11.

  • NickM

    No, JG, it is worse than that… It is a very deep belief that reality is created, not discovered. This has gone way beyond “The money was restaing in the account” lies (which whilst morally wrong can make sense). It is an outright assault on reality. It is our duty (our duty to ourselves) to call them on this at every step. Because if they can get away with saying “pregnant persons”, “Jewish Nazis” and that basic arithmetical competence is “white European priveldge” then God knows where it will end.

    I just realised one thing recently that made me happy. The plaques on the Pioneer probes depict nine planets including Pluto. They are somewhere around the Helipoause. Also a man and a woman. Best of luck re-branding them you swine!

  • Y. Knott

    I just realised one thing recently that made me happy – You think YOU got problems! Flattered – sincerely flattered…

    An essential element of this phenomenon is that their “True Believers” will fervently believe and support everything they say, and furiously denounce any detractors no matter what attention they try to bring to the obvious oxymoronics. It’s a mark of belonging, just like the secret handshake or the mandatory tattoo. And those who aren’t their “True Believers” are beneath contempt, so their thoughts and opinions can be dismissed out-of-hand without even the slightest acknowledgement or consideration – they’re not really people, so why are you wasting the Party’s time mentioning them, Comrade?

  • Fraser Orr

    I think what you describe here Y Knott, is a religious cult. FWIW, humans seem to have a propensity to religiosity and in absence of a spiritual religion we will be happy to genuflect to a secular religion. It seems to be a part of human nature. In the enlightenment we tried to fix this with “science” but unfortunately “science” seems to have been co-opted into this same religious cult.

    FWIW, Trumpians also give off a very “religious cult” sense too, so, since left and right are both humans, they both have this seeming inner need for a religion. Religions need heretics and infidels. It is part of what makes you one of the chosen ones. And who doesn’t want to be one of the chosen ones?

  • bobby b

    “God and the Godhead are as distinct as heaven and earth.”

    They’ve winnowed it all down to godhead. This way, religion without god, they’re not bothered by all of that pesky anthropomorphic structure, plus they can pivot their philosophies – their godhead – in an instant as they see fit.

  • FWIW, Trumpians also give off a very “religious cult” sense too (Fraser Orr, April 14, 2022 at 5:26 pm)

    The analogy might strike the uninitiated as coming somewhat from a distance. 🙂

    Believing Trump preferable to Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden does not require a particularly fervent faith. Going further – thinking he does more for his voters than a Mitt Romney or similar – is doable without being the stuff of which martyrs are made. Thinking that his ‘gaffes’ are MSM fictions is very demonstrable in many cases, and very defensible in others.

    When they see cause – Trump’s recent Pennsylvania endorsement, for example – his typical supporters seem mostly able to express their doubts, and that without fearing excommunication. I’m watching from a distance to be sure – but it does seem to offer a perceptibly different experience from the one you get in the party of cancel culture.

  • Fraser Orr

    Niall Kilmartin
    Believing Trump preferable to Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden does not require a particularly fervent faith.

    Certainly, but believing that he can do no wrong, defending his most stupid of statements, believing that him not being re-elected is the apocalypse, thinking that the non believers are evil and stupid — not just wrong. These are all the hallmarks of religion.

    But, you tell me, the left does all that too. Which kind of was exactly my point.

    Trump rallies have a lot of the hallmarks of Billy Graham rallies, save for the altar call at the end. I’m sure the left would be the same could they scare up enough people to fill a small room. I haven’t been to a Trump rally; however they do look like a lot of fun. I haven’t been to a Biden rally because, well because nobody really has.

    Are there some Trump supporters that have a balanced, reasonable view? Yes, of course, just as there are reasonable and balanced people on the left (much though I hate to propagate the ridiculous idea that political ideas are linear.) It still doesn’t change my whole point that a lot of politicians exploit the religious instinct of humans. Heck listen to Obama speak. Change the text and keep the mannerisms and he speaks like a baptist preacher.

  • Snorri Godhi

    This all makes sense if you take it for grnted (as i do) that the modern diet (especially American diet, with lots of seed oils and HFCS) makes people unable to use basic logic. So that people see nothing inconsistent in a statement like “we did this but we didn’t do this”.

    And this also helps to resolve the difference between Niall and Fraser. What Trump has shown is that, nowadays, all you need to be a great POTUS is

    A. commonsense that could be taken for granted in an American of, say, 50 years ago;

    B. enough strength of character to resist gaslighting by the establishment media.

    (Well, OK, one also needs enough stamina, money, and name recognition to run a campaign. And then enough stamina to work in the Oval Office.)

    And yet, nobody between Reagan and Trump, either winners or losers, had both A or B. Arguably, nobody had either of them: not to a sufficient extent.
    I submit that this comes from the diet.

  • Bruce

    Whilst at first glance, such statements seem a little “Pythonesque”. However, consider for a moment that they are carefully crafted to let all and sundry know who is in charge of the “Narrative’. It is NOT the “peasants”.

    There are a few “parallels in the works of Lewis Carroll. (“Through the Looking Glass”, Chapter 6):

    “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
    “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
    “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – – that’s all.”

  • believing that him not being re-elected is the apocalypse (Fraser Orr, April 14, 2022 at 8:36 pm)

    I think most Trump supporters believe he was re-elected, but cheated out of it by a cabal (last I looked, opinion polls say more than half the US electorate believe that). You could I suppose argue that things like the US constitution and the accurate counting of legal votes are valued by some with a quasi-religious fervour that translates into ‘apocalyptic’ warnings of what the people who stole the election will do when the wood is seasoned since they did that when it was green. However this post is about people enforcing values so violently against the evidence that they demand “stop saying we did this, because we didn’t do what we did”, so (as I said above) the analogy between that and believing the cabal who ‘fortified’ the election actually stole it strikes me as coming somewhat from a distance in this context.

    defending his most stupid of statements

    Hannah Arendt argued that followers of Hitler or Stalin understood politics as cheating and “the leader is always right” as one of the necessary rules of that game. A much more ordinary behaviour is reluctance to criticise one’s own side. In Trump’s case, the situation is complicated by the many exceptionally gross and calculated libels perpetrated on him. So for a given case, it can be hard to distinguish a “Trump can do no wrong” person from an “I haven’t time now to research whether this is another MSM libel or not, and I’m giving them nothing till I have” person.

    thinking that the non believers are evil and stupid — not just wrong.

    It is a very common feature of political and social groups that they fail to reach the heights of Christian morality, of trying to give their enemies’ actions as good an explanation as the known facts allow, or at least base it on known facts rather than angry feelings. You can call that failure ‘religious’ behaviour – it is often seen in religious movements too. But (over and above my ability to attack it as un-christian 🙂 ), I’m not sure how meaningful that is.

    Trump rallies have a lot of the hallmarks of Billy Graham rallies, save for the altar call at the end. I’m sure the left would be the same could they scare up enough people to fill a small room. I haven’t been to a Trump rally; however they do look like a lot of fun. I haven’t been to a Biden rally because, well because nobody really has. … a lot of politicians exploit the religious instinct of humans …

    All true, but I’m dubious about both the relevance to this thread and the value of calling it ‘religious’. To put it simplistically:

    – TheWoke: we are always right about everything. If you withhold enthusiastic consent to this we will punish you. We sometimes rightly change our doctrine radically. If you dare to quote our past against us, we will punish you.

    – Trump: I am always right about everything. If you disagree, know that I am also right in my enthusiasm for the first amendment. Because I am always right about everything I will seldom change my mind and never suddenly and radically. If I change my mind, I will have had good reason in the past to say what I did, and good reason in the present to change my mind. If you disagree, know that I will continue to be right in my unchanged enthusiasm for the first amendment.

    The similarities interest me less than the differences, and seem less relevant to the thread.

  • In Trump’s case, the situation is complicated by the many exceptionally gross and calculated libels perpetrated on him.

    So true. I was never a Trump fan yet times beyond counting, I found myself defending Trump from the many manifestly preposterous things said about him by hysterical detractors. I though Bush Derangement Syndrome was bad, but it was trivial compared to Trump Derangement Syndrome.

  • Mike Gilding

    It is a basic rule of politics: you can be bad but still much better than the alternatives.

  • Ben David

    It’s really simple:

    For the woke Left their political views are their only frame of reality, the basis of their identity, their source of truth. Poitics justifies their existence and provides the emotional hit/narcissitic supply of power. Their politics is innately a Crusade and tends towards Inquisition.

    Conservatives just want to be left alone. Reality, self, community, and Truth are all defined outside politics. Politics is a necessary evil whose scope and power must be limited. Conservatives now rally to defend a system that explicitly limits their ability to impose their will on others – so they can get back to Real Life without fear of woke Left political tyranny.

    Anyone with eyes in their heads senses the lie – and the inadvertent reveal – when gays and other Sacred Victim Groups mewl about “conservative re-education camps”.

    It’s very glib to lump these 2 together, simply because…they both display zeal or fervor instead of cool libertarian detachment? This plague-on-both-yer-houses pose is typical of a certain lazy, facile libertarianism. And like much poorly worked out libertarianism, it shows unwittingly absorbed postmodern influence.