While we're at it, what is a lie?

THURSDAY, AUGUST 17, 2023

We're constantly astounded: We'll admit that we constantly find the gap in logic surprising. Consider the headline which appeared on this "news analysis" piece from yesterday's New York Times:

After Years of Lies, Election Deniers Face Something New: Consequence

That's the way the headline read on page A12 of print editions. Online, the headline is a bit pithier:

After Years of Spreading Lies, Election Deniers Face Consequences

The analysis piece was written by Nick Corasaniti. According to that pithy headline, a certain group of election deniers have been "spreading lies" for years.

Without any question, the people in question have spread a welter of unsupported claims about the 2020 election. Many of those unsupported claims have seemed to be borderline crazy.

That said, have these people been spreading lies? Pithier headline included, Corasaniti's analysis piece actually starts like this:

After Years of Spreading Lies, Election Deniers Face Consequences

For two and a half years, most of Donald J. Trump’s allies in the sprawling effort to overturn the 2020 election escaped consequences, continuing to try to undermine President Biden’s legitimacy by spreading false claims about voting machines, mail ballots and rigged elections.

Now the legal repercussions are arriving.

The headline says that Trump's allies have been spreading "lies." The text of the piece says that they've been spreading "false claims." 

Indeed, Corasaniti never uses the pleasing terms "lie" or "lies" at any point in his piece. Presumably, some editor came along and chose the more exciting term for use in the article's headline.

Ho ahead—check it out! There is no reference to "lies" or to "lying" at any point in Corasaniti's piece.

Corasaniti refers to "false claims" in paragraph 1. He refers to "false election claims" a bit later, then to "baseless election claims."

Corasaniti never says that the Trumpsters in question have been telling lies or lying. He also never says they haven't been telling lies. 

He didn't attempt to make that assessment. Then, some headline-writing editor apparently came along.

Over the course of the past twenty years, this widespread conflation of "lies" and "false statements" has been a source of constant amazement for us. Just today, we were struck by this letter in the Times—by this letter from a political science professor at the University of Chicago, no less:

To the Editor:

Wait a minute now. Since when does a liar’s sincere belief in his own lies excuse him from committing a crime?

There are legal and illegal ways to pursue a grievance. The question is not whether the accused sincerely believes he was wronged but whether he was able to distinguish right actions from wrong ones.

Donald Trump chose legitimate challenges to the outcome of the 2020 election through ballot challenges and recounts. But at every turn, despite the expert opinion of many of his own advisers and loss after loss in the courts, Mr. Trump went further and pursued illegal means of reversing the vote.

If after November 2020 he was not a reasonable person and unable to tell right from wrong, he should try his luck with an insanity defense.

That sort of thing always astounds us. According to traditional logic and definitions, if some person "has a sincere belief in his own statements," then the statements in questions aren't lies.

If the statements in question are false, that means that the statements in question are misstatements, errors, falsehoods. Indeed, the statements may be so crazily wrong as to seem "delusional."

That doesn't mean that the statements in question are lies! For decades now, we've been amazed to see the way this elementary point of logic escapes us and them the people from our major professors on down.

Corasaniti referred to "false claims." In the headline, the false claims were turned into "lies."

Tomorrow, we'll continue with a question which continues to float around: Is it possible that the election deniers in question are so crazy that they believe their own crazy claims?

Is it possible that Donald J. Trump may actually be that crazy? Again and again, people who know the gentleman say that yes, he actually is. 

The professor ends his letter today with a jibe about mental illness. Adhering to the rules of their trade, our upper-end journalists refuse to consult with appropriate medical experts.

"What is truth?" Pontius Pilate once said. Also, in a related matter, what the Sam Hill is a "lie?"