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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 2024

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I would rather a politician tell me something true but incomplete/misleading, rather than tell me something false but directionally correct.

This strikes me as incredibly strange for anyone to believe.

What the 'Trump lies like a used car salesman, Democrats lie like lawyers' line is saying is something along the lines of this: who do you prefer, the guy who is trying to sell you a used car as new when there's bullet holes in the dash and bloodstains on the back seat? Or the guy who uses a technicality in court to screw you over? They are very different. The first graft is on you to recognize when the wool is being pulled over your eyes. The second is backed by the full force of an edifice and system of law that is impossible for any single person to challenge without prodigious resources.

When push comes to shove, I doubt that you would choose the first. If you were woken up in the middle of the night by a fire alarm, would you rather someone tell you 'it's a minor disturbance' or 'your sofa is on fire!' If politics matters at all, or if you buy that it's the continuation of war by other means, being directionally correct matters a hell of a lot more than you think it does.