Common Sense 309 – A Bodyguard Of Lies
Secrecy, hacking, information leaks, whistle-blowers, foreign-operative propaganda pushers, disinformation, election tampering and the search for any truth in cyberspace occupy Dan's thoughts in this show.
2016, Dan Carlin
Common Sense with Dan Carlin
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Long Summary
In this episode, I delve into the current political landscape, expressing my concerns about the presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. I highlight the challenges Clinton faces due to her long history in politics and the potential for scandal to affect her presidency. On the other hand, I critique Trump for his narcissistic tendencies and question his true motives for running for office.
Shifting gears, I discuss the concept of objective truth and how it has evolved over time, reflecting on the difficulty of engaging in meaningful discussions when individuals lack a common understanding of basic facts. I express frustration with the current state of political discourse, noting that despite increased engagement, much of the conversation lacks substance and historical context.
I draw attention to the importance of information in shaping discussions and decision-making in a free society. I reflect on the need for a shared foundation of knowledge to facilitate productive conversations and informed decision-making. Furthermore, I contemplate the extent of freedom in society today compared to previous decades, suggesting a potential decline in active citizen participation and alignment between government policies and public preferences.
Overall, the episode touches on the complexities of political dynamics, the challenges of navigating differing perspectives, and the critical role of information in shaping discourse and societal engagement.
Shifting gears, I discuss the concept of objective truth and how it has evolved over time, reflecting on the difficulty of engaging in meaningful discussions when individuals lack a common understanding of basic facts. I express frustration with the current state of political discourse, noting that despite increased engagement, much of the conversation lacks substance and historical context.
I draw attention to the importance of information in shaping discussions and decision-making in a free society. I reflect on the need for a shared foundation of knowledge to facilitate productive conversations and informed decision-making. Furthermore, I contemplate the extent of freedom in society today compared to previous decades, suggesting a potential decline in active citizen participation and alignment between government policies and public preferences.
Overall, the episode touches on the complexities of political dynamics, the challenges of navigating differing perspectives, and the critical role of information in shaping discourse and societal engagement.
Brief Summary
In this episode, we discuss the presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses. We also explore the evolving concept of objective truth and the importance of a shared knowledge base for productive discussions. Lastly, we reflect on the decline in citizen engagement and its impact on societal dynamics.
Tags
episode
presidential candidates
Hillary Clinton
Donald Trump
strengths
weaknesses
objective truth
shared knowledge base
citizen engagement
societal dynamics
Transcript
[0:00]
Sponsors
[0:00]
Today's show is sponsored by Audible. Go to audiblepodcast.com forward slash Dan Carlin for a free audio book with a 30-day trial membership. He's Dan Carlin, and this is Common Sense.
[0:14]
Hillary Clinton
[0:17]
I know many of you want me to talk about the election, but I have to be honest with you. Like many of you, I find the whole thing depressing. And everybody gets mad at me, as you might expect, because I don't pick sides because I don't like any of them, which seems to be the majority position for most Americans right now. So maybe in that sense, I'm just a follower. But with Hillary Clinton, we have the champion of the establishment running. So everything we talk about when we talk about corruption in government, or she's a neoconservative, basically, I mean, all these things that we have problems with, Hillary Clinton is the poster child for those. So when we talk sometimes and we use that metaphor about the ship of state heading towards an iceberg, Hillary Clinton is not the person to steer us away from the iceberg. She's one of the main types of people in this system who for more than 20 years has been setting the course. She steered toward the iceberg.
[1:12]
When you watch, there's something about her where she is so suspicious of everything. And maybe rightly so. So she's been hounded by, you know, opposition since the days when her husband was the governor of Arkansas, that she is habitually almost Nixonian about things. And it will catch up with her and it will catch up with her if she becomes president, because the Republicans will investigate her for, you know, 90 percent of stuff that never happened is not real and 10 percent of stuff that might be. And she's going to act in a way that gets her in trouble. The political system and the ability to destroy your political opponents through the politics of scandal will work very well on her. And to believe that that won't happen, you would have to believe that the Republican opposition would act differently than they always have, and that they already are. Are so as the old saying goes if current trends continue and if hillary clinton becomes president all those women who are so excited about having the first female president and i would be excited about that myself actually the father of two girls my girls ask me difficult to answer questions along those lines all the time i doubt she's going to be the poster child you're looking for in the long run
[2:22]
The other guy
[2:20]
and then there's the other guy who is who defies description really. And in the last show i think it was it's so long ago i can't remember a thousand apologies ladies and gentlemen but the good news is i've been getting a ton done on the history show and so whenever you don't hear me doing some work over here i'm probably doing work over there.
[2:42]
But said some things about Trump in the last show, which were totally honest. And, you know, the Trumpites got all angry with me. But that's how it's going to be, folks. And the one critique that's so funny is the one that suggested that because for 25 years I've been saying I want an outsider who's going to come in and upset the system and blah, blah, blah, that I have to be a Trump supporter. As though it doesn't matter who shows up at your door representing that figure. You are pledged to vote for them regardless. Well, I'm sorry. It didn't work that way.
[3:10]
He's one of the strangest candidates i've ever seen i don't think i'm out of line here saying the guy is a narcissist i think that's on display for everyone and i mean on on a scale of one to ten he's an 11 narcissist because i think a lot of these politicians fall into the narcissism category somewhere on the spectrum and i don't think he's believable and i'm tempted to believe what others have said that maybe he doesn't even look like he really wants the job wouldn't it be be the greatest political story in all american history if a guy got this far in the electoral campaign when he really didn't want the job that he ran for subsidiary reasons i don't know if any of that's true but it's it's interesting to wonder about i happen to believe that hillary clinton loses to almost any candidate you could think of if they're not i mean donald trump he's he's an amazingly polarizing figure in a way like i said i think i think standard operating procedure procedure candidates crush hillary clinton because of her unpopularity so this is a depressing election for yours truly because i seemingly get what i want and i get it like a a weird sort of twisty way i think i'm getting that birthday cake and it's loaded with nails nonetheless uh so i'm not talking about it because it doesn't matter at this point for me um.
[4:26]
Neither one of those people are going to solve my problems. Now,
[4:31]
The death of objective truth
[4:30]
on a different front, though, there was something interesting going on that I think is worth talking about. And it dovetails into what I consider to be the larger issues than who the president of the United States may be, you know, next January.
[4:44]
And i guess you could say bottom line it revolves around information or back in my more, protest-y righteous self-righteous heyday i probably would have said instead of information i would have put a spin on it and said truth when i was about 20 i wrote a piece and it was never published which you know i'm grateful for now but i had talked to i think i called it the death of objective truth and at the time and this was probably 1985 or something you know i was talking about how once upon a time there was certain agreed upon facts and and upon those facts you could then build an argument and when you had an argument with somebody else about you know which way the country should turn to this or that political event you wouldn't be arguing about the base level facts there would be an understanding and agreement on that and you can have the the arguments now on the merit of the specific case you're not going back and arguing well i don't even believe that you're right about your basic assumptions but the reason i'm glad that wasn't published 20 years ago is i think an older wiser more cynical version of me today realizes that there never was anything like objective truth i think that's a 20 year old's fantasy.
[5:58]
Nonetheless i do find myself in positions all the time now well for a long time but but i know many of you are in the same boat i'm not talking to the general public on this show we used to have a saying it's a little it's a little insulting so i apologize if if it was but but very early on one of the slogans we use for this show is that if the show is too smart for you it's not our fault, and we've never dumbed the show down you know for a common denominator i figure that it's an an unserved audience. If you're talking about things reasonably, you know, at a high level, and I think we do things at a reasonably high level. So you folks are not really my target audience. When I say that I find sort of a certain jealousy in my mother-in-law's book clubs.
[6:41]
Because she'll go to these book clubs and they're popular, uh, um, women like these things. And especially, you know, moms and, and whatnot, and they'll join these book clubs and they'll all decide you know we're going to read this book and then when we finish it we'll all get together over coffee and we'll talk about the book and the reason i'm jealous about it is because, well they've all read the same book nobody's going to argue about what happened to the main character and all these things you can talk about what you think above and beyond you know the events themselves right we all agree that this happened now what do we think about it it's the what do we think about it part that is the really meaty fruitful part of a political discussion discussion not the arguing over the basic facts back in debating class that was considered a debate technique for the person that couldn't win the argument can't win the argument question the sources divert the entire affair so you're not talking about the thing you can't win you're now talking about where this person got their information from right we went to the book club meeting and i read this book and you read that one doesn't make for a very interesting conversation about what we thought, right?
[7:44]
We don't know the same things
[7:44]
so i find myself jealous that we all haven't read the same books, because i'll have discussions with people about things and i can't get to square one because we don't know the same things if that makes sense.
[8:00]
You know, you want to explain a certain reality, but they don't know about that reality. And so you find yourself having a discussion about, well, this happened back here and blah, blah, blah. In other words, you know, 10 minutes into it, you realize you're not discussing the issue that you wanted to discuss at all. You're trying to find a meaningful point of agreement at a very earlier level, a factual level. I mean, case in point, what we're talking about essentially is information, right? Truth, as I would have said as a 20-year-old.
[8:30]
Nonsense Discussions
[8:31]
The reason this is so important is because without it you are not having the right discussion i mean in the united states today i venture a guess that we have never ever in our history talked more often with more people involved in the discussion of politics ever i mean we have millions and millions of people who tune into political radio and tell i mean it's huge right lots of people talking about it but when you look at the discussion so much of it is nonsense and the discussion about the things that aren't really happening or or have no basis or i mean it's as though the people talking about them were born yesterday and have no sense of what came before so you can't even have a conversation because we don't even know the same things.
[9:20]
And it's immensely frustrating and it boils down to you know something that we've talked about on this program a lot because you know i'm addicted to trying to find at least what appeared to be to me root causes of things which is why i think the show gets boring at times because i think when you factor things down to root causes you end up with four to eight root causes and they're the same ones that you could factor almost anything down to one of them is information though,
[9:48]
Free Society
[9:48]
in a free society and i say this a lot because folks free societies exist on a spectrum too and you can say today we still live in a free society but are we the same number on the dial of a free society as we were 30 or 40 years ago if a higher number denotes a more free society more free and open society where the people are more involved in the decision making and the government somehow adopts policies that are somehow connected to what the people want i bet you could make a case that we were an eight on a scale of 10 back when i was growing up and we're a four now still ill-free societies, but we're down four notches.