THE MAGIC SNEAKERS

When I was seven years old, there was a TV ad for a brand of sneakers called PF Flyers. In a deep, confident voice, the TV announcer assured viewers that these shoes that had a “built-in action wedge” that would make you “run faster and jump higher!” The ad showed a cross-sectioned diagram of the wedge followed by a kid a few years older than I was who seemed to be running fast. It seemed so scientific.

And I wanted to Follow the Science.

Neither my siblings nor I asked our parents to buy much. But I wanted to be the fastest kid around. So I asked my Mom for PF Flyers. She observed that my Keds still weren’t worn out. But she said that when the Keds wore out, she’d buy me PF Flyers.

It took months to wear out the Keds. But when I did, I was excited to get the PF Flyers, which came with a special bonus, TV-hyped, signal-sending “decoder ring.”

I was eager to race a kid who used to outrun me. When I did, he still won. And the flimsy plastic ring didn’t signal or decode squat.

These sneakers’ failure to boost my speed and the ring’s cheesiness revealed to me that, no matter how authoritative they sounded, the people on TV lied. Countless additional media lies would follow.

I could tell many stories of being lied to more consequentially than in the above-described situation. I’m confident that many of you could top whatever story with this theme that I’d be willing to share. Discerning truth from untruth, and the effects of failing to do so, is a central part of the human experience.

Many falsehoods are deliberate; telling lies and getting people to believe them was, especially in my youth, a form of play and, often—a way to embarrass and humble the credulous. Other lies were meant to self-aggrandize; people often said they could do things I knew they couldn't do. Aside from outright lies and omissions, exaggeration was/is perhaps the most common, “lite” form of lying.

Kids or adults also routinely said false stuff simply because they were misinformed. They repeated rumors or incorrect statements or opinions that they heard from their parents, siblings, friends or the media.

Consequently, for as long as I can remember, I’ve skeptically processed most statements that I’ve heard or read. I constantly consider whether something someone tells me seems true: fully, partially or not at all. I expect that, reciprocally, other people similarly, continuously evaluate my veracity. I assume that most people know they’ve been lied to often and have adapted their worldview accordingly.

Doing 30 years of litigation fortified my skepticism. The chief difference regarding lies in the legal realm was that people sometimes swore oaths before they lied. They sometimes lied again when they were cross-examined; though often, all or most people in a courtroom or at a deposition could tell they were doing so. While handling cases both on behalf of, and against, government entities, I saw multiple private citizens and government officials lie about core facts.

Alternatively, instead of outright lying, witnesses often said something that was true only in the most literal sense; upon even cursory cross-examination, many such statements were shown to be half-truths. Client-hired “experts” excelled in selective omission. Seeing how ostensible government science experts bent the truth during litigation primed me to disbelieve, years later, the purported Covid “experts.” What the experts I dealt with didn’t say often mattered more than what they did say. Exposing that disparity was what cross-examination was about.

Despite having heard lies for most of their lives, during the Scamdemic, most people, including those who saw themselves as worldly-wise and skeptical, suddenly suspended disbelief. They naively swallowed every statistic and edict that bureaucrats, politicians, the media and their Pharma allies dished out, even though these statements obviously failed to comport with logic and what the public could and should have seen with their own eyes.

Without basis, most people assumed that Anthony Fauci, Debbie Birx, Andrew Cuomo or Gavin Newsom, Lester Holt or Steve Inskeep were morally superior to Willy Loman, Regan and Goneril, George Costanza, timeshare or used cars salesmen, or the announcer on the PF Flyers ad. But there was no intrinsic reason to believe bureaucrats, politicians, the media or Pharma during Coronamania.

Given long-term exposure to mendacity and my understanding of basic Math, Statistics and Biology, I was skeptical and critical from Day 1 of lockdowns, lockouts, quarantines, masks, tests and "vaxxes." All of the government pronouncements sounded false, or at best, misleading. It felt to me like being back in grade school or reading a legal opponent’s expert report: swimming in a sea of thinly-veiled untruth.

Government officials and media editors lied—and undoubtedly laughed out loud behind closed doors—at those who believed their Covid pronouncements. For 47 months, I've repeatedly shaken my head that people believed that some magical virus with its own built-in action wedge presented a universal, existential threat and that a set of nonsensical interventions and shots were needed to save humanity.

For a long time, because the Scamdemic lies were so obvious and damaging, these lies angered me. They still have that effect. But the lying has gone on so long that I’m more weary than angry.

It’s clear that the lying isn’t going to stop. Though the Scamdemicians have fulfilled their near-term political, economic and social objectives, they still want to gaslight the public in order to evade accountability for their lies and to try to preserve some undeserved vestige of credibility.

Generally, the Scamdemic lies have been harder to accept than are most lies because the Covid misrepresentations of case counts, death tolls, mitigation’s benefits and the shots’ efficacy were so obvious. The Scamdemic lies are also harder to swallow than are quotidian fibs because the Scamdemic lies caused society-wide harm. Further, via taxes, the public paid the Covid liars—very well—to lie to them.

One who hears a lie can feel insulted that the liar thinks that his listener is not smart enough to perceive that lie. Perhaps worse, a listener might be angry because the liar knew the listener perceived the liar’s lie but lacked the power to disobey or to punish the liar.

Politicians won’t be held responsible for having lied about a Coronavirus. Almost every politician who supported the Covid overreaction is still in office. Neither federal, state nor local elections since March, 2020 have rebuked politicians for their Scamdemic deceit or oppression.

As the 2024 elections unfold, candidates’ Scamdemic misconduct should be a central issue. What has hurt Americans more than have the lockdowns, lockouts and shots? And what has more clearly revealed poor judgment? When we most needed good, smart leadership, nearly every officeholder failed miserably.

Because they can’t be ousted by voters, bureaucrats have had even more freedom to lie than do politicians. In the private sector, employers would have fired those whom, like the bureaucrats, who lied during Coronamania.

The media also lied with impunity. With 30 years of litigation experience, I could explain the practical obstacles to successful litigation about/against the government’s and media’s Covid lies. But a comprehensive discussion would fill a book. Fundamentally, litigation moves way too slow and costs way too much. And most judges are driven by politics and zeitgeists than by the law and facts. People think the courts will protect them. But often, there’s no legal remedy for serious harm.

The media can also conceal the truth by simply withholding it. For example, the media has declined to report mass-scale Scamdemic iatrogenic and vaxx deaths. Doing so would have made their hospital and Pharma advertisers look bad. While having access to a printing press, a website or a broadcasting license suggests credibility, such access doesn’t ensure veracity. To the contrary, the desire to sell crisis to add readers and viewers and receive Med/Pharma advertising revenue fuel media selectivity and bias. Thus, the mendacious beat goes on.

Given longstanding familiarity with private citizens,’ public officials’ and the media’s falsehoods, and so many peoples’ self-perception as shrewd and circumspect, how could people who have disparaged the government for most of their adult lives and who watch/read the chronically sensationalized news not have seen that these sources frequently mis-portray the world--either affirmatively, or by omission--and did so more than ever during Coronamania? 

The majority suspended reason because they believe their TVs. And now, their computers. Nominal “experts” stood behind nice podiums and newscasters with nice suits and haircuts sat behind nice studio desks and lied to scare viewers. News consumers gullibly ignored the world directly in front of them, which was telling a much less scary story.