BrianGarst.com

The Daily Caller recently reported on a twitter exchange between Matt Yglesias, blogger savant at Think Progress, and the Washington Examiner’s Mark Hemingway.  During the discussion, Yglesias basically endorsed lying and deception as legitimate when used to advance the left-wing agenda.

“Fighting dishonesty with dishonesty is sometimes the right thing for advocates to do, yes,” said Yglesias.

The exchange, with Washington Examiner writer Mark Hemingway, came on the heels of a debate between the two on transportation policy.

Yglesias pressed his point with another conservative writer, saying, “Do you really think deception is immoral in all circumstances?”

Well, no.  But who’s talking about all circumstances?  We’re talking about public debates and policy.  Stay focused, Matt.

…[W]hat set off a flurry of Tweets today – and Yglesias’s advocacy of lying – was a charge by Yglesias via Twitter that Washington Timesreporter Eli Lake has a “deserved reputation for dishonesty.” Hemingway, Lake and others confronted Yglesias on Twitter about the charge, pointing out that Yglesias himself had actually advocated dishonesty.

“When [Yglesias] gets frustrated because he can’t counter an argument, he calls people ‘dishonest’,” Lake said, also calling him “a child.”

Yglesias’s Twitter opponents also charged he does not take criticism well.

Then, Yglesias dug in, saying lying was a necessary part of politics.

In concluding his interview with The Daily Caller, Yglesias said “go fuck yourself” and hung up the phone.

Lying is a part of politics because liars are a part of politics, but it’s hardly necessary.

This ends-justify-the-means attitude seems unfortunately common on the left. That’s not to say it doesn’t exist on the right – it does – but it’s not publicly embraced and doesn’t seem as prevalent.

Just look at Saul Alinsky, the intellectual father of nearly everyone in the Obama administration. He was no high-minded idealist out to convince others of his views.  Deception was an integral part of his disgusting strategy.

The reason the left is so willing to accept the use of dishonesty to advance their agenda is correlated with the very nature of their beliefs.  The reason they support big government nanny states is because they think people are too stupid to take care of themselves.  It should come as no surprise, then, that they’d also think people are too stupid to reach the correct conclusions (in their minds) given an honest accounting of the facts.