Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for March 25, 2021

Yep.

For me it was the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny and the Great Pumpkin

It’s a bit curious that just as fact-checking become easy with sites like Snopes and Polifact, people suddenly don’t care about the truth anymore.

Not believe in Santa? Why wouldn’t you believe in Santa?

A lie can only persist if people want to believe it.

You’d think that they’d get tired of always being wrong. “OK, this time I’ll say that the world is going to end on THIS specific date”, or “THIS current Democratic president will seize all of your guns”, or “sure my preacher has his own fleet of private jets, and I’ve given them my prescription and rent money for months now, but I’m sure that I’ll get rich soon”. We live in a time where there is the most information available and it’s easiest to access it all, yet more people are lemmings who will follow 100% falsehoods off a cliff, repeatedly.

Supply side economics,

trickle down,

tax cuts for the rich pay for themselves,

no connections no collusion,

Trump won the election — by a landslide,

widespread undetectable voter fraud,

Saddam did 9/11,

the invasion of Iraq will pay for itself,

contract with America,

OBAMA IS COMING FOR YOUR GUNS!,

the filibuster has never been used for racist purposes,

good guy with a gun,

guns don’t kill people,

.

It’s OKAY If A Republican* Does It.

First Joe was sitting on the left, then he was sitting on the right, now he’s sitting on the left again. And I thought the bartender was calling these drunks a cab in the last strip. What’s this? After hours?

“Lies! Damm Lies!! And Statistics!!!” Mark Twain

Lies are not so easily refuted with facts. It is not easy to know what are (the) facts. It is not so easy to know who is telling the truth, who is only telling part of truth, who is hiding, withholding, or covering up the truth, and who is straight out lying. The news today so often comes with a bias, a slant, or a spin.

And with so many claiming fake news … And when so many (only) hear or believe what they want to believe …

Supply side economics was created to give a legal way around price gouging.

I never believed in Santa.

Facts mean nothing when there’s no accountability for the lying. Believe what you like; lie to yourself. Then you’ll be Woke.

Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story: https://youtu.be/46dcQE2mzPI

Some of the time, disillusionment can be less hard on children than on middle aged adults, even thought it’s a given by the time you get there.

“Trust, but verify” is more difficult when the verification sources are what we want to trust. …but verify

When the Great Panda returns to save our souls, then we will see who was right (Me) and who was wrong (everyone else).

Certainly looks like a Nixon-type guy there….

They’ve been touting supply-side for a long, long time, too.

“There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests upon them.” – William Jennings Bryan, 1896

Seriously—ego-nomics and all of its underlying “isms”: capitalism, socialism, communism are the greatest challenge to humans as a species. We keep thinking we can violate the laws of the plane—chemistry, biology and physics—with impunity, but Nature always bats last and bats 1.000. She is very simple: fit in, or get kicked out. Humans are as probably the most under-performing asset of the planet with regards to it’s overall "purpose’, which is to create and maintain life.

“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” ~ Mark Twain

Anti-vaxxers, anti-gun control, election deniers, climate change deniers, poverty deniers ………………………….

How many people still believe in Santa and Trump?

Read today’s Herb and Jamaal strip for a good quote.

Divorce courts are chock full of people who have the same facts, the same information, the same shared life experiences, yet have arrived at different opinions of what those facts mean and what should be done about it. Physical facts are easily observed and measured and verified; the world is round. Social facts are just as real, but open to interpretation and opinion. ’I’m pregnant" a teenage girl announces at the supper table. The fact is real, but reactions and thoughts about what the pregnancy means and what to do about it may vary widely around the table. Politics, and political differences, arise from verifiable facts, but facts of a social nature, fraught with emotion and open to difference of opinion. Do NOT hate someone because their political view differs from yours.

Truth is inconvenient, especially for the religious, rich, and politically ambitious.

Just depends on what “facts” you believe.

There is nothing free about the Free Market.

Facts are illusory. And truth is a fiction. Accept it and move on.

I don’t share Joe’s experience of aging. I find that the older I get, the more comfortable I am with subtlety and shading, nuance and uncertainty. In my observation, it’s the young who suffer disillusionment and their elders tend to roll with reality.

Rejection of verifiable facts is the basis of religious politics..

I have noticed that most liars tend to say a unsubstantiated, controversial statement of fact and then just keep repeating it or not respond when criticized: liars tend to not debate lies.

Word.

This was originally a reply to Holden Awn, up above, but I thought I’d post it here, also. Here we go:

If one spouse was having an affair (or multiple affairs), yet the other one wasn’t, they haven’t had the same shared life experiences even during the course of the marriage, let alone the separate lives they lived before the marriage. And only some politics arise from verifiable facts. There are no Jewish space lasers, Obama was not born in Kenya. the election was not rigged and stolen for Biden. Yet plenty of people in politics (whether as office-holders, candidates, or merely voters) cling to these and other lunacies, which are easily refuted by FACTS. I’ve never hated anybody because their political views differ from my own. Like most people, my views are not static but are (I hope) evolving. (When I originally registered to vote, I did so as a Republican. I never was a registered Democrat—I consider myself to be an independent moderate—but have voted Democrat much more often in recent years.) I do think that every person who stormed the Capitol should be punished to the full extent of the law, and I do have contempt for them. But I don’t “hate them for their political views.” I have contempt for their treasonous actions.

On the lighter side, I wonder when Danae and Kate (and Cap’n Eddie) first learned the discouraging truth about Santa Claus……….

I didn’t know that was his brother.

Guess I’m just lucky; I don’t trust people.

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” Aldous Huxley

I’m glad my parents never lied to me about Santa. And my adult kids are glad I didn’t lie to them either.

Actually supply side works. Government spending, the left’s alternative, all sticks to the government bureaucrats and their best friends. Funny you think the truth is a lie. Ironic.

What? Did something happen to Santa?

Because this is Non Sequiter, and absolutely having nothing to do with the cartoon, and just to prove that I (along with many billions of others) still have my sense of humor intact, please enjoy this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em93VsdGLd0

And just to prove that I really, really DO have a heart and am not completely filled with vinegar, go get your tissues and watch this 30-second clip. This little girl is having a huge amount of fun, but it’s the last 5 seconds that prove she is in command of all that’s important.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em93VsdGLd0