the alex jones trial

[solarbird]

Sebastian Murdock · @SebastianMurdoc · 3:51 PM · 2 août 2022:
[Judge] Gamble: You're abusing my tolerance and making asides to the jury improperly. Do you understand what I have said? Yes or no.

[Alex] Jones: Yes. I believe what I said was true

Gamble: Your beliefs do not make something true. That's what we're doing here...it does not protect you."

minjonet guillard · @minjonet_blue · 3:51 PM · 2 août 2022:

"I believe what I said was true," Alex Jones said, despite factually it being indisputably factually untrue.

Let's unravel this.

I am going to talk about this in English, as it exceeds my student French and while I can speak acceptably in Japanese, I am an illiterate barbarian.

It's very tempting to say, "yeah, and he lied again right there." It would be _better_ were that the case, but...

I've written elsewhere about how the @GOP's definition of truth is "what serves the cause." Not what the facts say, not reality, just: does it serve the cause?

In this case, you have something very similar: _do I want it to be true?_

If yes, he can then _decide to believe it is true_.

He wants it to be true, because it serves a cause, which in this case, his _him_. It is both an expansion and a contraction of scope.

Once he has _decided to believe it is true_, then he is clear to say it _without lying_.

Because, after all, he believes it, and if he believes it, it's not a lie.

[IMAGE: George Costanza, a character from the TV show Seinfield, saying "Just remember, it's not a lie if you believe it."]

So if he is saying something he believes, it is a not a lie, so therefore, it is _true_, because actual facts aren't part of his definition of truth.

The definition of truth is whether he wants to believe it. He wants to believe it because it serves the cause, which is him.

In a way, this separates him from the conscious operators of the GOP. The fact that goes through all these layers of justification means that he _needs to_ go through all these layers of justification, whereas most GOP operators simply don't care.

For them, it's just about power at any cost.

For him... somewhere inside, he still needs to be a hero.

It doesn't make him better, since after all, it is all still about him. But it does make him just that little bit different.

It's possible that this, too, is a front. But I think it's not, because he's being too dumb about it for that, getting himself into far too much serious trouble.

Defaming the people you're charged with defaming literally as you're in court fighting charges of defamation?

_Wow._

It's not something even the worst-faith of MAGAt operatives would do.

Flynn wouldn't do this; we know that, because he didn't. He even plead the 5th to "do you believe in the peaceful transition of power"?

But it's _absolutely_ what someone who thinks they're a _hero_ would do.

[IMAGE: Polka-Dot Man from Suicide Squad saying, "I'm a superhero!"]

No matter how much, in his case, he's _absolutely not_.

I'm just glad the judge is having none - as in none. at. all. - of it.

Comments

[armiphlage]

And a slightly different version of this is "I was/am playing a role, and the character I am playing believes this to be true". He tried using that in his child custody trial (unsuccessfully).

I met the gay nephew of the (at the time) Premier of my province at a party, when the Premier was enacting harsh anti-2SLGBTIQA+ policies (including making the Youth Help Line pay back a grant that had been given by the previous government!). The nephew said that his uncle wasn't really homophobic, but was just acting like one because his job was to act like he was that way.

[solarbird]

If anything, that's worse.

[armiphlage]

I agree; I'm not sure why though, but it is.