große Lüge

The Big Lie. Gen Xers and later may not know the term, but some of us grew up knowing a little history.

A big lie (German: große Lüge) is a propaganda technique. The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, about the use of a lie so “colossal” that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” Hitler falsely claimed the technique was used by Jews to blame Germany’s loss in World War I on German general Erich Ludendorff, who was a prominent nationalist and antisemitic political leader in the Weimar Republic.”

So. Make a lie so big that the gullible will assume no one could make that up, and repeat it so often that it works its way into thought processes and becomes the “truth.” While Hitler accused Jews of using the technique, his accusation was itself the epitome of the big lie.

I’ve found, though, that the große Lüge has another effect that… works even on those who question everything: Sheer frickin’ exhaustion and frustration.

I am the editor of the weekly TZP alert newsletter. The bulk of the news letter is a collation of RKBA-related news (and other items that I think will interest our readers). I scour media sources of various slants for news good and bad. I try to find stuff that never makes it onto your television screen.

I make a special effort to include material about what victim disarmers are up to. “Know your enemy” stuff.

große Lüge stuff, it turns out.

  • 90% of Americans want this gun control
  • Assault rifles are the favored weapon of criminals
  • Assault rifles are the same thing as assault weapons
  • 5.56 NATO is an incredibly high-powered “bullet”
  • Background checks would have stopped the Sandy Hook massacre
  • Guns are designed to be loud so you know to run
  • Guns aren’t loud enough to damage hearing
  • The TEC-9 is a submachine gun
  • Guns kill more people than car accidents
  • And the recent favorite lie that Congress eliminated background checks (the Social Security rule)

…and on and on and on, over and over and over…

The problem is, those long since debunked lies keep going like the zombie apocalypse. They annoy me. At one time, I hoped that by writing to “authorized journalists” I could potentially educate the merely ignorant, and put the ones deliberately distorting facts on notice that we know what they’re up to. But I can’t keep up. The lies spread like whack-a-mole with hydras instead of obnoxious little mammals.

So I rarely bother with that angle any longer. More usually, I’ll respond by penning a sarcastic post that blares the offender’s stupidity to the world. Or as much as might be paying attention to little ol’ me.

That’s mildly satisfying. For about thirty seconds. Until I see the next repeat of the same bloody große Lüge. So it has gotten to the point that I’ll be halfway through another piece…

…and give it up. Because the große Lüge will just pop up in another media hole anyway.

Facebooktwitterredditpinteresttumblrmail

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *