Friday, February 17, 2017

Ignorance is no Excuse

   A major reason why tough questions are put to the president so often is that many of his comments are ill informed, misinformed, misleading and just plain wrong.
   These are some of the more charitable terms used to describe his claims. A less charitable term is ignorance, as he continues to say things that are clearly false to anyone who reads or has a decent memory about current and recent events.
   And someone with even less sympathy would say he lies.
   But the difference would be in whether the perpetrator of a falsehood is aware of the truth but speaks the contrary anyway. That would be a conscious decision, and therefore a lie.
   At root, the word "ignorant" simply means "not knowing," and that can explain or even excuse many things among the uneducated. Here too a knowledge of word derivations is useful -- "educate" means "to lead out" of "ignorance" (not knowing).
   There are some circumstances, however, when ignorance is no excuse. Such a claim doesn't work when caught driving 80 miles per hour on a city street.
   Nor does it work when defending comments made by a president of the United States of America. He should know, and he should be clever enough to gather into his circle of advisors experts who do know, and he should listen to and heed their expert advice.
   This guy seems to do none of the above.

1 comment:

  1. Well said, as always John. For our President to be ignorant of the facts, and/or refuse to listen to them, is frightening.And, to present falsehoods as facts is even more frightening.

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