Paid Liars

A weird thing I learned, back when I would spend a bit of time in official DC, is that "giving paid liars a seat at the table" isn't just part of the culture of cable news. It's just how things are done, and it's all on the level of Respectful Debate, in that you can argue with someone, politely, but you can't point that they're mendacious liars who lie for high 6 figures.

One really has to have a brain adjustment to deal with this, and having it be the cultural norm that you experience for decades must have a corrosive effect on your ability to discern bad faith actors from good faith ones, as you spend most of your time suppressing that.

There are good faith do-gooder activists/lobbyists, but they're on the same moral and ethical footing as the liars. You know, guy who wants to stop global warming who works for $60K per year is just the same as the army of lawyer/lobbyists from Exxon.