by Simon Black
Isabella Blagden’s 1869 novel The Crown of a Life wasn’t exactly a smashing success.
The book is actually pretty captivating. But literature at the time was dominated by titans like Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Dickens, Bronte, Jules Verne, and George Eliot. And Blagden’s work didn’t stand a chance against such lofty competition.
That’s why few people today probably know her name or have ever heard of the book. But it does contain an important passage that has rung true for more than 150 years–
There’s a scene in her book where the protagonist Hugh Walsingham confronts Count Thurner about a diamond heist (I told you– it’s a real page-turner!). And in his response, Thurner states:
“If a lie is only printed often enough, it becomes a quasi-truth.”
Over the years this passage has been summarized as “a lie told often enough becomes the truth.” And ironically it has been misattributed so many times– typically to either Vladimir Lenin or Joseph Goebbels (Hitler’s head of propaganda)– that no one knows the name Isabella Blagden.
But her words remain incredibly prescient today.
Just take a look at the uproar over the State of Georgia’s new voting law, which has been decried from sea to shining sea as racist and white supremacist.
The Twitter mob claims, for example, that the legislation forbids passing out water to voters who are standing in line waiting to cast their ballots.
This is totally wrong. In fact Section 33(e) of the law expressly states “this code section shall not be construed to prohibit a poll officer . . . from making available self-service water from an unattended receptacle.”
So, yes, there can be water. What they’re trying to avoid are campaign workers trying to influence voters with free goodies at the last minute while people are standing in line at the polls.
Someone might think it’s a silly rule that goes overboard. But if that section of the law is racist, then plenty of other states are guilty of the same thing. It’s not just Georgia.
Section 17-140 of New York State’s new 2020 voting law, for example, makes it a Class A misdemeanor for anyone to provide “any meat, drink, tobacco, refreshment or provision” to voters standing in line to cast their ballots.
So New York’s law is OK. But the same concept in Georgia’s law is racist. Obviously this makes no sense, but people continue to repeat the lie.
Even the President of the United States has chimed in calling the law “Jim Crow on Steroids” because it supposedly closed off polling stations at 5pm, effectively restricting people with jobs from being able to vote.
This assertion was just flat-out untrue. It was such a big lie, in fact, that even the ultra-liberal “fact checkers” at Vox and the Washington Post had to admit that Dementia-in-Chief was totally wrong.
But that hasn’t stopped people from repeating his lie over and over again.
Then there’s the most egregious section of all: Georgia’s voting law requires that people show ID before they’re allowed to vote.
This has made the Twitter mob lose its mind… because, somehow, asking someone to present identification is an act of racism and white supremacy.
This is a completely illogical assertion. Why is it racist? Is the woke Twitter mob trying to suggest that people of color don’t have ID? It’s as if, according to Twitter, every black motorist on the road in Georgia must be driving illegally because none of them has a valid driver’s license.
Clearly this is an incredibly ridiculous assumption. But it doesn’t stop anyone from repeating the lie: Georgia’s voter law is racist.
In fact ALL changes to voting laws are now racist. Just ask Twitter. Alabama’s HB1112, which also requires that voters show ID, is racist.
Yet, coincidentally, ZERO changes that were made to voting laws LAST YEAR are considered racist.
That’s right. 2021 voting law changes: racist. 2020 voting law changes: NOT racist.
The fact that none of this makes sense is totally irrelevant. They simply continue repeating the lie until people believe it to be true.
Now even big businesses are in on the lie. The so-called “Civic Alliance,” which is a group of more than 1,100 businesses across the Land of the Free, has signed a petition blasting Georgia’s (and other states’) new voter laws.
The Civic Alliance includes such woke titans as Amazon, AirBnB, Facebook, Uber, Target, McDonalds, Microsoft, Pepsi, Hilton, MTV, United Airlines, PayPal, etc.
Even AMC Theaters is on the list! (as if they don’t have other things to worry about…)
Honestly this is just hilarious. United Airlines thinks it’s racist that people have to show ID to vote, even though you have to show ID to check in for a flight. PLUS United puts you through facial recognition at select airports before you board your flight.
Dozens of states in the Land of the Free require hotel guests to present ID before they check in. Does Hilton Hotels also consider these laws racist?
PayPal (and many other financial institutions) are on the list. Yet they obviously require vast amounts of identification, including a bloody utility bill or proof of address, before you’re allowed to access your own money. Racist!
Even many vaccination sites ask people to show ID before they receive a COVID shot. Is this also racist?
This is all so completely absurd. The media, the federal government, the big corporations, the Twitterati– they all keep repeating these ridiculous lies over and over and over again.
And in Blagden’s words, it’s becoming quasi-truth.
There’s even a “Storyline Toolkit” on the Civic Alliance website “to help content creators authentically and impactfully integrate civic themes into their filmes, TV shows, podcast episodes and more. . .”
In other words, these big companies are providing propaganda tools to help content creators spread the lie.
They’re not even trying to hide their intentions anymore.