A Couple of Wild Tales

 Years ago I worked with a guy who had served in the army during the Vietnam war. He told some of us  a story that the MIAs from the war were not really missing in action or prisoners of  the North Vietnamese but rather were held by our government in a secret sanatorium/prison camp in the Philippines because they had contracted the incurable black syphilis in Southeast Asia and were being kept in permanent quarantine to prevent the disease from spreading to the United States.  We  listened politely and  took it as another tall tale from a guy who liked to tell tall tales.

But suppose someone had a reason for taking the story seriously enough to ponder whether to believe it was or to think it might be true. How would he go about deciding reasonably?  He wouldn’t  accept it on faith. He might ask himself whether the person telling the story was generally honest and level headed, and ask him whether he had seen the camp or only heard about it from a guy who heard about it from a guy who heard about it from a guy who said he had seen it.  He might wonder why almost all the listed MIAs were people who disappeared in combat, rather than having vanished  from the streets of Saigon. He  could ask himself why there were no reports of the black syphilis  spreading from Vietnam to other places or infecting anyone in Vietnam or other countries in Southeast Asia, or even existing and infecting anyone anywhere.  He could wonder how, if the story were true, such a secret could have been kept. Most of all, a reasonable person would want to know what evidence the guy telling the story had for his extraordinary claim.  The evidence would have to be compelling to get him  to believe the story and very good to make him even consider it as a possibility. Without evidence  a reasonable person would  dismiss or ignore the story and perhaps wonder whether the one telling it was lying, just having fun pulling people’s legs, or maybe at least a little strange in the head.

Now consider a guy  telling people a story that his landslide victory in  the most recent American presidential election was stolen from him in a huge, nationwide conspiracy with millions of votes mysteriously  switched on compromised voting machines, hundreds of thousands of bogus mail in ballots secretly delivered to counting sites in the middle of the night, thousands of flawed ballots approved by crooked election officials including those of his own party, and untold numbers of votes allowed from dead people, double voters, illegal aliens, people who had not established residence, and others  who should not have voted.

How would a person go about deciding reasonably what to think of that story? He wouldn’t take it on faith. He would remember that the man telling it has no reputation for general honesty and level headedness, but rather the opposite.  He would notice that the storyteller did not  directly observe the events he said happened. He might wonder why election officials  of the man’s own party, people who wanted him to win, have said and  ruled that the election was on the up and up, and the votes were counted accurately. He could ask himself  why the man’s  lawsuits on the election were unsuccessful, and why the man’s own attorney general and head of cyber security contradicted his claims. He could consider how many people would have to have been in on the conspiracy to bring it off and be puzzled why none of them had been caught or induced to rat out his confederates.  Most of all, a reasonable person would want to know what evidence the man telling the story had for his extraordinary claim.  The evidence would have to be compelling to get him  to believe the story and very good to make him even consider it as a possibility. Without evidence  a reasonable person would  dismiss or ignore the story and wonder whether the one telling it was lying or maybe at least a little strange in the head or both, since the man clearly was not pulling anyone’s leg.

I know decent, usually sensible people who wanted Trump to win  and in their disappointment have accepted his story about a stolen election. They are not credulous fools, and they would not have bought the first story. They need to be honest with themselves and stop believing the second because it stands up very little better.  They and people like them  have been conned, and the sooner they realize it, the better off the country will be. Others should try to help them realize it. Dismissive ridicule won’t work, but polite, rational persuasion might at least some of the time.