# Why is #FauciLied trending? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 11, 2022, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602 "2022-01-11T18:50:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2022, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602/41 "2022-01-13T12:36:13Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Oh FFS, it was pointed out back then that the advise was bullshit. For instance. > [Opinion | Why Telling People They Don’t Need Masks Backfired - The New York Times (nytimes.com)](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-masks.html) That opinion piece doesn’t mention Fauci at all let alone state that he lied. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2022, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602/42 "2022-01-13T13:14:23Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > I swear to God, if a Pearl Harbor were to happen today, the Republican Party would be siding with the Japanese military. Half of them would side with the Japanese, half of them would deny the attack had ever occurred, half of them would say it was a false flag attack by Big Aircraft Carrier to do away with the battleships that were perfectly adequate to protect 'Murica up until then, and the last half would never even notice the mathematical impossibly of all these beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2022, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602/43 "2022-01-13T14:36:00Z")
Of course not, they consider him some sort of elected champion separate from the “Government” itself, by which they mean the governmental organizations NOT staffed by elected people, and largely run by unelected bureaucrats. They don’t realize just how much of the Federal government is actually managed/run by the Executive branch, and make a further assumption that any non-Republican or unelected employee is automatically working for/under the thumb of/part of the Democrats and/or Deep State, and can’t be trusted, there’s a clear and present political axe to grind, and that anything that is out of the ordinary is proof of that untrustworthiness and political slant. It’s like they take the automatic tack that the worst possible explanation is the one true one, whether or not it makes sense. For example, my city and department had a scandal of sorts some time back that dealt with the police department and DA’s office, and people in the community automatically jumped to accusations of payoffs and corruption and nefarious interference, etc… In fact seeing it from the inside and having deduced who caused the problem, I’m FAR more inclined to believe it was incompetence and lack of oversight that caused the issue, than anything else. But since some sort of corruption _could_ have happened, they’re assuming that it must have happened, and that there’s some kind of conspiracy, rather than one dumb-shit doing something colossally stupid and his managers trusting their workers too much. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2022, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602/44 "2022-01-13T22:31:46Z")
> [@Lance\_Turbo](#): > > That opinion piece doesn’t mention Fauci at all let alone state that he lied. Do we actually need to read our own cites before using them in a discussion? I need to rethink how I do things around here. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602/45 "2022-01-14T11:46:46Z")
Also, consider the “logic” of this argument, which is implicitly conceding masks work. Fauci is being demonized (and even having his life threatened) because at one point, almost two years ago, he didn’t recommend masks for all. Meanwhile many Republicans right now are _still_ fighting against mask mandates, they still spread misinformation about masks and even break rules about wearing masks in Congress. Popular right wing pundits tell their viewers to accost people in the street who are wearing masks, and go kick up a fuss at school board discussions. Rand Paul, one of the people giving Fauci the most shit, still attended group events and went to the gym when he knew he was positive. All _that_ is fine. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602/46 "2022-01-14T16:40:42Z")
Republicans can hold four contradictory ideas in their heads before breakfast. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602/47 "2022-01-14T17:04:50Z")
I look forward to the people who are up in arms about Fauci lying (once, two years ago, if you kind of squint and ignore all the context) responding in a proportionate manner to other more notable liars of late. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2022, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602/48 "2022-01-15T03:29:56Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Republicans can hold four contradictory ideas in their heads before breakfast. six   ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2022, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602/49 "2022-01-15T03:33:58Z")
Has this been mentioned yet? Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan), the guy that Fauci called a moron for not believing that Fauci has done his financial disclosures for 37 years, has submitted a proposed Financial Accountability for Uniquely Compensated Individuals (FAUCI) Act. > [@](#): > > The FAUCI Act would require the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) website to provide the financial records of administration officials like Fauci and a list of those in the government whose financial records are not public. > **[GOP senator plans to introduce FAUCI Act after clash at hearing](https://news.yahoo.com/gop-senator-plans-introduce-fauci-002241393.html)** > > Republican Sen. Roger Marshall (Kan.) plans to introduce a bill named after Anthony Fauci after he clashed with the nation's top infectious diseases expert at a Senate hearing this week. Marshall will be introducing the Financial Accountability for... ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2022, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602/50 "2022-01-15T06:32:08Z")
> [@bump](#): > > It’s like they take the automatic tack that the worst possible explanation is the one true one, whether or not it makes sense. For example, my city and department had a scandal of sorts some time back that dealt with the police department and DA’s office, and people in the community automatically jumped to accusations of payoffs and corruption and nefarious interference, etc… In fact seeing it from the inside and having deduced who caused the problem, I’m FAR more inclined to believe it was incompetence and lack of oversight that caused the issue, than anything else. A principle known as [Hanlon’s Razor](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor). Failing to apply it is widespread amongst conspiracy theorists. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2022, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602/51 "2022-01-15T07:46:11Z")
Marshall was apparently slapped down for saying the quiet part out loud when originally wanting FAUCI to be Fledgling Autocrats Undermining Constitutional Integrity. and then Fuckit! Always Unleash Crazy Infections! before going with… ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2022, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602/52 "2022-01-15T18:19:15Z")
Yeah, I’d forgotten the name. And you’re right- the conspiracy theorists get Hanlon’s and Occam’s razors about 180 degrees off. Rather than thinking “All else being equal, the solution that assumes the least is probably the best one”, they seem to think “Because it _could_ have happened in a certain improbable way, it means that it must have happened that way.” It’s almost as if the very presence of a convoluted but “logical” path to a result is present, then that must mean that it is the way it happened, because otherwise that convoluted path wouldn’t actually be plausible otherwise. Which isn’t how it works of course- the ability to gin up a convoluted conspiratorial chain of events doesn’t prove anything. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2022, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602/53 "2022-01-16T03:46:20Z")
> [@bump](#): > > It’s almost as if the very presence of a convoluted but “logical” path to a result is present, then that must mean that it is the way it happened, because otherwise that convoluted path wouldn’t actually be plausible otherwise. IME it’s rare for there to even be a convoluted but logical path, in any meaningful sense. Most commonly, any facts required for that path to exist are assumed. Lack of evidence of (or contradictory evidence against) such facts is assumed to be a coverup. I wish Hunter Thomson, Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson were alive right now. They spent their lives writing about political shenanigans and conspiracy theories in the US, but (as it turned out) were merely writing about the warm up game, and died before the real game started. Can you imagine what HST would have done with the material provided by the current situation - it would have been hysterical. And the conspiracy nuts Shea & Wilson wrote about were positively sane compared to this Q shit. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2022, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602/54 "2022-01-16T04:13:59Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > I wish Hunter Thomson, Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson were alive right now. And Molly Ivins! ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2022, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602/55 "2022-01-16T13:36:48Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Rather than thinking “All else being equal, the solution that assumes the least is probably the best one”, they seem to think “Because it _could_ have happened in a certain improbable way, it means that it must have happened that way.” Even worse than that are the ones who look at typical real-world events which are often chaotic, in which random events often influence the outcome, and then insist that this, exact, series of improbable events was entirely planned all along, which is how they know “They” control everything. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2022, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602/56 "2022-01-16T14:16:48Z")
What I see also is a distrust in everybody. I mean everybody. And I think it comes from knowing, deep down, that they themselves can’t be trusted. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2022, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602/57 "2022-01-20T03:24:55Z")
I’m a little more sympathetic than that to - at least most - people caught up in these conspiracies. I think the crux of it is this, from Carl Sagan, whose prophetic genius becomes more stark by the day: > ‘I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or my grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantative content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.’ What we are seeing is people clutching at social-media driven rumour, rather than just woo woo, as Sagan predicted, but it’s the same thing really. I do feel sorry for people who don’t really have the mental tools for the information age in which they now live - they can’t get their heads around it. They are lost. They are all at sea. This makes them vulnerable to manipulative conniving crooks like Trump who present them with simple lies. And it makes conspiracy theories attractive because once you have gone down the rabbit hole, you can feel like you know what’s going on by manufacturing or believing in a simple, childish, factually unconstrained narrative. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2022, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602/58 "2022-01-20T15:29:08Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > I do feel sorry for people who don’t really have the mental tools for the information age in which they now live - they can’t get their heads around it. I don’t. They aren’t the ones that can see the cliff they are clearly driving us towards. They live in blissful unawareness of the consequences of their actions. I don’t feel sorry for the lamb as it has its head cleanly removed from its body. I _do_ feel sorry for the lamb in line that sees what’s going on. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2022, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602/59 "2022-01-20T15:47:26Z")
I was going to suggest that when he’s ready to step down, Fauci be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom (the highest U.S. civilian award) for helping lead us through the pandemic and surmounting the volleys of bullshit thrown his way. But it turns out that he’s _already_ been awarded that medal in 2008 for advancing our knowledge and treatment of HIV/AIDS. So we’ll have to come up with something else. Maybe rename one of Jupiter’s moons in his honor, and a street in Rand Paul’s neighborhood. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2022, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602/60 "2022-01-20T15:58:48Z")
It would be epic to change the name of the street that Rand Paul lived on to Anthony Fauci Way or something. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-faucilied-trending/957602.md?page=4)