Democrats never miss a chance to call for “national conversations” on gun control, racism, etc. What we need is a national conversation on lies. Without this one, all the other conversations are worse than useless.

The most self-destructive lies are the ones we tell ourselves to avoid the discomfort of admitting our imperfections. Think “eating crow.” Honest people use the discomfort of self-awareness as a spur to self-correction and self-improvement. The Democrat mind evades the pain. For example, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz denies error in employing an allegedly criminal I T expert, the liberal press spikes stories like the Kermit Gosnell trial that threaten the Democrat agenda, and liberal journalists cut off conservatives to evade uncomfortable discussions.

This is how Democrats concoct lies to convince themselves that their faults lie anywhere but in themselves. So when a Democrat speaks, don’t ask, “Is he lying?” Ask, “Is he lying to himself, or only to me?”

The varieties of lies are as common as crabgrass. Here’s a list you keep on hand for use when talking to a Democrat:

scapegoating,

intellectual deviousness,

pretentiousness,

phony altruism,

the crisis is upon us, and

I’m so great you must be desperate to hear me talk about me.

Here are some examples of Democrats engaging in each type of lie (italicized).

Scapegoating is the act of blaming someone or something innocent for our faults. ”Yes, I beat my wife to death, but she made me do it.” If you don’t remember anything else, remember this variety of lie with a klaxon warning. Bernie Sanders scapegoats the 1%. Obama blames everybody but himself, and never used the words “sorry” or “apologize” about himself during his misnamed “Apology Tour,” actually showing foreign nationals by his example how to scapegoat the U.S. Hillary Clinton scapegoats Macedonian content farmers, James Comey, and misogyny for her election loss. The rest of the Democratic Party enthusiastically joins her in the scapegoating of Republican “collusion” with Vladimir Putin without any evidence supporting the lie. When Congressman Scalise was shot by a Bernie Sanders fanatic, Nancy Pelosi scapegoated Republicans, because “Somewhere in the ’90s, Republicans decided on a politics of personal destruction when they went after the Clintons.”

This last example is a twofer, with the lie requiring both scapegoating and intellectual deviousness, where the rules of logic are broken to make the lie work. As Robert Heinlein said, “Man is not a rational animal. Man is a rationalizing animal.” Watch for hypothesis stated as fact, particularly when it counters experience, reason, or evidence (“America has always been about immigration“ rather than “Liberty”); straw man arguments or false choices; and euphemisms which soften a harsher truth (“undocumented immigrants” vs. “illegal aliens” or “Pro-Choice” vs. “Pro-Abortion”). Slippery Bill Clinton narrowed the definition of sex to exclude fellatio.

Consider “Islam is a religion of peace.” Told for Democrat electoral benefit, this steaming shovelful is disproven by the mounting body count and 1400 years of historical fact. Democrats argue that several million Muslims don’t commit terror -- QED. Using the same intellectually devious logic, Southern white culture a century ago was a model of racial equality, where only a small minority of Caucasians belonged to the Ku Klux Klan, and an even smaller number had ever participated in a lynching.

The previous example also illustrates Democrat sanctimony or pretentiousness. Appearing good is more important than being good. As Dennis Prager explains, Democrats strut their faux virtue and courage by fighting imaginary villains instead of real ones; Islamaphobes instead of Islamism, Confederate statues and carbon emissions rather than Antifa’s war on free speech. Smaller pretentions are ubiquitous; here Obama affects a phony “street-smart” accent, not acquired in Hawaii or Harvard, to impress his young black audience.

Phony altruism is a kind of pretentiousness but has a different and far more destructive purpose, so it deserves its own category. You’re too pathetic to decide for yourself how to live. Combating imagined helplessness is the self-fulfilling prophecy used to bribe people into becoming supporters and sycophants. Democrats have cultivated a state of dependence on government using Obamacare, food stamps to overcome pride, and Obamaphones for votes. We should redesign quarter dollar coins, and replace “Liberty” as our national ideal with “Perpetual Custodial Care”.

The crisis is upon us. Democrats love to lie that nothing is more important or urgent than their grievances, because when you get what you want in an emergency suddenly everything becomes an emergency. That allows disregard and contempt for the conventional rules and restraints of behavior. For example, you may try to suspend free speech to battle global warming or take a knee for the national anthem. Obama displayed this type of lie when he violated his Constitutional limits with his Libyan incursion, selectively ignored healthcare enforcement and immigration laws, created the DACA program, and weaponized the IRS to harass conservatives.

I’m so great you must be desperate to hear me talk about me. Obama is so ensnared in lies that the world only makes sense “under the dome” of Obamaworld, where conctradicting facts may never enter. In Obamaworld, Saint Barack claimed heroism in killing bin Laden, completed two autobiographies before accomplishing anything, and made two cringe-worthy self-referential tributes at the passing of Neil Armstrong and Daniel Inouye.

Here are two examples to practice classifying lies according to their types. Refer to your checklist.

I recently spoke with a Democrat who said that Trump was a “career criminal” and deserved to die. This kind of lie is told in many ways: Republicans are racists and Nazis; Trump is a Russian operative, etc. This lie flows from pretentiousness, with the goal being to display imagined super-sensitivity to unacceptable behavior and thus express the most sanctimonious outrage. Watch two Democrats try to “one-up” each other in their feigned disgust with Republicans, smiling the whole time.

Here’s the second example. Expect Democrats to respond, “Republicans are just as bad.” This is hypothesis stated as fact, a form of intellectual deviousness.

And no, they aren’t. I hypothesize two reasons, both attributable to honest self-examination and confrontation of imperfections. First, conservatives include more observant Christians and Jews, who routinely stand in their liturgies before an omniscient God to acknowledge their shortcomings and request forgiveness. Second, a liberal press exposes Republican corruption but conceals Democrat depravity from public view and accountability. These together make lying more painful for Conservatives than self-awareness.

Screaming “LIAR!” at Democrats only deepens the pain of self-awareness and reinforces their withdrawal into self-deception. Instead, we must break the thrall of Democrat leaders over the rank-and-file by patiently explaining their leaders’ lies. Most importantly, we must set the example and invite them to join us in honest self-examination and the rejection of lies.