Crying Wolf is a Learned Behavior

Is anyone else tired of liberals crying wolf?

We’ve all heard of Aesop’s famous fable. As the tale goes, a young boy cried wolf, alarming villagers who came running to protect their flocks. It was a lark, and the boy laughed at their panic.

Enjoying himself, he cried wolf a second time, and once again the villagers rushed out to the field only to see the boy laughing at them. Then a real wolf came, but when he cried, “Wolf!” the third time, no one believed him, and the boy became wolf food.

On its face, this fable is about trust, truthfulness and loyalty. But I imagine that somewhere in the backstory is a negative example that led the fictional boy to believe he could lie for effect and get away with it. The boy was wrong, he knew it, and he deserved the consequences of leading people to believe there was an emergency when there wasn’t.

“Crying wolf” is often a learned behavior. Knuckleheads don’t want to do what’s necessary to get a job done, earn a promotion, or take responsibility, so they manufacture a crisis by crying wolf, leveraging the lie for their own purposes.

Liberal Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson does this daily. A former teachers’ union activist, Johnson has never led anything in his life, yet he serves as the chief executive of one of the largest and most dynamic cities in the world. If stupid was a crime, Johnson would be facing a life sentence.

Johnson takes to the microphone daily, claiming President Trump is personally arresting black men, using rhetoric like fascist, Nazi, and thugs when speaking about law enforcement. He recently claimed that the right side of politics is trying to incite a “rematch of the Civil War.” He signed an executive order setting up so-called “ICE-free zones,” requesting that citizens of Chicago rise up and resist ICE. His behavior is galling and foolish, clearly showing that somewhere along the way, Johnson was taught that crying wolf is a tactic, a strategy, a tool in the political toolbox.

What example does that give to the younger generation? A story broke a few years ago answers that question quite well.

The 56th Fighter Wing at Luke Air Force Base dealt with a young black enlisted man alleging that a white superior officer had denied him a requested special duty. In response to his inquiry the white superior allegedly responded that “the Air Force is looking for somebody of white complexion and with the image that the Air Force needs.” It turned into a whole thing, as you might imagine.

The allegations fell in an era of hyper-sensitivity in the wake of BLM riots and claims by the Biden administration of systemic racism in the military ranks. But despite the political climate, the allegations proved false. He cried wolf for the sole purpose of trying to advance his personal career. Instead, he ended up being eaten by the wolf, which led to his punishment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Did he really think that he would get away with it? In my humble opinion it was just another situation where the boy cried wolf, yet doing so was a learned behavior. He felt the political winds, and saw politicians and pundits literally kneeling in front of protestors. Erstwhile Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had issued an operational shutdown filled with histrionic assertions of extremism, racism and sexism in the U.S. military. Millions of man hours were lost in the wake of the cries of wolf. The Heritage Foundation called it a solution in search of a problem. Why would the young airman not think that he could get away with it? He learned that crying wolf is okay.

Fast forward to Chicago’s Johnson, throw in Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek (D) or U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), with whom I sparred recently on CNN. Neither they nor their peers wish to acknowledge the harm that their cries of wolf are doing to their constituents. Denying that problems exist on the streets of their represented cities and towns, they instead cry wolf, labeling Trump as the fomenter of discord and terror. That rhetoric then educates impressionable minds that they must commit more acts of violence against law enforcement and riot in the streets. 

All that crazy rhetoric does is teach young minds to cry wolf.

I heard an older lawyer remind a jury that one of the opposing witnesses had been caught lying on the stand. He followed by telling them that his grandad used to say, “You lie about a little, you’ll lie about a lot.” Politicos and pundits who scream that the sky is falling, who cry wolf at the drop of a hat, evidence a willingness to lie to get their way. If they will lie about one thing, what else are they lying about?

“America was built on the voluntary principle by good neighbors who knew that they had to rely on each other,” Ronald Reagan once said. That’s true. But it’s hard to rely on a liar, and lying is often a learned behavior.

Politicians need to stop crying wolf. A civil society emerges from truth.