“Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect.” This saying, by satirist Jonathan Swift in his 1710 essay “The Art of Political Lying,” is apropos to our times. Sadly, too, the phenomenon is no joke, and our prevailing woke “tales’” most current effects are obvious.

That is, three murderous, brutal acts of depravity in fairly rapid succession, including Wednesday’s Charlie Kirk assassination.

We can place the blame for this evil, too, says one commentator, on the so-called Left.

In fact, writes the Washington Examiner’s Elizabeth Stauffer, “progressivism is killing Americans.” Moreover, after each wicked act in question, many leftists have justified the carnage.

Stauffer first mentions the mass shooting at the Church of the Annunciation in Minneapolis on August 27. It was perpetrated by Robert Westman, a man masquerading as a woman (aka “transgender”) and who went by the name “Robin.” Westman was, of course, a militant sexual devolutionary who hated President Trump and wrote anti-Christian messages on his gun magazines. And he murdered two and wounded 18 during his rampage. Yet he still got sympathy.

No, not for being deceived by hateful, destructive ideology that convinces youths to mutilate their bodies to match their already mutilated minds. Rather, as Stauffer writes:

One far-Left activist made it clear that her sympathies lie not with the innocent victims, but with the perpetrator himself. In a video posted on social media, she said, “That poor girl who attended the school and went in there and shot up the school after transitioning and after attending that school, and we can only assume that that school, as a Catholic school, did not welcome her, did not make her feel seen, included, safe….

Stauffer then points out that this activist isn’t alone. In fact, even Democratic politicians and influencers have joined her, behaving as if the “LGBTQ+” community is the real victim.

Next Stauffer cites Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, who was brutally stabbed to death on a Charlotte, N.C., light-rail train. Her killer was Decarlos Brown Jr., a deranged man with more than a dozen priors. And why was he on the street?

For the same reason so many other predators are: “liberal judges and a no-cash-bail system,” as Stauffer puts it.

What’s more, the media buried the Zarutska story, even though Brown allegedly muttered after his deed, “I got that white girl.” In fact, Zarutska was killed on August 22. Yet we only learned of it two weeks later when train surveillance footage surfaced. Of course, if a murderer had said, “I got that black girl,” there would be wall-to-wall coverage.

Furthermore, emphasizes Stauffer, when leftist media were finally forced to treat the story, they spun it. An Axios headline read, for example, “Stabbing video fuels MAGA’s crime message.”

Yeah, how bizarre: Video of a brutal crime reinforcing the message that we must clamp down on brutal crime. Republicans must be a twisted bunch.

The aforementioned depraved acts were then punctuated by the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on Wednesday. Kirk was shot to death during a speaking engagement at Utah Valley University by, allegedly, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson. The motive?

It’s said Robinson expressed utter contempt for Kirk and claimed that the activist “spread hate.” He also purportedly had “anti-fascist” (à la Antifa) messages inscribed on his bullet casings.

Yet as The New American has reported, there again were those left-wing justifications and blame-the-victim hatred. Why, one criminal law professor, Kelly Carmena, actually tweeted that she will “1000% wish death on people like him [Kirk].”

Again, too, the issue is that people with this mentality are now legion. Related to this, a recent poll found that Democrats are more likely than Republicans to believe celebrating a public figure’s death is acceptable. A September 11 YouGov survey showed that 14 percent of Democrats believe political violence is justifiable. (Note: This isn’t based on Just War Doctrine, either. These people are oblivious to that.) Moreover, yet another poll determined that one in three students “say some level of violence is acceptable to stop a campus speech.”

Now, considering everything mentioned here, questions arise:

The “Left” did, of course.

Returning to Stauffer, she says there’s a silver lining in this sad state of affairs. Conservatives will not, she states, riot and burn and kill in response to leftism-born wickedness. Rather, our “collective grief will turn into a steely resolve to take back our country from those who have quietly engineered its destruction,” she predicts. Yet this may be overly optimistic.

For there is a prerequisite for the above: Conservatives must stop being “conservative” — as in conserving yesterday’s leftism-born status quo. They must instead be revolutionary.

Just ask yourself: How did matters get this out of control? To analogize it, imagine that a 15-year-old runs wild and starts committing crime and mayhem. Did the problem begin just on his 15th birthday? No, the issue was that problems weren’t nipped in the bud, and virtue wasn’t inculcated, during his formative years. There were parental mistakes of omission.

Likewise, conservatives have for decades been busy being “tolerant” instead of truthful. An example is “transgenderism.” How many times have conservatives said, “I don’t care what adults do with their bodies. Just leave the kids out of it”?

The issue?

When the monster that is a lie is released on the countryside, it will rampage where it may. It will metastasize, twisting more and more minds and, eventually perhaps, raging out of control. So saying to someone “Be ‘trans,’ but don’t involve the children” is like saying, “Yeah, jump off that cliff.”

“Just be sure to stop halfway down.”

The most fundamental reason you oppose a lie isn’t because it may “affect the kids” or eliminate “women’s sporting opportunities.”

The most fundamental reason is because it’s a lie.

Christians call Satan “the Prince of Lies” for a good reason. As Jonathan Swift likely knew, lies can be profoundly evil. They can kill.

This is true of all the lies in question, whether “transgenderism,” “white privilege,” virtue being called “fascism,” or something else.

Because too many Americans have been destructively active, and too many others not proactive, monsters have been released on the countryside. They’ve consumed the hearts, minds, and souls of millions, too, and now we’re reaping the whirlwind. And with the time for an ounce of prevention long past, we’ll need more than a pound of cure.