READY, FIRE, AIM: Silence is Golden… Duct Tape is Silver…

The proverb — “Speech is silver; silence is golden” — may have originated in Arabic culture, where it was reportedly used as early as the 9th century.

But the Talmud dates from even earlier — from the 6th century — and includes a similar idea:

מִלָּה בְּסֶלַע, שְׁתִיקָה בִּתְרֵי

‘A word is worth a sela, but silence is worth two selas.’

The Jews who compiled the Talmud — a primary source of Jewish law and Jewish theology — apparently had a lot of respect for silence, if they thought it was worth two selas.  At some point in Jewish history,  the word ‘sela’ came to mean a Tyrian shekel, a silver coin that weighed about 11 grams and was appropriate payment for about two weeks of work by a hired laborer.

So if we do the math, two selas of ‘silence’ would be equivalent to nearly a month’s labor.  Back in those days.

I can’t find any evidence that the Jews used gold coins as currency.  Silver appears to have been the preferred metal for paying your taxes, and fines, and marriage contracts. But by the time the Arabs got around to considering the value of silence, in the 9th century, silence had become golden.

How much is silence worth now… in the 21st century?

News reports from the Lamestream Media claim that Donald Trump funneled $130,000 in ‘hush money’ to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election campaign, to buy her silence.  The claimed amount of  $130,000 comes courtesy of Trump’s lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen.

During that same 2016 election campaign, the National Enquirer paid Karen McDougal $150,000 to suppress the story about her lengthy (alleged) affair with Donald Trump.

From those stories, we can estimate that in 2016 silence was worth around $140,000.  As a rough average.

During 2016, gold was selling for around $1,200 an ounce, meaning that silence could be bought for about 117 ounces of gold.  That’s about 7.3 lbs.

We’ve had quite a bit of inflation since 2016, so I have no idea what the current value of silence might be at the moment.

A few days ago, I wrote a column concerning a U.S. Senate committee hearing, during which Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), repeatedly pleaded the Fifth Amendment in response to questioning by Senator Rand Paul and others.  In response to over 100 questions posed by the committee, Dr. Fauci gave an identical response.

“On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.”

This was not exactly ‘silence’, of course.  But it sort of worked the same way.  The committee got zero information about Dr. Fauci’s work at NIAID.

However, no one got paid — directly — during that Senate hearing, in gold or silver or any other currency, except maybe the reporters covering the event for their various news outlets.

I’ve been pretty consistent, when writing these columns for the Daily Post, about reminding my readers that they cannot believe everything they read — online or in the newspapers.

But I still feel kinda sorry for the reporters and media companies that have been hit by lawsuits lately, trying to silence them.

For starters, major outlets that reached settlements with Donald Trump include ABC/Disney (reported $15 million toward a presidential library plus $1 million in legal fees), Paramount/CBS (reported $16 million), X/Twitter (reported around $10 million) and YouTube/Google (reported $24.5 million).

I hope the Daily Post doesn’t get sued for publishing today’s column. That would not be pleasant.