Victor Davis Hanson points out the mythology of the left.

Legends now become facts in America at almost lightning speed. Often when lies are asserted as truth, they become frozen in time. Even the most damning later exposure of their falsity never quite erases their currency. As Jonathan Swift sighed, "Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it."

VDH cites Aaron Alexis, George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin, Matthew Shephard, Sacco & Vanzetti, the Rosenbergs, Alger Hiss, Che Guevera, Bill Ayers, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Angela Davis, Tawana Brawley, and the Duke lacrosse team as examples of real people that have been assigned mythological facts in order to promote the leftist world-view. He concludes:

What difference does it make what actually happened between shooter Wesley Cook and slain officer Daniel Faulkner, when the Mumia myth serves larger agencies of social change?

Like Orwell's dead souls, we live in an age of statist mythology, in which unpleasant facts are replaced by socially useful lies. So we print the legend that better serves our fantasies.

Elsewhere, the very same VDH remembers a time when Californians actually built things:

Envision a California infrastructure project that put tens of thousands of people to work and finished ahead of schedule while using private financing. Suppose that it made a profit without government guarantees or taxpayer liabilities. Imagine, moreover, that this project did little harm to the environment while producing massive quantities of renewable energy. Almost all the project's machinery would be hidden underground or housed in elegant classical buildings. It would radically reengineer nature, yes, but the most obvious evidence of change would be scenic alpine lakes where dry canyons had previously stood. And instead of facing endless lawsuits from aggrieved parties, the project would enjoy nearly unanimous support.