There’s nothing more dangerous than an honest businessman.
-Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #027
1500 troops dead, sluggish economy, civil rights violations, human rights violations backed by official memos, draft dodging with the help of powerful connections, media scandals, billions and billions of hard earned tax dollars lost forever mingled with the blood of our sons in foreign sands and outright lies revealed in full disclosure to be the reason for it all, and we STILL think we have to lie to get ahead politically.
Well, you see where it got us, didn’t you?
MoveOn.Org recently released an ad that implied that President Bush’s social security plan will cut the benefits of seniors already enrolled in the SS plan in half.
During the election, Senator Kerry told the nation that Bush’s social security plan was a big secret that was going to be sprung on the nation post election, and that benefits would be cut 35-40%.
He also blamed long-standing tax breaks for corporations that offshore jobs on Bush’s current policy.
He also told us that the current recession was “the greatest job loss since the great depression”
He also told us that jobs created since the recession are paying $9000 less.
These are all very moving points and figures, and they paint an extremely bad light of the current administration, and the evil they have wrought upon the land.
The only problem is that they are lies, exaggerations, and false implications that, paticularly in this day of instantaneous worldwide information transfer, have absolutely no place in the public discourse.
Think about this for a second. The image of the corrupt politician has been so firmly etched on our national consciousness that seperating the concepts is as hard as not thinking of a pink elephant for the next fifteen seconds.
We have a natural, and righteous, distrust of our leaders, this is one of the traits that led to the establishment of this nation to begin with.
Why then do we accept the outright insult, the outright GALL of these politicians to lie directly to our faces over and over again for months leading up to the election? Why do we support the kind of scandalous scoundrels who would build the conduct of their affairs squarely on a base of lies?
Right, I know the answer, because we think they’re better than the other guy, so we’re willing to forgive the flaws because the important thing is that OUR team wins the superbowl. The important thing is that someone who claims to think like US is grabbing the reins of power. We have faith that they’ll hold em like we’d hold em, and getting somebody with that kind of wisdom in that kind of position is worth forgiving a little white stretcher or two.
We see where it gets us though, don’t we?
Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to decieve.
The bottom drops out of the discourse. Their guys sniff our lies and call us. Our guys sniff their lies and do the same. The finger pointing and cross accusations escalate and both sides get even more firmly entrenched in their beliefs.
The sad part is that it doesn’t even matter at that point.
The decision has been made already. We go into these situations knowing who we want to root for, because he’s been sold as our ideal. We know he lies, but we know the other side lies too, and we just pick the path of least resistance, the lies that make the most sense to us or reaffirm our postions more strongly.
The problem is that this never results in any converts. Anyone who hasn’t already drunk the koolaid and committed to getting this person in office will never switch sides to a party of lies. The very occurance of a lie is enough to turn them forever away from any consideration of that candidate as viable, in most cases.
The game then becomes one of sorting through the various falsehoods to find the ones that are least offensive in order to half-heartedly embrace the candidate. Commonly refferred to as “the lesser of two evils”.
And then we have to face the facts that, despite our best intentions, the man we’re sending to office is first and foremost A LIAR.
How could we ever expect just leadership under leaders so ignoble?
Let’s forget the rhetoric, forget the lies, and focus on facts. There is no need to lose credibility by saying the president drinks the blood of infidel virgins.
The problem is, lies work, facts are not checked, faces are not doubted, and many never know the truth. Those of us that do know can then choose to be either part of making the problem worse, or we can try to do something about getting rid of it.
And what is the truth?
That the candidates are generally two sides of the same coin. Each is as incapable of leading the nation, and that neither is acting without the guidance and consent of the party behind every word and deed.
This, is what I see as the problem. We’ve let powerful groups of people gang up and tell us what our government should be. We’ve let a new aristocracy breed within our borders, and our once great system of government based on the will and consent of the people has become nothing more than a modern, macro-scale analogue of medieval court posturing and backstabbing ambition. Wherein the reins of power are snatched greedily from hand to hand for short bursts of change to fit the current agenda.
The problem is that both arms are attached to the same old torso.
I, for one, am sick of it.
It’s time to take the power back, and this time, let’s do it honestly.
Let’s give it a shot. And see where it gets us.
