Guest Post by Paul Craig Roberts
Yesterday I wrote about how the government taught us to steal.
Today the lesson is the government taught us to lie.
Can any reader identify one issue of consequence about which the government told us the truth?
World War I? World War II? The Korean War? The Vietnam War? The assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Senator Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King? 9/11? The war in Afghanistan? The Iraq War? The destruction of Libya? Assad’s use of chemical weapons? Covid? The Covid “vaccines”? Ukraine?
Readers will find it easier to add to this list than to find one instance of the government telling the truth.
Yet, despite government’s 100% lie record, people always fall for the next lie, and by the time they catch on that they again have been played for suckers, the government has moved on.
It is very difficult to correct the lies. History books, historical novels, and movies preserve them. Professors protect their human capital by holding on to them. It is much easier to give the same lectures every year than to prepare new ones. And the human mind protects the lies. What people were taught many still regard as truth and they defend the “truth” as taught to them from the real truth that usually takes a generation or several to become established. By the time the real truth is known, most everyone involved at the time is dead, and the newer generations don’t understand its relevance.
American democracy itself has become a lie. Democracy is based on self-rule via elected representatives. But the representatives are not only dependent on votes but also on campaign contributions, and these mainly come from organized interest groups who purchase the representative’s election for him by paying the advertising bills and various fixes. The representative owes his position to the few who financed it, and his loyalty is to them. He does what he can for his constituents, but never at the expense of the interests of the groups that finance him.
Not long ago the Supreme Court ruled that campaign contributions are a First Amendment right and that interest groups have the constitutional right to purchase the government which ends up serving their interest rather than the people’s. As long as this system remains in place, it is impossible for American democracy to represent the people.
Possibly ordinary people had better representation under the aristocracy and English Kings than under American democracy. The kings and aristocracy had the government by birthright and did not need to sell their souls to interest groups. Therefore, they were free to consider the people’s interests and did so, as the continuation of the country depended on ordinary people willing to behave and to do service. When the king and aristocracy became too absorbed in their privileges and neglected the people, the French king and aristocracy became victims of the 1789 French Revolution.
These aristocratic regimes also benefitted from racial or ethnic loyalty. An Englishman was an Englishman whether he was a descendant of Celts, Anglo-Saxons or Normans. A Frenchman was a Frenchman.
To whom are a people in a diverse, multicultural Tower of Babel loyal? This is the question of our time for every Western country.
During the earlier part of my life I lived in an America in which a person’s word defined him. Contracts were handshakes on a verbal, unrecorded, deal. A person who failed to honor his word was ruined.
Twenty years ago I discussed contracts with corporate lawyers. They told me that today a contract is meaningless and unenforceable. They still draw up contracts to record what is expected by the parties to the contract against the outside chance than the parties intend to honor the document that they signed. Apparently, corporations suffer no damage from failure to honor contracts as profits are universally regarded as more important than one’s word.
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Sure,what do you think “business ethics” are anyway?…..
The whole point of government programs is todestroy your character in pursuit of comfort/easy life.Lying,though warned against,is a necessary in obtaining such benefits,a component and the government knows this.Once you start,where do you stop?!?…….Lying itself becomes a means to make life easier in basically everything.
A society CANNOT function when everthing is a lie and nothing or noone is to be trusted.It is the death of human relations!
Fantastic comment.
The basis for being honest is rooted in the conscience. No matter what kind of life you lead or where you live, when you lay down at night you must reconcile your daily activities with yourself. If you possess a conscience- the voice that lets you know what is not acceptable to do or say- you have to come to terms with it. There are people who do not possess that voice, and there are people who find a way to sublimate it, and with the advent of pharmaceutical interventions that treat the anxiety that comes from living with falsehoods, that number is skyrocketing.
But it all begins with the modeling we receive early in life. If you grow up in an environment where honesty is not only promoted, but practiced, it becomes your nature to speak forthrightly. If not, then deception becomes far more comfortable and accepted.
Lying grants an advantage over others to those willing to practice it, but that advantage is limited until such time as the deception is revealed. Being honest confers a different advantage to those who adhere to that standard as well, but unlike a liar, their advantage is lifelong. Being honest is something that comes with a distant event horizon benefit rather than a short time-frame one liars utilize. It also has a cumulative gain, one that builds upon itself and spreads outwards where the deceptive strategy shrinks over time. In community life the smart bet is to be honest whereas in a solitary one, deceit triumphs.
Because we live in a society that is atomized, one that is far more mobile than in times past and one where prevarication is seen as clever or advantageous, the body politic loses its ability to discern falsehoods as readily as in times past, and to treat those caught up in lies not as pariahs, but as more capable and expert at navigating through life.
For honest people the past three years has proven that many formerly trusted specializations- such as medicine and science- are no different than politics or used car sales. However the response of the vast majority demonstrate clearly how powerful their influence can be despite being proven liars because the people harmed by these lies continue to accept their authority over their own lives.
I have frequently used NASA as a prime example of an organization which makes routine use of deception and calumny and yet somehow manages to maintain a stranglehold over the minds of most Americans. I don’t believe that we went to the Moon, not because I have absolute proof that it isn’t true, but because the authors of that narrative have zero credibility. It may well be true, even the most virulent and committed liars will speak truthfully if it serves their interests, but on the whole it is extremely unwise to accept anything that they might claim as if it were a priori the truth.
Governments in the modern era lie as a matter of expediency. The example they set leads most people to the conclusion that lying is a viable strategy, and in complex, highly mobile, atomized societies where people must struggle for resources absent cooperation, it is also a successful one. The problem is that times like this are not eternal, but rather ephemeral and when the collapse accelerates and communitarian relationships will be required for survival, such utilitarian approaches to truth versus lies will not deliver the same benefits and may cost dearly.
Honesty may not be the only policy, but it remains the best one.
YMMV
+1000…” the voice that lets you know what is not acceptable to do or say- you have to come to terms with it. ”
God speaking… if your antennae isn’t tuned to the signal , you have worse problems than you can imagine.
People have begun to actively choose the lie over truth.
HSF,
That comment is an article. I hope someone posts it. Bravo.
“The example [governments] set leads most people to the conclusion that lying is a viable strategy. . . ”
And now we have government (Lindsey Graham, among others) setting the example of openly calling for the murder of foreign political rivals. How long until most people, who seem to be perpetually influenced by government types, arrive at the conclusion that murder is also a viable strategy for themselves to implement?
But Alex Jones is conspiracy theory.
Signed
CIA Project Mockingbird.
The biggest theft by government is the income tax.
Ref. https://stateofthenation.co… THE INCOME TAX SCAM & 87,000 ARMED IRS AGENTS |
Tied with property tax.
For many, it would be possible to be entirely self sufficient and need no income without property tax.
You don’t “OWN” that which they can take from you if you don’t continue to pay yearly.
Liars preceded governments. Then they “created” governments.
These things can only occur in high trust communities. We need new communities.