Kort Explores conundrums of the human condition

I've attempted to address the problem of "ethics voids" in government officials in the past. But recent experiences oblige me to return to the topic. Quite frankly, the current level of blatant untruths being generated by officials of my government require me as a citizen to speak out publicly that my government is wrong and must end this violation of the public trust.

There is an amazing acceptance of lying by politicians in American society. Campaign promises have become a special form of speech in which even the the most transparent facade of credibility has been abandoned.

Any citizen naive enough to actually believe that a politician solemnly proclaiming a campaign promise will actual fulfill that promise once safely ensconced within the halls of power, becomes the target of ridicule and abuse by his peers. A politician who actually attempts to live up to his promises becomes the object of shocked disbelief and fearful suspicion by his peers and the main stream propaganda mill.

In opinion polls politicians as a class consistently rate at the bottom. Any yet the public fawns over individual politicians, almost as if they wanted to see them as American Royalty. Mark Twain a century ago proclaimed that politicians were the only native American criminal class. But it appears to me that the level of overt dishonesty in the government and the press has reached an all new depth of disrepute.

One particularly blatant case in point is the Republican proposal to shift control over Federally subsidized and administered feeding programs for school children and pregnant women over to state governments. Basically the current Federal waste, unnecessary administrative overhead, and leveraged control over other non-Federal programs are the only things being eliminated. More money than is currently budged for the Federal programs is to be paid directly to the states in block grants which will allow the states to locally administer the programs with far greater efficiency.

Most state Governors who would be taking over administering the programs say they can provide better services than the current programs for less money as long as interference by the Feds is eliminated. Bottom line - more food of higher quality will be delivered to more people by enacting the proposal. The only ones actually "hurt" by the proposal would be the unnecessary Federal administrators who would be out of work, and the various political power bases that have leveraged themselves into comfortable positions based on their control over the food program funds.

I have personally witnessed repeated statements by Mr. Clinton claiming to speak in his official capacity as President of the United States, and assorted other democratic congressmen also claiming to speak in their official capacities, plainly and literally stating that the proposal to reform the school lunch program "will take food from the mouths of children, causing hundreds of thousands of children and pregnant mothers to starve to death." I can't count the number of times in the last couple months I've been exposed to clear and unambiguous statements by elected and appointed officials that "thousands of children will starve to death."

Note that according to published official government figures, the actual funding the Republican proposal would pay to the states to run the food programs locally would increase by approx. 4.5% over the current 1995 Federally administered spending. All that is being changed is the removal of the Federal bureaucratic interference and waste.

Even the proposed 1996 increase for the current Federal program by the self proclaimed "protectors of the children" is only around 3.5%. Now I admit that I managed to get through school before the new math destroyed the ability of the majority of Americans to balance their checkbooks, so my arithmetic will obviously be at odds with "official statistics". But every time I try the calculation, 4.5 always comes out larger than 3.5. Worst still, every one of my calculating devices arrive at the same conclusion - that the Republican proposal is in reality a funding increase not a cut. Considering that none of the budgeted money will get diverted at the Federal level, it's quite likely that the States will actually receive far more real spending power than what they're getting now.

Even taking new math into account, I am unable to explain the clear and unmistakable claims by officials in my government that funding for school lunches is being cut or eliminated altogether. I can only interpret the absolute contradiction between the public record and the official statements to the contrary as willful and knowledgeable lies intended to wrongfully deceive the citizenry into acting against their best interests.

Even worse, the mainstream propaganda mill has been totally complicitous in this willful violation of the public trust by reporting these obvious lies as truth - while concealing the true facts from public knowledge. The press has recently devoted a great deal of coverage to "protesters" disrupting the speeches of the Conservative enemies of the liberal old guard. From the press coverage, one would think that what the "bad guys" were going to say - but which we never actually seem to hear directly - must be so outrageous and offensive that citizens are moved to challenge them at every turn.

For its contribution to the suppression of freedom, the press, while piously claiming to tell the "whole truth", failed to disclose that far from "civic minded citizens", the "protesters" were in fact hireling bussed in from out of town, given their signs and told what they were "protesting" by the organizers, and were paid for their efforts to disrupt the lawful political assembly of an opposition party. In my opinion reporting the orchestrated disruption of a lawful political assembly by the paid agents of an adversary political party as anything other than what it is - a political crime - makes the press a willing accomplice in that crime.

In my case, the campaign of character assassination backfired. I have been in the past a registered Democrat, and only "knew" of Limbaugh from the mean spirited liberal jokes circulating about him. I became disturbed by the nature of the attacks on individuals like the Speaker of the House Gingrich and conservative media personality Rush Limbaugh. I became increasingly offended by the consistent pattern of attacking the messenger but never addressing the substance of the man's position.

I made an effort to find out for myself just what these threats to all that is sacred really had to say. Now, I have to point out that these guys miss the point on some issues like the need to protect the diversity of the ecosystem, but by and large, they make a lot more sense than their attackers (and we'd all probably have good reason to worry about any politician who agreed with me on every issue...) The more outrageous the positions attributed to these lightning rods in the struggle between diametrically opposed political philosophies, the more I felt I had to seek out their true positions. Incredible as it might have seemed at one time, I find that at least for the moment I've been driven into the arms of the arch conservatives by the shear virulence and naked malice of the liberal attacks - coupled with their lack factual of substance.

How did we come to this willing acceptance of overt dishonesty by politicians? In what other important position in society do we allow those who have proven themselves incompetent and destructive to continue in their position solely because they continue to come up with new lies about their future intentions?

Of course, the answer is that with our universal suffrage and failed education system there are more voters in each district who believe they will personally benefit from their representative's manipulation and abuse of the political system, than who understand enough about economics to know they will personally pay for those abuses. Our founding fathers understood that there is never any free lunch. They were willing to go to war to stop paying for the "free lunches" enjoyed by the English nobility at colonial expense. The children of America are now being taught that our government can provide free lunches for everyone - but are never taught the other side of the income redistribution equation, or the wasteful leakage that occurs every time the funds change hands within the bureaucracy. Its one thing to invest in the future by giving children a good start. It is another thing altogether to attempt to subvert and despoil the natural concerns for the welfare of children felt by all reasonable people to serve the needs of an ulterior political agenda.

Our political system has been distorted from a minimal structure intended solely to manage the common infrastructure of a basically free society of mutually responsible individuals, into a consumptive morass of short sighted special interests all attempting to manipulate the system to their own benefit.

And so the masses of short sighted self interested voters consistently elect scoundrels over true statesmen. Only when a majority of voters understand the importance of adhering to principles over short term self interest can the kind of statesmen that are needed to keep a republic running over the long term be elected. No republic in human history has managed to survive the slippery slope we've been flirting with since the illusionary economic and social "reforms" of the 1930's.

Of course, the relentless stream of lies being endless repeated (obviously with the expectation that they will be accepted out of shear repetition) don't all deal with the current economic mess. One of the biggest lies currently being propagated by revisionist historians is that the socialism and deficit spending introduced in the early 30's under the banner of the "new deal" saved America from the great depression. What is suspiciously underpublicized is that after FDR and his gang of fiscal irresponsibles had spent the nation into massive debt, the illusionary "recovery" collapsed as fast as the "free money" dried up.

The renewed depression of the late 1930's was even more devastating than the "officially recognized" depression earlier in the decade. Unemployment went back up as companies that had managed to hang on through the initial collapse were destroyed by the economic mismanagement of the social engineers in Washington. If WWII hadn't started to provide a deep pocketed "compulsive consumer" for what ever we could produce and provide "compulsive employment" for all the surplus workers, America was well on the road to a general breakdown in the 1940's far worse than what the former Soviet Union has recently experienced.

Unfortunately, devastating half the planet to provide an artificial financial recovery for the survivors is hardly rational or repeatable economics. Not to mention the resistance of those to be devastated if they suspect what's really going on. On the other hand, even though humanity's infrequent flirtations with peace have tended to be rather short lived, they have been long enough to prove to those who care to notice that there are better ways to structure an economy.

Just as in the former Soviet Union, we're currently treading the sharp edge between recovery and vain attempts to return to the delusions of the old order. Just as the old guard Communists in the former east block have dedicated themselves to fostering and exploiting chaos and uncertainty in the difficult transition to a free market and free political system, the discredited liberals in America have sunk to sowing discord and disinformation in a venial attempt to regain power regardless of cost to the country.

A recurrent political tragedy occurs with distressing frequency when nations finally free themselves from oppressive and/or exploitive political and economic systems, and make their first stumbling steps towards a free society. The development of their intended free society is sabotaged and subverted by the efforts of an unholy alliance of convenience consisting of the old guard wanting to return to the former order, and those seeking to seize power and create their own vision of hell. Orchestrated civil unrest, obstruction of rational solutions, and artificially generated chaos create an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty that provides the perfect situation for the rise of despots.

During this century, both Hitler and Lenin/Stalin, the greatest villains of our time, used this route to leverage tiny but ruthlessly dedicated cliques of followers into absolute power over the majority. Both pushed aside flawed "democratic" governments that had allowed themselves to forget their principles and become distracted by the temptations of corruption and political intrigues. Both started with minor political crimes which were tolerated as "harmless". Both gained prominence with the connivance of "main stream" political parties who wanted to use them for their own purposes - but underestimated just how dangerous their junior partners were. Both built on the lies and deceits of others, playing their coconspirators against each other until all were so weakened they were unable to resist the true puppet master behind the curtain. Both ultimately counted their victims in the millions.

I for one, do not accept that my right to demand honesty and integrity from my political representatives is in any way inferior to this self proclaimed right of politicians to seek political power and advantage by deceiving me.

Isn't it time to treat willful and intentional lying by public officials for what it really is - a clear violation of the public trust and quite probably treason in that it attempts to usurp through deceit the rightful power and authority of the citizens? Public officials who knowingly engage in deception or other practices not in the best interests of the citizens should pay the full price their improper actions or statements have cost the public. Remember, these people aggressively sought their positions with full knowledge of their oath of office, and invariably promised us they would abide by the highest ethical standards if we trusted them with political power. We do not owe them any consideration when they betray our trust. Someone has to watch the watcher.