“Government lies” or “governments lie”— the expressions are like yin and yang. For 20 years the governments told us the lower speed limit was saving lives. When states raised the speed limit to 65 on rural interstate highways, the accident rate in those states decreased, we were told oafishly, I mean officially, that the number of accidents on rural interstates had increased.
Never mind that the traffic had increased twice as much as the accidents, or that statewide the accidents went down.
Governments lie, all governments. Government also told us that raising the speed limit would not get us to our destination any faster. American Association of State Highway and Traffic Officials claims a freeway carries the greatest number of cars past a given point at 30, that’s right 30, mph.
When the freeway speed limit was raised from 55 to 65 mph, the time from my California home to LAX decreased from three hours to two!
They ignore an important factor. The faster traffic moves, the less time a given vehicle is on the highway. If each vehicle spends less time on the highway, there are fewer vehicles on the highway, and traffic improves.
We all know politicians lie to get elected. Why do you think they will stop once in office? It’s a lot easier to find or make up a problem to make a speech about than it is to actually solve a real problem. Government lies.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” (H.L. Mencken 1918).
The more frightening and less real the hobgoblin, the better.
Sometimes the government conceals lying by simply distorting language. War is not war, it is “armed conflict.” A fire becomes “rapid oxidation” (accelerated rusting?). Airplanes don’t crash they “experience rapid energetic disassembly due to uncontrolled flight into terrain.” This becomes such a habit that it carries over into non-controversial items. A shovel becomes a “combat emplacement evacuation device.”
Why do governments lie? They lie because government is about governance, the exercise of power.
“Government is not reason or eloquence, it is force …” (George Washington)
Those in power do whatever it takes to stay in power and increase that power. So, since lying is the easy way, lying is what they do. When the liar is a foreign power, we call it propaganda. When the liar is a dead religious leader, we call it miracles. When the liar is one of our beloved politicians, we call it business as usual.
Governments make laws. Once empowered, they become addicted and cannot stop themselves.
Laws are passed for no visible reason except that someone has the power to make laws and makes a law that benefits him, or those who can in turn benefit him without regard for how it affects everyone else.
The love of power causes all social organizations (governments, corporations, churches, and families) to deteriorate to a feudal structure; the most power hungry, ambitious, ruthless, SOB rises to the top, those next in line suck up, and so on, down the line.
Democracy merely tempers the way that people accrue power, so the succession is more orderly, and less bloody. Get elected instead of assassinating the incumbent, nevertheless, power still accrues, not to those best able to serve mankind, but to those best able to grab it, the glibbest of liars.
This is why we have a class of politicians. Their talent is not their ability, just their elect-ability. Why, for example, would we assume that someone who makes a good legislator, if there is such a critter, would make a good governor, or president?
This makes only a little more sense than the old notion that the best warrior made the best king.
Of course, some lie more than others. Good thing we have a free press. We here are blessed with a solid well-balanced local paper and we know the newly promoted editor, kamaaina Chelsea Jensen, will keep us well informed. She’s been the paper’s reliable backbone for a long time.
Ken Obenski is a forensic engineer, now safety and freedom advocate in South Kona. He writes a biweekly column for West Hawaii Today. Send feedback to obenskik@gmail.com