You’ve become accustomed to politician’s lying
Blame Santa Claus
Amidst the clamour for improved voting and representation systems, the concern for how enough power can coalesce to be able to govern is never considered. Often a proportional representation model is imagined without the consideration that such a system pushes consensus-building onto the floor of the legislature even though this system is often promoted by people who wish to have decisions made more locally. In a prop-rep system coalescing enough power to govern is at maximum complexity due to proliferation of political parties with the above mentioned consensus-building problem; everything is like a horse designed by a committee, since prop-rep is committee problem writ large.
Most democratic systems employ the secret ballot (in what is basically The Retribution Booth) rather than electing a representative at a town hall meeting where participants would give their reasons for support of a candidate. But voting is an emotional decision not a logical decision. One day, in Latin class, when the teacher had to leave the room for a few minutes, she told the class that the mark of one’s character is revealed in what you do when no one is looking, a clever way to encourage good behaviour while she is out. So we relegate the important process of elections to a space where no one is watching, where you don’t have to account for your actions. As well, you are not permitted a “no” vote.
With all these constraints on candidate selection, it is necessary for politicians to use every tool available to try to win over voters. “Every tool” includes lying which includes “alternative facts,” election promises and outright buying of votes - shovelling out tax money (extorted from the public) for pork-barrel projects.
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”
So where, presently, is your government on this trajectory? Note that this history is repetitive. Unless a government includes ongoing revolution in its processes, it will fall by revolution (some quote I can’t locate).
Naturally, politicians lie to you. Some amount of lying is actually mandated by law - often an elected official has a security clearance, and you, a typical mug, do not. For instance, to tell you about the plan to eliminate Putin, I would have to call Langley, have them look you up, see what clearance level you have, before I could tell you.
But how has politician’s lying been normalized for you?
It goes back your childhood and the story of Santa.
It’s a circular issue, like Prof. Francis H. Parker’s dictum: “progeny recapitulates ontogeny with respect to union, alienation and reunion.” or any old saw like “what goes around, comes around.”
As a child, you are lied to but didn’t (yet) know it; it’s a “good” lie, supposedly for your benefit. You get this meme implanted, of anticipation, expectations, excitement followed by surprise gifts. And that arc of emotions repeats annually. Years later, you find that it is a lie, what I call the original sin- original to you. You find out that your parents were lying to you. That represents a deep psychological scar which scabs over and possibly prevents you from ever accessing the early childhood happiness lying below that scarred area. But this scheme of parental lying was a critically important development on the road to achieving a functional democracy. It conditions you to accept that people in positions of power will lie to you, thus allowing politicians to do their dirty work.
Then during election campaigns, you encounter politicians handing out “gifts” to buy your vote (with YOUR tax money) and you loop into that same old Santa arc of emotions that you used to have at Christmas. You get conned. And remember, there is no government Registry of Election Promises to guarantee that you get what was promised by the glad-handers.
And you, the mugs, only get to vote every four years or so, but the big business people can pick up the phone and have the ear of an important government official at any time. Government and business are the entities which endure, unlike the little mugs which pass from the scene like the receding tide. Like John Dewey said in 1905: “Politics is the shadow cast upon society by big business.” Yes, that was 118 years ago, and sadly still true.
Have a Happy Ewe Near!
And if you have made Resolutions or set goals for 2024, remember that those are just personal “election promises.”