RFK Jr., in his recent announcement of his candidacy for president, declared that he was going to do something truly radical if elected president: tell the truth, no matter how uncomfortable or unpopular (emphasis added):
Truth is, when I was a little boy, nobody in this country would dream that our government would ever lie to the American people, in fact, and that’s not a joke. Nobody believed it back then. In May of 1960, that changed a little when Gary Powers crashes a U-2 in Russia and the Eisenhower administration denied that we had a U-2 program because they didn’t know it. They didn’t know at the time that the Russians had captured Gary Powers. And when the Russians produced him, it was a shock to the American people that their government had lied to them. And then in 1970, during the Vietnam War, of course, we all began to suspect we were being lied to in ’71. When the Pentagon Papers came out, we realized, oh, this is what they do.
My father, just before he died, very sadly, [said] people in authority lie, and the government now lies to us. We all know it. We take it for granted. When my uncle left office in 19—, when he died in 1963, about 80% of Americans said they trusted their government. Today, 22% trust in the government, and 22% trust the press. The lowest level ever.
Why Do They Fear RFK Jr? Because He'll Tell The Truth
Watch the whole show here: https://t.co/IS9dqfvwsM pic.twitter.com/7YdzcmgTKO
— Ron Paul (@RonPaul) April 20, 2023
The idea of a politician being held to such a standard shouldn’t be radical, but it absolutely is. At this point, we simply take it for granted that if a government actor’s lips are moving, he’s probably lying. The only questions are how much of what he’s saying is exaggerated, distorted, or outright fabricated, and for what purpose?
And because the corporate media that is supposed to expose and chronicle politicans’ lies is almost always in on the deception itself, the onus falls on the individual or a trusted independent media source to sort fact from fiction. What this leads to is a devastating decay in trust in government and an erosion of civic engagement of the sort seen in Eastern Europe in the heyday of Soviet communism.
“The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying but they keep lying anyway, and we keep pretending to believe them.”
– Elena Gorokhova, A Mountain of Crumbs
It’s not supposed to be like this, and it doesn’t have to be. The only reason this sort of behavior is now not only common but nearly universal within the governing class is that we tolerate it. Like a domestic abuse victim who doesn’t want to contend with the harsh reality, we make excuses or simply accept that the abuse is inevitable.
It’s not inevitable!
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From personal experience as a mortal sinner, I can tell you that it’s impossible to respect someone to whom you lie and who then either blindly accepts the lie or plays along with the lie simply for the sake of denialism, convenience, cowardice, or apathy.
Every time a politician lies and isn’t sanctioned in the form of getting thrown out of office in disgrace, he is emboldened to do it again and again.
The standard should be: the first time a politician is caught in a lie — like when Biden absurdly claimed that he was arrested on the way to meet Nelson Mandela even though that tale is easily disproven, or that he graduated with two degrees from the top of his class — he has immediately and henceforth sullied his reputation.
His only chance of redemption, from then on, assuming he is granted one out of the benevolent spirit of the American people, is a spotless record of saintly truth-telling for a years-long period of probation. Everything the politician says in the interim is to be taken with a giant grain of salt. No benefits of the doubt are given. He is not granted any semblance of respect when he appears in public. He is reminded at every opportunity that he is a documented liar, and so any claims he makes must be backed up by substantial evidence or else dismissed out of hand.
We don’t accept lies from our children about taking a cookie from the jar. Why should we accept them from politicians? The only way to discipline them is by enforcing devastating consequences.
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