Broad meadows

In Matthew 15 Jesus says, “But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.” Matthew 15:18&19.

To know what is in a person, you have to allow them to speak. In part this is why deception in government is so bad. The deceptiveness of a politician or judge has wide ranging consequences. But it also reveals the character of those who practice deception. There are many politicians, perhaps all, who have provably lied in the pursuit of political advantage and yet they continue to be voted in by their constituents, apparently not caring how that affects the rest of us.

So in cases like this, democracy fails. As I noted in earlier posts, immunity for anyone in public life must stop. They don’t need to be held less accountable, but more so. For them, they believe there is power in deception. A new reality is being created. It’s not true, of course, but when allowed to continue they keep doing it. They must be held to a standard that is more strict, not less.

Along with this, we have those who have been deceiving us suppressing the speech of those who have called them out on their lies. In both cases you see the character of those involved. Unfortunately, the one’s doing the damage are in the position of power. In communism, propaganda is a tool for government use. That is, lying is their language. Dividing and conquering. In the case of communism, the system is the problem and needs to be done away with.

But what about democracies? The people have expressed their will(?!), and yet we still have the problem of deception in the public sector. In both cases we have the problem of deception in governance leading to an untold amount of suffering and death. So what can be done about this?

I think one thing is to begin to value the truth and to seek it more than money. To speak it when we know it, even if it costs us everything. To call out lies and liars whenever we run across them. But I don’t have a right to stop them from lying. I can only tell what’s in that person by what is coming out of their mouths and subsequent actions. The shame of being a liar should be enough of a deterrent, but some have no shame.

That brings me to me to this final point in this post. People really have no right to tell others what to do. That includes public policy makers. The line in the sand is the harm that maybe caused by an action. If there is no harm, there should be no law of any kind. This is why self governance is so important. Government is meant for those who will not govern themselves and really no one else. It could be other nations or groups of people, requiring national defense, or individuals, requiring jurisprudence. There is no other legitimate governmental activities. Everything else has been invented by those trying to make government larger and themselves more powerful. Basically just giving themselves a prestigious job where they don’t have to produce anything.