Top ten untruths, myths
and Misconceptions
in our political discourse today
1. Tax Cuts always pay for themselves. In other words you can continue to cut taxes or at least never have to raise them even as expenditures, inflation and responsibilities continue to rise and still achieve a balanced budget. Not True.
Decreasing revenues while increasing expenditures is not a recipe for success. It is this sharp thinking which has built up nearly ten trillion dollars in debt since 1980 and will give us a record annual deficit of almost half a trillion this year alone. It has led to the corruption of our economy and the degradation of every principle of sensible, accountable, responsible and responsive government ever practiced in this country.
2. The wealthy are over taxed. Not True.
In a country where only wealthy- or soon to be wealthy – people run for office only to slavishly serve people wealthier than they are, seriously, what are the chances that the wealthy would ever be overtaxed? If the interests of the rich are not well represented in Washington whose is? Every attempt to redress the inequality of the tax burden is quickly derided by the rich as another “soak the rich” attempt. Apparently this is different from the actual “soak the poor and middle class until the whiners drown” tax policy we traditionally favor and currently pursue.
3. Taxes or “public” money should never be spent on the public. Not True.
They say public tax money is wasted on the public and is better when recycled by congress as high dollar welfare through private politically well connected entities like corporations, lobbying groups, political buddies and campaign supporters first. Perhaps this indirect approach to public expenditure will provide for our services, health care, infrastructure, education, oversight of regulatory processes, law and order, foreign policy, etc., by accident someday. But up until now our necessities have all gone begging while the undertaxed wealthy help themselves to the benefits of the largess bestowed on them by congress from the heavy taxes levied on the rest of us.
Meanwhile the vast majority of the people of this nation, at great expense to themselves are being slowly starved of their own revenues. To refuse to spend public funds for the public good as a matter of principle is like prohibiting farmers from eating any of their own produce.
4. Politicians are never corrupted or even tempted by huge campaign contributions to do anything but what is best and most fruitful for the nation. Not True.
In fact these days the nation’s policies are influenced by almost nothing but campaign contributions. This invariably moves them farther away from the public good rather than closer to it. A corollary fraud has it that campaign finance abuse is really freedom of speech with hundred dollar bills in place of words.
It really should go without saying that the right to bribe politicians is not a constitutionally protected one.
5. The effects of globalization and unfettered and unregulated free markets are always salutary, and help more Americans than they harm. Not True.
Globalization is horizontal, almost meteorological, flow economics which disproportionately helps Wall Street. The domestic American economy is of a perpendicular, cardiovascular sort, which is vital to the health of Main Street. Unless great care is taken to integrate these two contrary forces, clearly they may start to work at cross purposes. The unhealthy preoccupation of Congress with Wall Street and multinational corporations in a world economy has actually led to the sharp decline of the health and well being of the American economy and started to seriously erode the future security of most Americans.
(This economic reality is the underlying confluence of cause for many of the untruths in this short survey. As politicians work for the global economy at the behest of their overlords on Wall Street they have diminishing interest in the health, well being of individuals who live closer to First and Main.)
6. Seven years after 9/11 for all the trillion and a half dollars spent, the thousands of American lives lost, the two wars started, the civil liberties trampled and infringed, the torture engaged in, the international laws and conventions ignored, with our respect and integrity in the world much diminished – they say we are better off, the world is a safer place, we are safer in it, and threats against us by al Qaeda and its offshoots have been beaten back and the culprits of the attack have been brought to sure and certain justice. Not True.
For all the bombast and pseudo patriotic bluster of our clueless, cowering leadership we are actually far weaker internationally, economically, diplomatically, and even domestically in the world today than we were prior to 9/11.
7. The more guns in circulation, the safer we will be. Not True.
While a few people armed to the teeth may feel safer (although, as gun violence often begins in the home, people who own guns and their families are more likely to be victims of gun violence than anyone else), the vast majority of citizens are made far less safe by the uncontrolled proliferation of guns into the wrong hands. In fact, it is a mathematical certainty that the more guns there are in circulation the greater the number of deaths by gun violence there will be.
(Actually, this theory is just another instance of the political abdication by our elected officials’ of their core responsibilities – in this case to ensure law and order and security for everyone in society equally. Although there are legitimate constitutional protections to preserve gun ownership, to abdicate all regulatory control is to make this society essentially lawless. In this, again, our political class is putting their own political and financial interests above the health and safety of the American people by gutting policies necessary to ensure secure, peaceful and prosperous lives.)
8. Patriotism and religion are judged to be deepest and most sincerely held when worn on one’s sleeve or pinned on one’s lapel. And science and education, facts and truth, may be ignored by faith and overcome by the fervency of continuous propaganda. Not True.
In fact, politicians who are quickest to utter platitudes about how patriotic and moral and religious they are, and reduce these profound topics to the clipped superficialities and rehearsed phrases of the modern politician, are generally protesting too much and trying too hard to purchase preemptive insurance against general discovery of just how insincere they really are. Rest assured that these same people will be the quickest to betray these fundamental principles when they have been so facilely espoused as to have become meaningless.
9. The politicians who run the dirtiest, most aggressive and dishonest campaigns bristling with the most outrageous exaggerations and unfounded allegations are best suited for high office and selfless public service in America today. Not True.
These are the foxes who see public office in Washington as their own personal hen house. Actually, openness, humility, intelligence, self-effacement, honesty, hard work; balance, respectfulness, fairness and ability to see both sides of causes, might actually be better indices of competence, diligence and integrity in the public life of democracy than are blind rigidity, oversized egos, fatuous claims of moral superiority and the comparative extent of a candidate’s ill-gotten campaign slush fund.
10. A nation may continue to prosper and advance indefinitely even when divided by the expediencies, inanities, bribes, lies, profligacies and corruption of its own public servants. Not True.
A country divided against itself cannot stand. When the greater long term good of a nation becomes less important to its leaders than the endless massaging of each of its individual (and most politically and personally profitable) parts, the center cannot hold, the bottom sags to the ground and impedes and the democracy and its economy cease to properly function.
To suggest that our Congress and political class can somehow reform our country and government without reforming themselves first is a futile illusion. Continuing on the same path ahead is not a viable option for success.
