- Why governments lie…
- An empire must tell whoppers…
- April 15 is getting close. Before you file, you need to learn about one key loophole in the tax code that can LEGALLY save you thousands in taxes this year.
Dear Reader,
Why does government lie so repeatedly — and so atrociously?
The answer, I hazard, reduces to government’s desperate quest for prestige.
Government equals authority. And authority fears embarrassment above all else.
It must stand aloof, superior.
And it demands that those beneath it behold it through a prism of awe.
Have you ever observed a dirty police vehicle? They nearly always shine.
Why? Because a dirty police vehicle represents a blemish upon a government’s prestige.
It suggests shoddiness. It therefore invites embarrassment.
And an authority — a government — cannot withstand embarrassment.
The Bigger the Organization, the Bigger the Lies
“Why are you stating the obvious?” comes your retort.
“Every organization, from the smallest business to the largest business, from any local government to the federal government, wants to uphold a good reputation. They all fear for its prestige,” you add.
“No organization wants to be publicly embarrassed.”
You are of course correct.
Yet the larger the organization, the larger its scope of influence.
And the larger its scope of influence, the greater the number of potential embarrassments.
The greater the number of potential embarrassments, the greater the number of lies — and the greater the scale of lies — an organization must tell to cling to its prestige.
Do you follow along?
Reputation Is Everything
Imagine you are the proprietor of a local business concern.
You must maintain a certain reputation.
Imagine the lengths to which you would proceed… the fibs you would tell… to uphold that reputation.
“No, I never dipped Sally’s ponytails in an inkwell that one time. I swear!”
“I didn’t drive home from the bar drunk the other night. Not me!”
“No customer has ever complained about me to the Better Business Bureau. It’s always my no-good competition trying to put me out of business.”
Yet your enterprise maintains a very constricted reach. It represents a nearly absolute insignificance to the world beyond.
Who cares if you claim to be the most superior plumber in Springfield when you manifestly are not?
A Local Government Can Manage Its Lies
Next imagine that you mayor a local government.
You are jealous of its prestige — of your prestige.
You must tell your lies to glitter before your subjects.
The business may be difficult at times — yet it is manageable.
You may lie about the efficiency of the Motor Vehicle Department or the Highway Department, for example.
You may lie about the bribes you have accepted.
Yet the scope of your lies is contained with your narrow borders.
It does not even concern the next village over. Its residents are not even aware of your mayoralty.
Let us next proceed to the national level.
The Smaller the Nation, the Smaller the Lies
Any nation — any normal nation — tells its lies to hold up its prestige.
The enterprise may be difficult at times. A nation, after all, normally contains a certain territorial heft.
Thus it harbors many sources of potential embarrassment damaging to its reputation.
Yet if the nation is reasonably sized… and has little global ambition… the lies it must tell may be limited in number.
Its president denies that he likes to wear wigs and don dresses?
Well, what is it to the president of China if the president of Equatorial Guinea denies that he likes to wear wigs and don dresses?
Equatorial Guinea has no global reputation to maintain.
Next we consider the lies an empire must tell to maintain its prestige…
The Burden of Maintaining Global Prestige
Take, for example, the United States.
The United States is the world’s reigning kingpin, its dominant power.
Its wingspan spreads across the entirety of Earth.
Imagine all the potential embarrassments that may arise in such a vast space.
Imagine all the potential lies it must tell to maintain its prestige among the nations of Earth.
Do you recall the detonation of the Nord Stream pipeline that transmitted natural gas from the Russian Federation to the German republic?
Who did the dynamiting?
The answers reduce to the United States itself, one of its European allies or the nation of Ukraine.
Do you believe the United States government is unaware of the answer?
A Lie of Omission or Commission
Yet imagine the catastrophic damage to its reputation if it revealed the answer.
It would concede that the United States itself executed the largest act of environmental sabotage in all of history — and heavily wrecked the economy of its central NATO ally — or that another NATO ally executed the caper.
Or that the nation the United States government stood impassionedly behind, Ukraine, did the deed.
The United States government must therefore shrug its shoulders in befuddlement or inform you that Russia dynamited its own pipeline.
It is a lie of omission — or a lie of commission.
In either instance it is a lie.
Here I cite but one example. Many additional examples exist.
Truth: the Necessary Casualty of Empire
Could the United States government possibly concede that it may have facilitated terrorist organizations… the international drug trade… dictatorship… and many related evils?
“Come on,” you say. “It’s a complicated world and sometimes you have to get down in the mud and get your hands dirty. It’s unavoidable for a superpower like the U.S. with global interests. It’s absolutely necessary, in fact.”
You are correct. It is unavoidable. And it is necessary.
That is precisely the point. Recall:
The larger the scope of an organization’s influence, the greater the number of potential embarrassments.
The greater the number of potential embarrassments, the greater the number of lies — and the greater the scale of lies — an organization must tell to cling to its prestige.
And there is no higher organization than an empire.
Thus spoke former boss of the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. Michael Pompeo:
- I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole … we had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.
Just so. Sir Churchill once argued that:
“In war-time truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”
Yet the bodyguard of lies has never gone off duty — not even in peace-time.
She never will.
Brian Maher
for Freedom Financial News
