Criminalize Political Lies or Civilization Dies

The first lie is that America is a democracy, instead of a plutocracy strutting about in the garb of democracy.

The Presidential Club: A shameful legacy, and getting worse all the time.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he vast social injustice rife throughout the world is reaching a tipping point. The people of planet earth are mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore. The ecological devastation and immense human suffering caused by collaborating, corrupt governments around the world is awakening all humanity to a common cause. The time is ripe for a worldwide political revolution.

Here in the U.S., our founding fathers’ sacred idea of a government of the people has become a cruel joke – along with that “goddamned piece of paper” we call our Constitution. Our Supreme Court says our government is legally for sale to the highest bidder. Our so-called “representatives” in Congress shamelessly vie for millions in legal bribes in return for delivering billions of the people’s tax dollars to elite special interests.

As a result, 44 million Americans live in poverty, a record 40 million rely on food stamps, 30 million are unemployed or underemployed, a record 6 million have given up looking for a job, millions have lost their homes to foreclosure by the same banksters bailed out by billions of the people’s tax dollars, and, unlike our privileged “representatives” in Washington, 50 million Americans have no health insurance. The time is ripe for a worldwide political revolution.

Political lies: the lifeblood of our political system

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]hough big money is the driving force of our political system, political lies provide the means to pass unjust legislation. Political lies aren’t benign lies or compassionate lies aimed at easing suffering. Political lies are unambiguously intended to further political ends with blatant disregard for their harmful consequences and with little or no accounting by our lying politicians.

Trump’s racist and buffoonish performance has not affected his ratings. The public—fed up with the cynical lying permeating the political class—has embraced him solely because he represents candor in politics, a rarity.

Without political lies, the U.S. political system would disintegrate. A system claiming to work for the people, but obviously working for elite special interests, must necessarily be based on carefully crafted lies. The more unjust the legislation, the more carefully crafted the lies must be to pass it. Our political system proudly rewards crafty lying, with the best liars reaping the biggest rewards.

Political lies aren’t limited to false statements. There are political lies of omission when politicians purposely ignore facts that undermine their positions. Evasion is probably the most common political lie. Our politicians are free to spout vague, specious nonsense while carefully evading clearly explaining and justifying their positions.

[dropcap]A[/dropcap] lie is a betrayal of trust. Our personal lies might betray a spouse or a few friends, but the harm is usually quite limited. But when government representatives lie, for example to justify war, the betrayal could easily extend to all of humanity and even to the earth itself with severe, possibly irreversible, negative ramifications.

Political lies kill big time. Political lies plunder. Political lies cause countless forms of extreme human suffering. Political lies are used to excuse the most heinous behavior. This class of lying, the very lifeblood of the U.S. political system, is clearly criminal by any just definition of the term. Yet this moral abomination continues, not only unpunished, but handsomely rewarded.

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]riminalizing lies is not new or revolutionary. It’s a serious crime to lie about fire in a crowded theatre. It’s a serious crime to lie to our government (see Section 1001 of Title 18 of the United States Code). What would be new and revolutionary is criminalizing government lies. It’s illegal to lie to our government; incredibly it’s even illegal to expose government lies (see Drake, Manning, Snowden). Yet our government can legally lie to us with impunity. It’s way past time to criminalize political lies.

For this revolutionary idea to work, we need a simple, voluntary, reliable way to distinguish lying politicians from non-lying politicians. Enter the power of the Internet. Imagine you could go to a website and find any pending legislative bill or issue accompanied by pro and con arguments that are dynamic (can be updated at any time like Wikipedia articles). These pro and con arguments would be maintained by politicians supporting the two positions.

[dropcap]P[/dropcap]lanet earth and all but a tiny fraction of her inhabitants are being systematically raped and plundered by a corporate power structure that virtually owns the U.S. government. If there’s an activity that can make money by destroying our planet or killing our fellow human beings, you can bet the U.S. government is actively promoting that activity. This huge, continuing crime against humanity (and nature) is being justified and sustained with big, fat, legal political lies.

Unless we the people unite in a worldwide political revolution, one that no longer tolerates lies from government representatives, we’ll get more inequality, we’ll get more destruction of our natural resources, we’ll get more wars, and we’ll get even more extreme human suffering that will progress until the downtrodden of the world violently revolt in desperation.

All US presidents have been involved in some act of aggression that could be easily condemned as a Nuremberg War Crime. And they have all lied. But never so criminally and so cynically as the occupants of the White House since Ronald Reagan.

Carmen Yarrusso, a software engineer for 35 years, designed and modified computer operating systems (including Internet software). He has a BS in physics and studied game theory and formal logic during his years with the math department at Brookhaven National Lab. He lives in New Hampshire and often writes about uncomfortable truths.

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