Why is that? And how much does it matter?
First, some background.
Presidents Obama, Clinton, both George Bushes, as well as Newt Gingrich, Chris Matthews, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and many other politicians and pundits have no doubt become very wealthy individuals by "serving" the public.
By so doing, have they engaged in public service or self service? And if self service, so what? Isn't that just the way the system works?
Stated a little differently, do our political leaders generally engage in 'disinterested public service' on behalf of the general public? Of course, the correct answer is no. In my view, it's the same no answer for highly paid talk show hosts and others similarly situated.
We the people of the U.S. need the answers to the above questions to be yes. And we the people have the power to make it happen. It's up to us.
These politicians and pundits often serve themselves quite well by purporting to be serving and protecting the public interest. In essence, we've become in large measure an adversarial and sound bite society which is led by self serving public officials and media pundits.
More often than not these political and media elitists don't even make a feeble attempt to tell the people the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. They stick to their parochial scripts and strenuously advocate the positions they're selling on behalf of their 'team.'
That's harsh perhaps, but true, at least as I see things. And I do try continuously to get an ever better reality by attempting to see things as they really are. My conclusions may be wrong but my truth seeking and telling motives are sincere.
So what about the importance of each of us seeking that ever better reality by continuously trying to live and tell the truth? Does it even matter if our public officials and pundits frequently act in a self interested as opposed to disinterested manner? What's the big deal?
For that answer, let's look at a current example of two just deceased public leaders to discover the difference that self as opposed to public service leadership can mean to a country's citizens.
We'll look at Czechoslovakia and North Korea for a lesson about what all this seek, live and tell the truth stuff can mean to U.S. citizens.
Tyranny and Indifference is subtitled "What it means to heed Vaclav Havel's prescription to 'live in truth.'"
It compares the selfless and courageous actions of Vaclav Havel's freedom loving leadership in defeating communism in Czechoslovakia to the inhumane dictatorship of North Korea's Kim Jong Il.
We'll begin by looking at Havel's beliefs about the effects of indifference on human freedoms:
"If Havel's now-celebrated career means anything, however, it is to beware that facile conclusion (that what happens to others is not our concern). In his great 1978 essay, "The Power of the Powerless," written just as his career as a dissident had begun in earnest with his signing of the Charter 77 manifesto, he warned against "the attractions of mass indifference" and the "general unwillingness of consumption-oriented people to sacrifice some material certainties for the sake of their own spiritual and moral integrity." Havel feared that one's indifference to the question of the freedom of others would ultimately result in a well-fed indifference to the question of one's own freedom.
"A big danger of our world today is obsession," he told the conference the day of our interview. "An even bigger danger is indifference."
All this was Havel's way of saying that political extremism—whether of the Leonid Brezhnev, Kim Jong Il, Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden variety—would flourish if free people did not actively resist the temptation to acquiesce to it in the name of "peace," or some other go-along-to-get-along slogan.
A proper attitude may not have required physical belligerency, he believed, and it could easily incorporate diplomacy. But it did require a constant posture of spiritual belligerency—a refusal to accept that a regime like Saddam's or Kim's was just a normal fact of life, beyond the reach of moral examination. In the context of Cold War Czechoslovakia, Havel called it a matter of "living in truth." In the context of countries like North Korea, Russia or Iran, Havel told me it was also a matter of truth-telling. "We can talk to every ruler," he said, "but first of all it is necessary to tell the truth."
What does it take to "tell the truth," as Havel saw it? In his case, a great deal of courage, including a willingness to spend years of his life in prison or working the menial jobs to which the regime sentenced him. The real mystery is why, in free societies where few journalists and politicians are ever at serious risk of reprisal, truth-telling seems to be in relatively short supply."The lesson for us is straightforward. What Havel referred to as spiritual belligerency is a fundamental underpinning of a free society.
Unless and until we are willing to accept no less than we are entitled to expect from our elected representatives, we're likely to get as little as we'll accept and nothing more than that. However, if we're spiritually belligerent and tell the truth, others will do the same. Even the pols and the pundits.
The bottom line? If we're practicing learned helplessness and are willingly indifferent to the truth, tyranny will have a chance to blossom. As free citizens, we'll then have only ourselves to blame.
That's because as Americans we've long been empowered to insist that truth seeking and telling be the only acceptable behavior of our pols, pundits and fellow citizens. Spiritual belligerency, anyone? Everyone?
So why is truth telling among politicians and journalists in such short supply? For the simple reason that it's not required, and in many cases not even desired, as a condition of their continued employment or personal success.
Whether that's due to our public's general indifference or widespread ignorance, the outcome is exactly the same. If we act as if the truth doesn't matter, the politicians and journalists will sell us only that which will not make us upset, even if it's not always true.
All elected politicians have a base of support. As a member of the House of Representatives, for example, it's a local legislative district. The locally focused people will want their congressman to bring home the goodies to their local district. In a sense, we all want to enrich ourselves at the expense of everybody else. So that's what the politicians try to give us. How long has this been going on?
In "The State," published in 1848, Frederic Bastiat stated the case this way, "The State is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Thus, the actions of our self interested and not distinterested politicians today largely reflect that simple "truth." But in the longer term that "truth" is simply untrue and based on ignorance. In fact, try as we may, everybody can't live at the expense of everybody else.
All money coming from government originates someplace else. To wit, all that government redistribution money has to be taken from some people in order to be transferred, at least in part, to other people. Then it passes through the hands of largely self interested politicians. They in turn take their cut, in the form of government operating expenses, thus subtracting from the original amount. Hence, we begin with 100% but end up redistributing something considerably less than that.
But that's only the direct cost of government. To use Bastiat's language, it's what is seen.
The indirect cost, or unseen portion, is in fact much greater than the direct or seen cost.
That's because the politicians are spending OPM. And the people who had their MOM turned into OPM are then less incentivized to work harder in the future, because much of what they have produced will be confiscated by government and used to grant favors to others, including self interested politicians.
The politicians who grant the OPM favors then often proceed to write books and make speeches. Later they lobby, and many become very wealthy as a result of their "public service." They in reality are the people who live at the expense of everybody else.
As for the general public, huge deficits and debt have now accumulated to the point where our indifference must end. So it will.
So are things about to change for the better? Yes, they are. If only because indifference and ignorance are not the rough equivalents of self dealing, tyranny and stupidity.
Our combined spiritual belligerency and informed reality will lead us all to a better place. A much better place, in fact.
Our elected officials aren't tyrants, and our fellow citizens aren't stupid. When, and not if, we the people decide to become informed and insist on truth telling and proper representation by our elected officials, things will change for the better.
Either those currently holding elected office or those newly elected representatives who take their place will follow the lead of the people.
That's the benefit of a free, open and informed society. Information is the key, and people who seek the truth shall find it in our free and open information rich society.
As we take time to relearn the unchanging lessons of human nature, self interested politicians and journalists will alter their behaviors. Stated another way, as we stop buying what they are selling, they'll start selling what we're buying. That's the way free markets work.
And as I see it, that's the simple truth about the power of freedom, self interest and information in an open and self governing society.
Thanks. Bob.
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