“People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.” -Alan Moore, V for Vendetta
“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” my Midwestern Irish-Catholic grandmammy used to opine as she indiscriminately lined up and sadistically hosed her captive grand-progenies down in the backyard, me included, after discovering a lone louse on a single head.
“That’s how we did it in the old country,” she would add.
Given how much historically unprecedented power is vested in the nuclear-armed government, derived in theory from the people, one would expect it to be beholden to a higher moral, ethical, and legal standard than the general population.
In a just society, at least, that would be the case.
But, of course, the United States government pursues justice no more than it adheres to Constitutional restraints. And so the most powerful actors in government can lie to anyone they like with impunity, but a powerless citizen making false statements to the FBI is a federal crime.
Related: Carl Sagan predicted from the grave the rise of people like FauciWhite House, State Department, et al. “press briefings,” — as they are euphemistically called because it has a more wholesome progressive ring than “Propaganda Power Hour” — are ritualistic exercises in sadomasochistic humiliation of a captured and put-upon domestic (and domesticated) American population.
At least once upon a time, the government propagandists who occupied the role of “X Department Spokesman” were skilled liars who maintained some pretense of respect for the media and minimal competency. This, by extension, conveyed some modicum of respect for the people whose interests the media allegedly serves. It was always an exercise in bullshit dissemination, but the window dressing of respectability and legitimacy was maintained.
Nowadays, we get admitted diversity hire, immigrant lesbian Person of Color™ (ILPOC) Karine Jean-Pierre — who can barely read her non-answers from her pre-written notecards — and effeminate State Department vampires who lie through their teeth with dripping disdain for the public they purportedly serve.
Related: Karine Jean-Pierre’s Jihad: Adjectives, Articles, Subject-Verb AgreementHere’s what absolutely, at a minimum, needs to happen but won’t as long as the current permanent bureaucracy is in control:
- All of these loathsome creatures ought to be put under oath before each briefing, so that they would then theoretically be subject to perjury charges when caught lying — which is almost literally every time they open their filthy whore mouths.
- When they simply don’t answer the question as asked and instead pivot to their non-sequitur talking points, which they often prefer to outright lying, they ought to be held in contempt and prosecuted for that.
- Their co-conspirators and handlers who help craft the front people’s deceptions behind closed doors before these theater productions also need to be charged with the same crimes and more under RICO statutes.
Then we’d cut the bullshit real fast.
Obviously, the government itself (Congress) would never pass legislation that could likely be used against itself in the future — Congress being full of pathological liars as well — but this is what justice would require.
Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.
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