Two Common Delusions

by Paul Hein

In the forthcoming elections you can expect to hear political candidates criticize their opponents for espousing policies which have failed. You can also expect to be told that the remedy for failed government programs is to vote the incompetent out of office. Two very attractive and appealing ideas; both, unfortunately, false.

One thing ought to be obvious: the government does not fail! There is no inherent reason why it could not, but in practice, government programs do not fail. The government has access to the brightest minds in the U.S. It also owns the printing press churning out what we accept for money. The combination of brains and unlimited funds is apt to lead to success, not failure. Yet those who criticize government policies claim, not merely an occasional or rare failure, but near universal failure. Poverty programs have failed to wipe out poverty. Education policies have, it would seem, aggravated the tendency for the schools to graduate ignoramuses. Housing projects are regularly torn down and rebuilt according to new, wiser, insights. More youngsters are smoking, despite all the government's efforts to reduce it. Yes, all of these programs have failed, and dozens of others, as well!

That just doesn't make sense. An infrequent failure is not impossible, as we have admitted, but a long record of repeated failures just can't be believed.
Perhaps the problem is the gullibility of the people, who accept the government's stated purpose for a program as true. Obviously, a government which wants to lower the standard of living is not going to announce a program to do that. Rather, it will announce a program to do just the opposite, and when the program "fails," introduce a new, improved program--again, for a real purpose diametrically opposed to the stated one. Did the government want to wipe out the independent family farmer with its farm programs of the 1930s? Heavens no, of course not--although the programs instituted to assist the family farmer seem to have done just that.

Voting? Again, theoretically, a way to solve our problems, but in practice, a waste of time. Can you think of any other corporation a fraction of the size of the U.S. which throws open its top management positions to whomever can get himself elected? The corner filling-station isn't operated that way, much less large businesses. Yet we are to believe that the U.S. is willing to open its arms to whomever the electorate send to Washington! Moreover, common sense indicates that the voters know very little about the candidates, except that this one or that televises well, and gives glib and convincing answers to questions--which have probably been screened in advance. Voting is encouraged because our rulers make sure that any of the candidates is acceptable. Your vote is important--but only to guarantee that if Tweedledum isn't elected, Tweedledee is.

The public schools serve the (real, not stated) purpose of keeping the population dumbed down, and the elections provide them with the chance to think they're capable of changing things. Sound and fury, signifying nothing!

Everything is appearances. Government programs appear to fail, but only because their true purpose was never disclosed. Elections appear to replace the old guard with young turks, but, somehow, nothing ever changes. More and more freedom is lost, as more and more power accumulates in Washington. Believe what you hear from the mouths of politicians at your peril!

May 20, 2002