{"id":6923,"date":"2014-04-24T23:00:03","date_gmt":"2014-04-25T03:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=6923"},"modified":"2014-04-25T09:13:50","modified_gmt":"2014-04-25T13:13:50","slug":"wash-times-truth-will-prevail-costly-govt-fairy-tale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/24\/wash-times-truth-will-prevail-costly-govt-fairy-tale\/","title":{"rendered":"Wash. Times: “Truth Will Prevail” – a Costly Govt. Fairy Tale"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"wash<\/a>Washington Times<\/a>, April 25, 2014<\/h3>\n

BOVARD: \u2018Truth will prevail\u2019 \u2014 a costly government fairy tale<\/h2>\n

by James Bovard<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court heard lawyers wrangle Tuesday over an Ohio law that criminalizes false statements about political candidates. The justices were skeptical if not scornful of the efforts by Ohio and 14 other states to create \u201cministries of truth\u201d to pass judgment on criticisms of candidates.<\/p>\n

The real danger, though, is that such laws create the illusion that government will safeguard citizens from political frauds and falsehoods.<\/p>\n

The Ohio case began in 2010 when an anti-abortion group, the Susan B. Anthony List, sought to post billboards accusing then-Rep. Steve Driehaus of supporting taxpayer-funded abortions because he voted for President Obama\u2019s Affordable Care Act. After Mr. Driehaus formally accused the group of violating Ohio\u2019s false-statements law, the billboard company refused to take the ad.<\/p>\n

Despite throttling the hostile ads, Mr. Driehaus lost the election \u2014 after which the Obama administration appointed him as the director of Peace Corps programs in Swaziland.<\/p>\n

The Ohio law prohibits false statements regarding candidates in the 60-day window before the election. Like similar statutes in other states, the Ohio law does nothing to protect citizens against dishonest government. A candidate can tell endless brazen lies about how he intends to use the power that voters vest in him, but as long as he does not smear the opposing candidate, the Ohio Elections Commission will not touch him.<\/p>\n

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy observed that there is \u201ca serious First Amendment concern with a state law that requires you to come before a commission to justify what you are going to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Apologists for the Ohio law claim that it is based on a simple question of whether people have a right to lie about candidates. However, how many prudent persons expect truth from the political process?<\/p>\n

Thomas Jefferson observed in 1820, \u201cWhenever a man casts a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.\u201d Economist John Burnheim, in his 1985 book \u201cIs Democracy Possible?\u201d explained why political campaigns rely on deception: \u201cOverwhelming pressures to lie, to pretend, to conceal, to denigrate or sanctify are always present when the object to be sold is intangible and its properties unverifiable until long after the time when the decision to buy can be reversed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The surreal element of the Ohio controversy has not gone unnoticed. The New Yorker\u2019s resident satirist, Andy Borowitz, predicted that the court would strike down the Ohio law because \u201cany attempt to restrict or punish lying by politicians is an unconstitutional infringement on a religion they have practiced for decades.\u201d Unfortunately, most of the media is more averse to calling politicians liars than politicians are to lying.<\/p>\n

Many critics of the Ohio law rightfully insist that it is better to let voters, rather than a government panel, judge the veracity of campaign claims. However, relying on well-informed citizens is a shaky insurance policy for producing good government.<\/p>\n

Contempt for mere facts has long been a reliable recipe for capturing and holding power. Politicians nowadays treat Americans like medical orderlies treat Alzheimer\u2019s patients, telling them anything to keep them subdued. It doesn\u2019t matter what untruths people are fed because many of them will not remember. Besides, a lie that is accepted by a sufficient number of ignorant voters becomes a political truth.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The current case exemplifies how politicians tilt the playing field against truth. A congressional Obamacare supporter used the law to throttle a billboard attack \u2014 but citizens have no recourse against Mr. Obama for all his lies (\u201cyou can keep your insurance plan\u201d) that propelled Obamacare into the statute books. There is no such thing as retroactive self-government: Laws are not nullified after the exposure of the deceits that led to their enactment.<\/strong><\/p>\n

While the Supreme Court is unlikely to approve the Ohio law, it has a long history of helping the federal government dupe the American people<\/strong>. The court refused to hear numerous challenges to the unjustified invocations of the state-secrets doctrine by the George W. Bush and Obama administrations \u2014 thereby permitting the feds to keep many of their worst abuses hidden.<\/p>\n

Last year, the court torpedoed a case against the National Security Agency\u2019s warrantless wiretapping because the plaintiffs could not prove that they had been illegally spied upon and thus lacked standing. It is absurd, though, to expect a secret surveillance regime to notify its victims.<\/p>\n

Citizens are taught in civics classes that \u201ctruth will out\u201d and thereby assure the triumph of self-government. This is the most costly of political fairy tales<\/strong>. How many years will it be until Americans receive enough information to judge the truth of Mr. Obama\u2019s claims about Benghazi and the Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservative groups?<\/p>\n

As long as the administration can delay disclosures until after November\u2019s midterm congressional elections, Mr. Obama will likely pay no political price for what his minions did. The more power he has, the easier it becomes for him to keep the lid on the facts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A century ago, humorist Kin Hubbard observed that \u201cnow and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature.\u201d Rather than relying on a government seal of approval of a candidate\u2019s candor, voters should be wary of any politician seeking power over them. That wariness should extend to any government board that encourages citizens to drop their guard against local, state or federal officeholders.<\/p>\n

James Bovard is the author of \u201cAttention Deficit Democracy\u201d (Palgrave, 2006) and \u201cLost Rights\u201d (St. Martin\u2019s, 1994).<\/p>\n

On Twitter @jimbovard<\/p>\n

* Thanks to Greg Groesch for the great artwork that captures the spirit & reality of govt. duplicity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington Times, April 25, 2014 BOVARD: \u2018Truth will prevail\u2019 \u2014 a costly government fairy tale by James Bovard The Supreme Court heard lawyers wrangle Tuesday over an Ohio law that criminalizes false statements about political candidates. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6923"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6939,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6923\/revisions\/6939"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}