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Mr. President, we Americans continue to practice the same politics, expecting beneficial change will somehow come from a deeply corrupt system. We keep doing the same thing and expecting different results (a common definition of insanity). The insanity of our political system becomes particularly clear when we compare our practice of politics to our practice of science.
Unlike our political system, where intellectual honesty is an obvious sham, our science system’s policies and procedures enforce intellectual honesty. Rational argument and open debate are mandatory. Lying or evasion is punished not rewarded. Dissent is welcomed not silenced. Why? Because, unlike our political system, our science system places a very high value on truth and reflects that value in its policies and procedures.
Does our political system regard the nature of truth differently than our science system? Not at all. Our science system recognizes that no amount of scrutiny or debate can harm a position that is true or right or fair—only false or wrong or unfair positions need to hide from careful scrutiny and open debate. Our political system acknowledges precisely the same thing about the nature of truth.
But our political system recognizes there’s much more money to be made enacting wrong or unfair legislation than enacting right or fair legislation. Therefore our political system protects the various built-in evasion mechanisms that effectively prevent careful scrutiny and open debate on certain issues. If our politicians could no longer evade careful scrutiny and open debate, they would have little to offer most lobbyists. Special interest money would dry up. The chicken and egg cycle would be broken.
Mr. President, surely the conclusions of our political system are just as important to people’s lives as the conclusions of our science system. Truth should be just as important in politics as it is in science. The policies and procedures for both systems should reflect a standard of truth. Intellectual honesty should be mandatory for both systems. Allowing politicians to create their own version of reality by evading rational argument and open debate is patently insane—just look at the products of our political system.
An insane political system produces insane results
Mr. President, politicians tied to unjust special-interest groups (where the big money is) know very well only false or wrong or unfair positions need to hide from careful scrutiny and open debate. These politicians know very well that billions of dollars in special-interest profits would be lost if our political system didn’t provide them with various mechanisms to evade careful scrutiny and honest debate.
So they exploit these mechanisms to protect vast special-interest profits. The American people (with lots of help from a lax mainstream media) are intentionally kept in the dark about many extremely important issues. If mainstream media don’t cover it, it doesn’t exist. Certain government policies and actions are de facto immune from careful scrutiny and honest debate. In fact, there are no rational arguments to support these policies and actions because they are patently false or wrong or unfair.
Mr. President, rational argument and honest debate is prohibited on certain issues precisely because there is no rational justification for a long list of destructive U. S. government policies, procedures and actions. The following products of our political system are stunning in their irrationality and destructiveness. But they are exactly what we should expect from an intellectually dishonest (thus insane) political system:
-----A two-party system that colludes to effectively lock out competent independent or third-party candidates despite the merits of their ideas. This collusion drastically limits our choices of candidates to those pre-chosen by the two major political parties (which have essentially become two sides of the same coin). If a restaurant gave us only two choices for dessert (when there are hundreds out there), would we honesty believe we get to choose our dessert? It’s clearly pre-chosen for us. When Saddam was re-elected president there was one choice on the menu, we get only one more “choice”. HONEST DEBATE PROHIBITED.
-----Despite a long list of well-documented examples of obvious lying, systematic deception, and misinformation from the Bush administration in the lead up to the Iraq invasion, our government representatives did nothing (except take impeachment “off the table”). Several hundred international law professors from several countries publicly claimed President Bush’s invasion of Iraq unambiguously violated international law (could all these experts possibly be wrong?). There’s strong evidence President Bush illegally spied on American citizens. There’s strong evidence the Bush administration deliberately tortured people, which violates international law, our Constitution, and our nation’s core moral principles. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said, “If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy." Mr. President, we can’t just “look forward” when something that ominous is lurking behind us. HONEST DEBATE PROHIBITED.
-----The drug “war” is futile by design (thus never-ending) because it doesn’t “fight” drugs—quite the contrary—it strongly encourages both production and distribution of prohibited drugs by guaranteeing extremely high profits. Is it remotely sane to believe a policy that guarantees massive profits for any activity could possibly result in less of that activity? But the most insidious aspect of the insane drug “war” is it utterly manufactures its own enemies by criminalizing the most basic of human rights—the right of sovereignty over your own body. Mr. President, does any other human right have any meaning if you don’t have sovereignty over your own body? Sick and dying people using marijuana can be jailed for claiming this sovereignty. Olympic champion, Michael Phelps, was harassed and called a criminal for putting something into his own body less dangerous than a glass of wine or a cigarette. Mr. President, our government creates and sustains the extremely violent $500,000,000,000 illegal drug industry by arbitrarily declaring it’s a crime to put something into your own body. Mr. President, is there even a speck of sanity in this enormously destructive and clearly counterproductive policy? HONEST DEBATE PROHIBITED.
-----To create the State of Israel (U.N. Resolution 181), hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were evicted (often violently) from land they legally owned and worked and occupied for generations. Many intelligent, respected people regard this “creation” as an obvious moral abomination—plain and simple land theft. Mr. President, didn’t we create the United States in an eerily similar way? Didn’t we evict the indigenous people (often violently) from land they worked and occupied for generations? Didn’t we partition the land we took from them (keeping most for ourselves) and forcibly assign them certain territories to live on? Didn’t we then evict them, violently oppress them, and occupy and settle their territories when we needed more land, or more water, or some other resource? Didn’t our far-superior army slaughter those who fought back with their meager weapons? Didn’t we demonize and dehumanize those who bravely fought this obvious injustice, calling them savages (terrorists)? Mr. President, is taking other people’s land by force ever justified? The same United Nations that passed U.N. Resolution 181 also passed:
U.N. Resolution 194 (Palestinian refugee’s right to return to their homes in Israel)
U.N. Resolution 242 (Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank is illegal)
U.N. Resolution 3236 (Palestinians have the right to self-determination)
