TELLING THE TRUTH

How do you know when someone is telling the truth?

If the statement in question concerns something you know nothing about, you may have to do some research. Which is tricky, because if you go to the wrong sites on the Internet, you might verify somebody's ridiculous position by listening to somebody else's effed-up lies.

And that could lead you down the proverbial garden path, which intersects neatly with the one paved with good intentions: Welcome to Hell, Bubba!

But maybe you won't have to do any research.

The easiest way to tell if someone is truthful is if they're saying something you already know to be true. You have now not only verified the statement, by extension you have gone a long way toward verifying the person making the statement. At the very least, the next thing the guy says will inspire a lot less skepticism.

You also may have unknowingly stepped off a cliff, and it's a long way down.

Here's the problem: You're a human being, which is almost never a good thing.

Because human beings are the stupidest, meanest, and craziest creatures in the Universe, as far as anybody knows.

It's What's Wrong With Us.

Humans are the ones who think they know things. Unfortunately, they're almost always wrong. Worse, they virtually never find out they're wrong. Everywhere they look, they see proof that everything in their head is true.

Or so it seems. Good enough for human work, at least.

See, it's easy to know when other people are full of crap. We just don't have nearly as good a track record when it comes to sussing out our own fragrant pile of faulty knowledge.

If somebody says something you already believe to be true, it's likely they're packed with the same brand of crap that resides in your own rotten melon. Consequently, you've learned nothing about the veracity of the speaker. Which means your new-found confidence in the guy is entirely misplaced.

Let's take Donald Trump, for instance.

I have often heard his loyal followers say they like him because he tells the truth. That's a statement on an almost infinite level of balderdash. The man is carved out of a single block of living crap.

Can his followers be that stupid?

Of course they can. In fact, we're born to it.

But I think what's really happening is that Donald Trump is spouting nonsense that matches—or at least rhymes with—the crap that already exists within the listener's rancid brain.

They're all full of the same damned crap!

Maybe politicians know this, and exploit it. Or maybe they just instinctively act this way. They stand in front of the cameras and spout their crap and see what happens. If their crap is popular, they move ahead and gain power.

And that is incredibly dangerous. It's how you end up with a siege at the Capitol. Stuff like that.

This whole problem began with a flaw in the democratic process engendered by eighteenth century communications.

The basic idea of representative government is that some guy will sit in a room in the Capitol and do what you tell him to do. He represents you in that room. It shouldn't matter what his opinion is on the subject at hand. He's supposed to do what the folks back home want him to do.

But what if he can't find out in time what you want him to do?

Bad roads, lack of telegraphs, etc., old-time technology, all of it disconnects the people from the people's representatives.

How do we solve this dilemma?

We hold elections and let potential representatives blab our their opinions on various issues. We pick the one most like us and let the guy do what he thinks best under whatever circumstances come up in that room, stuff we don't find out about until it's all over.

We can't tell him what to do, so we have to trust him to be the same guy we elected. We have to trust he isn't swayed by lobbyists, and so forth.

Up comes a refinement: political parties.

Vote for the party of your choice, and trust the party leaders will insure the stuff gets done right. They can literally use their Whip to make it happen.

Unfortunately, politics is a supremely blunt instrument.

And at base, it's still all about a match between the crap in your head and the crap in the representative's head (or his adherence to the party's crap agenda).

It's still just crap. Human crap, which is some of the most corrosive material there is.

And there's no guarantee this crap is lined up with the best interests of the country. Don't forget, Germans elected Hitler's party.

Two cheers for democracy!