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“There
is nothing in the world more shameful than
establishing one's self on lies and fables.”
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
It
has been widely reported that more Americans are
voting for FOX’s American Idol, than they do in
presidential elections. I am certain that this
little statistic has not gone unnoticed amongst
our politicians.
Obviously,
if the majority of the electorate does not bother
to vote in presidential elections—never mind
state and local elections—it sends a message to
politicians that they can get away with lies,
falsehoods, and distortions of facts. They figure
that the voters are not paying particularly close
attention and even if they are, the likelihood of
holding them accountable is miniscule.
This
trend is manifesting itself in the way politicians
openly switch positions without facing outrage or
suffering any other adverse consequences. On the
contrary, they feel emboldened to espouse various
positions just to get elected and, once safely in
office, doing a 180 degree turn from the positions
that got them elected.
Obviously,
the master of bait and switch politics was former
Gov. Mark R. Warner (D). He campaigned on a
promise not to raise taxes and then spent the rest
of his term trying to enact one tax increase after
another—until he finally succeeded the third
year of his governorship.
Warner
would not have been successful in enacting the
2004 tax increase, had he not been helped by the
Republican controlled state Senate. The Senate
leadership is completely out of touch with the
Republican grassroots; it has continued to
champion tax increases, in the face of an
exploding state budget.
Even
though state spending has just more than doubled
from the mid-1990s, the Senate leadership keeps on
harping for more taxes so that they can continue
their outrageous spending spree. Warner and the
Senate leadership, along with a small band of
renegades in the House of Delegates were
responsible for enacting the largest tax increase
in the history of Virginia.
Ironically,
just about everyone of the so-called leaders of
the Senate Republican caucus were elected on a
promise to bring fiscal responsibility to the
state budgeting process and not to raise taxes. An
apathetic and unengaged electorate does not seem
to care whether their elected officials can be
trusted to tell the truth—after all, Warner left
office with a high approval rating, irrespective
of the many lies and falsehoods he was caught in
during his tenure.
So,
it is little wonder that Warner’s successor, Tim
Kaine (D) is continuing on the same path of lies,
distortions, and half truths. He, too campaigned
on a promise not to raise taxes, but even before
he got sworn into office, he had switched
positions and was trying to enact another tax
increase on top of the last one. Kaine is again
being helped by willing Senate leaders who clamor consistently for more taxes — a total
about face from the positions they espoused when
they last campaigned in 2003.
Furthermore,
Kaine is taking the art of political spinning to a
new level. For example, even though the House of
Delegates proposes spending increases of 19
percent in the next two-year budget, Kaine talks
about "cuts" in education and law
enforcement. That’s not a simple distortion of
facts — it is an outright lie!
Kaine’s
colossal prevarications raised some eyebrows in
certain political circles. They even forced the
Speaker of the House to author an unusually harsh
Op-Ed. Nonetheless, the fact remains that the
majority of the voters have not been paying any
attention and Kaine, like his predecessor, will
not be held accountable.
H.L.
Mencken (1880-1956), a journalist and social
critic, defined a demagogue as “one who preaches
doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to
be idiots.” An unengaged and uninformed
electorate remains oblivious to the facts, so that
politicians can get away with spreading untruths,
while facing little or no repercussion for their
actions.
Until
the voters become engaged again, we are destined
to be ruled by demagogues and opportunists who say
whatever suits them at any particular moment. It
is said that we reap what we sow; as long as we do
not demand higher standards from our politicians,
we are doomed to be represented by deceivers —
folks who will do and say anything just to get
elected and lie repeatedly once in office.
--
April 17, 2006
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