Fine Tuning Your BS Button

If there is a frustration in looking at the political atmosphere, it is perpetuating lies and the ease with which that happens. All parties to this situation, whether they be the politicians themselves or the interest that carries water for them, are guilty. As I like to say, lying is not a partisan issue. It’s just a shame.

I know that we all like to believe that the things we agree with are correct in themselves. They are because they sound right in our ears. They are just, and they support or justify our beliefs. Despite volumes of evidence to the contrary, a large percentage of people believe the Saddam Hussian was directly instrumental in the attack on the World Trade Center. Many people vigorously believe that President Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States. There is a continuing belief that President Bush engineered the attacks on 9/11 to justify starting the war in Iraq. These things began as rumors, and all have been disproved to reasonable people, but the belief persists.

In an election cycle, it has become common practice to have a group outside of the campaign itself plant a story that, in some way or another, negatively portrays the opponent. The dirty tricks people have labeled the tactic as “Swiftboating” because of an egregious but highly successful campaign against John Kerry in his campaign to become president. There is little time to disprove these accusations, and if they get the attention, they can benefit the campaign in many ways not so obvious. The insidious truth is that as long as there is a reasonable belief, as opposed to reasonable doubt, these campaigns work.

In the first case, your lie is believed. You know your supporters will, in the main, believe whatever accusation you make. They become your agents in the street, repeating and repeating the story over and over again. Sincere repetition makes the story more believable to the neutral parties in the public theater. If the story has a good narrative aspect and is conceivably true, the press will continue to give the story gravitas by “investigating it,” to the degree the story often doesn’t deserve. Even in the case of the press disproving the story, the lie gets attention because a lot of people don’t believe the press.

It is a fact that political campaigns have just so much capital to spend, both human and monetary. If the opponents can keep the lie floating long enough, they can command effort and advertising dollars to answer the lie and divert attention from the important issues. Many of us would rather speculate about who is sleeping with who rather than thinking about highway funds dispersal or mandatory federal requirements for Medicare providers.

If you doubt my premise, answer this. Why does that grocery store checkout rag sell more copies than the NY Times or Washington Post? Why do people expend time and energy in the vain hope of proving the government is hiding information proving that people from other planets have been discovered.?

We are a society that is in some form of denial about a lot of things. Our need to believe in some forms of conspiracy seems to be in our DNA. Can we continue to believe that our war on drugs or poverty has been worth investing in human and financial investment when clearly they have not? There always is the latest boogeyman for whom we can justify the expenditure of capital on defense that is more than all other nations combined? When do we realize that people are people and that 5% of those people are the problem, and depending on the issue, you might be in the 5%? Tolerance, understanding, and compassion might help. However, adding in a dose of critical thinking is essential.

Whenever you hear that story about a celebrity, politician, business person, or power broker, ask yourself one question. If I believe this story without further substantiation, who gains and who losses? If you find that the people that gain are spreading the story, turn your BS button to the full-on position.