Democracy Only Works if Voters Get the Whole Truth

Perhaps, because I spent 26 years on the bench, I have never had an iota of use for political correctness or lies. I believe they stand in the way of finding facts -- of determining the truth.

For a verdict to be just, it must be based on the truth. On a larger scale, for a democracy to function, the voters must also have the truth. Do not misunderstand. I have no use for liars.

But in silencing a speaker as a “liar,” “bigot,”  “fear-monger,” or  “war-monger,” the politically correct, true-believer may well be squelching truth and imperiling the nation.

Our Supreme Court has said our judicial system “assumes that adversarial testing [of evidence] will ultimately advance the public interest in truth and fairness. Our belief [is] that debate between adversaries is ... essential to the truth-seeking function of trials.”

An English Judge, Lord Eldon, perhaps put it best: “Truth is best discovered by powerful statements on both sides of the question.”

Our Supreme Court summed it up: “The very premise of our adversary system ... is that partisan advocacy on both sides of a case will best promote the ultimate objective.”

Nearly 100 years ago, in his great dissenting opinion in Abrams v. U.S. (1919) Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote:

“Persecution for the expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical. If you have no doubt of your premises or your power, and want a certain result with all your heart, you naturally express your wishes in law, and sweep away all opposition. ...

“But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe ... that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas -- that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out.

“That, at any rate, is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment ... While that experiment is part of our system, I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country.”

In 2012, in U.S. v. Alvarez, our Supreme Court once again, in a case involving a man prosecuted for lying about having received the Congressional Medal of Honor, followed the lead of Justice Holmes.

“Content-based restrictions on speech have been permitted, as a general matter, only when confined to the few ‘historic and traditional categories [of expression] long familiar to the bar,’ ... Among these categories are advocacy intended, and likely, to incite imminent lawless action, ... obscenity, ... defamation, ... speech integral to criminal conduct, ... so-called ‘fighting words,’ ... child pornography ... fraud, ...  and speech presenting some grave and imminent threat the government has the power to prevent ...

“Absent ... is any general exception to the First Amendment for false statements. This comports with the common understanding that some false statements are inevitable if there is to be an open and vigorous expression of views in public and private conversation, expression the First Amendment seeks to guarantee.

“The remedy for speech that is false is speech that is true. This is the ordinary course in a free society. ... Freedom of speech and thought flows not from the beneficence of the state but from the inalienable rights of the person.”

The danger of political correctness is best illustrated by the case of Winston Churchill. During the 1930s, Churchill  was a voice crying in the wilderness. For his incessant attempts to warn the British people against Adolf Hitler’s intentions, Churchill was labeled a “war-monger,” a “militarist,” a “fear-monger.”

In the first volume of his history of WWII, Churchill writes, “The multitudes remained plunged in ignorance of the simplest ... facts, and their leaders seeking there votes, did not dare to undeceive them. The newspapers, after their fashion, reflected and emphasized the prevailing opinions. ... No one in great authority had the wit, ascendancy or detachment from public folly to declare these fundamental brutal facts to the electorate; nor would anyone have been believed if they had.”

In reference to Britain’s utter unpreparedness to oppose Hitler, Churchill writes with bitterness of what we now call political correctness:

“We must regard as deeply blameworthy before history the conduct [of all parties], both in and out of office. Delight in smooth-sounding platitudes, refusal to face unpleasant facts, desire for popularity and electoral success irrespective of the vital interests of the State, genuine love of peace and  pathetic belief that love can be its sole foundation.”

When Hitler struck in 1939, Churchill was vindicated. His warning came true.

Those who sought to silence him, had been wrong. And in being wrong, they enabled Hitler to ravage Europe, murder 6 million Jews and nearly win the war.

Posted: Saturday, February 6, 2016 12:00 am.

By John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2016

John Donald O'Shea

Why This JFK Democrat Won't Vote for President Obama

I have always considered myself a John F. Kennedy Democrat.
I sat glued to the radio when he tried to win the vice presidential nomination. I rooted for him as he debated Richard M. Nixon on TV.
It is because I remain a Kennedy Democrat that I won't vote for President Obama. I can't for three main reasons.
First, I think the president is dead wrong on how to raises revenues and revive the economy. I also believe that Gov. Mitt Romney, who is following JFK's approach, is right. Here is what JFK said. (As you read it, recall Joe Biden's derisive remarks to Paul Ryan: "Now, you're Jack Kennedy").
"There are a number of ways by which the federal government can meet its responsibilities to aid economic growth.
"But the most direct and significant kind of federal action aiding economic growth is to make possible an increase in private consumption and investment demand -- to cut the fetters which hold back private spending.
"It could ... be done by increasing federal expenditures more rapidly than necessary, but such a course would soon demoralize both the government and our economy.
"The final and best means of strengthening demand among consumers and business is to reduce the burden on private income and the deterrents to private initiative which are imposed by our present tax system -- and this administration pledged itself last summer to an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes to be enacted and become effective in 1963.
"In short, to increase demand and lift the economy, the federal government's most useful role is not to rush into a program of excessive increases in public expenditures, but to expand the incentives and opportunities for private expenditures.
"(A)ny new tax legislation enacted ... should meet the following three tests:
"First, it should reduce the net taxes by a sufficiently early date and a sufficiently large amount to do the job required.
"Second, the new tax bill must increase private consumption, as well as investment... When consumers purchase more goods, plants use more of their capacity, men are hired instead of laid-off, investment increases, and profits are high.
"Corporate tax rates must also be cut to increase incentives and the availability of investment capital.
"For all these reasons, next year's tax bill should reduce personal as well as corporate income taxes: for those in the lower brackets, who are certain to spend their additional take-home pay, and for those in the middle and upper brackets, who can thereby be encouraged to undertake additional efforts and enabled to invest more capital.
"Third, the new tax bill should improve both the equity and the simplicity of our present tax system. This means the enactment of long-needed tax reforms, a broadening of the tax base, and the elimination or modification of many special tax privileges.
"Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget -- just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits.
"In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now. ... This country's own experience with tax reduction in 1954 has borne this out. And the reason is that only full employment can balance the budget, and tax reduction can pave the way to that employment.
"The purpose of cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus.
"I repeat: our practical choice is not between a tax-cut deficit and a budgetary surplus. It is between two kinds of deficits: (a) a chronic deficit of inertia, as the unwanted result of inadequate revenues and a restricted economy, or (b) a temporary deficit of transition, resulting from a tax cut designed to boost the economy, increase tax revenues, and achieve, I believe -- and I believe this can be done -- a budget surplus. The first type of deficit is a sign of waste and weakness; the second reflects an investment in the future." -- JFK, address to the Economic Club, Dec. 12, 1962.
The second reason, I can't vote for President Obama is because he doesn't tell the truth, and sends his surrogates to lie for him. It began with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers and continues with every unemployment report that excludes those who have given up seeking employment, as well as the series of lies about Libya, etc. I no longer have any confidence that anything he tells the American people will be the truth. Mr. Obama is the Democratic equivalent of the Richard M. Nixon.
Finally, I am tired of this president's broken promises to fix important things: Medicare and Social Security. I am tired of class warfare, and of his blaming everybody but himself. And I will not accept as the "new norm" that America grows poorer and weaker, while China gets richer and more powerful with our money.
Jack Kennedy wouldn't, and I won't.
(As a result of the JFK/LBJ tax cuts, unemployment fell from 5.2 percent in 1964 to 3.8 percent in 1966. And taxes paid by individuals rose from about $45 billion in 1964 to $60 billion in 1967.)

Posted Online: :   Nov. 1, 2012 at 2:22 p. m.   - Quad-Cities Online

by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2012
John Donald O'Shea

The President Must Be More Than a “Stump Speaker”

    This is the season for “stump speeches.”

    The term “Stump speech” refers to the often raucous speech delivered by a politician

running for office. The term came into usage in the 19th century, when such speeches were

often made by the candidates as he on a stood tree stumps to allow himself to be seen and

heard, in an era before the voice could be amplified electronically. 



    The Historians, Morison and Commanger, in The Growth of the American
Republic, v. 1,  wrote of President Lincoln’s successor, President Andrew  Johnson, as follows:

    “In the 1866 campaigning Republicans brandished reports of such atrocities

    to warn that the South was robbing  [the people of the North] of their hard-

    won victory at war. ... Johnson [advocating Lincoln’s policy of tolerant

    Reconstruction] warned of the consequences of the Republican policy [of

    “Radical Reconstruction’]; “Southerners, he said, ‘cannot be treated as

    subjugated people or vassal colonies, without  a germ of hatred being introduced,

    which will some day or other though the time may be distant, develop into

    mischief of the most serious character.’ ”


    Morison and Commanger then wrote something that has stuck with me since

the day I read it at Notre Dame.

    “Johnson proved to be an inept campaigner. He seemed incapable of

    advocating a policy of tolerance in a tolerant manner, and his ... stumping

    tour of the Middle West, became in many an exercise in vituperation.

    “I would ask you ,” the President shouted on 3 September 1866 in

    Cleveland, “Why not hang Thad Stevens and Wendell Phillips?” [Radical

    Republican leaders].” Johnson was, said [Secretary of State] Seward, the

    “best stump speaker in the country,” but as Secretary [of the Navy] Wells

    shrewdly remarked, “the President should not be a stump speaker.””


    So what is legitimate in a “stump speech” delivered by candidate for the office of

the Presidency? At what point does a presidential candidate demean himself and the

office he is seeking? At what point does the candidate appear “un-presidential?”


    Many Americans decry “negative campaigning.” But there are two very distinct

varieties of “negative campaigning,” and the line between them, is a very bright line. So,

is it wrong to paint your opponent as “un-Presidential?” “Dishonest?” “Stupid?” “Ineffective?”

Is it wrong to label his policies or his positions as “ineffective?” “Wasteful?” “Cronyism?”

“Marxist?” “Predatory Capitalism?”

   
    The answer is simple. If the allegations are truthful, then “going negative” serves a

legitimate public purpose. If the candidate is a tax cheat, a philander, a communist flying

under false colors, or a thief, the public needs to be told. If the allegations are baseless,

the “negative campaigning” becomes a lie and it is impermissible.


    The First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution guarantees free speech, and it guarantees

first and foremost political speech. If the voters are to intelligently select the best candidates,

and vote correctly on the issues, nothing is more important than that the candidates and their

supporters tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.


    In 21st century America the issues are complex. Candidates like Ronald Reagan and

Bill Clinton has a way of making the hard stuff understandable to the voters. When a candidate

tells the truth and makes the hard stuff understandable, he does the voters a great service. If he

lies or indulges in half-truths, he obfuscates the issues, confuses the voters and undermines the

proper workings of democracy.


    My mother despised liar. She frequently told me that if you tell one lie, you will have

to tell another and another to cover it up.


    I am not so naive as to believe a President must always tell the truth. In war-time, no

president in his right mind would tell the enemy our battle plans. But in matters of domestic

politics - such as, which plan is best calculated to save Medicare and/or Social Security - there is

no reason to lie, unless the candidate is putting party over country. But any candidate,

Republican or Democrat, that does that is unworthy of high office and public trust. Indeed,

why would any reasonable voter trust a liar? Why would a Republican trust a Republican liar?

Why would a Democrat trust a Democrat liar?


    What I am suggesting is that there is no way to fix the present mess if the American

people continue to put people in high office who don’t tell the truth. I want a President who

puts forth a coherent plan, and who means what he says and says what he means.  If we continue

to elect politicians who continue to “bribe us” with government largess to get our votes,

we will go the way of Europe. We will not have to have a candidate “push us off a cliff;” we

will eventually walk off under our own power in pursuit of the next handout.

Copyright 2012

 John Donald O'Shea