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

Gruber Uncovers Obamacare "Shell Game"

Are you one of those “stupid” American voters who trusted President Obama and the Democrats in Congress to provide health insurance for 39 million uninsured Americans at no additional cost to the American people?

Do you recall President Obama saying, “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits, either now or in the future. ... Period.” (youtube.com/watch?v=NCSrP44QgZ4)

My daughter’s private medical insurance costs roughly $4,000 per year. Assume, arguendo, that the government can somehow provide comparable insurance at one-fourth of that cost. If 39 million uninsured people now have coverage under Obamacare, and each policy costs $1,000, the annual cost of providing that insurance is $39 billion.

Where is that $39 billion coming from? It can only add to the deficit, if it is borrowed. Therefore, to avoid borrowing, it must be paid in taxes. Did the president tell the American people that? Did he mention Obamacare for the uninsured would be paid for by taxes on those who had already paid for their health insurance? By taxes on some existing insurance policies? By taxes on medical devices? Or by other hidden taxes?

In October of 2013, at a panel discussion at Pennsylvania University,  Jonathan Gruber made the following remarks:

“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure [the Congressional Budget Office] did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. OK? So it’s written to do that.

“In terms of risk-rated subsidies, if you had a law which said healthy people are going to pay in -- you made explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money -- it would not have passed. OK?

“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to [obfuscate to] get the thing to pass.

“Look, I wish ... we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not.”

Who is Jonathan Gruber? In November 2014, here is who President Obama said he is: “some adviser who never worked on our staff [who] expressed an opinion that I completely disagree with.”

But was the president being any more honest here than he was when he said the country could insure 39 million people without increasing the deficit? Was he intentionally understating Gruber’s influence on Obamacare  to distance himself from Professor Gruber --— just as he had earlier distanced himself from his pastor of 20 years, the Rev. Wright?

Here are the president’s 2006 remarks before the Brookings Institute: “You have already drawn some of the brightest minds from academia and policy circles. Many of them I have stolen ideas from liberally, ... [including] Jon Gruber.”

According to the Tampa Bay Times fact-check article, “Gruber visited the White House a dozen times from 2009-10, according to visitor logs. This included a July 20, 2009, meeting with Obama.

“According to a 2011 NBC news story, Obama or his staff sat down a dozen times during 2009 with three different people who helped advise Romney’s health care overhaul in Massachusetts, including Gruber.

“‘The White House wanted to lean a lot on what we’d done in Massachusetts,’ Gruber told NBC News in 2011.  ‘They really wanted to know how we can take that same approach we used in Massachusetts and turn that into a national model.’

“Gruber also had meetings with many of the heavyweights on Obama’s economic and health care staff: Peter Orszag, then the director of the Office of Management and Budget; Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council; Jason Furman, the deputy director of the National Economic Council; and Jeanne Lambrew, the director of the Office of Health Reform for the Department of Health and Human Services.”

The Tampa Bay Times concludes that Mr. Obama’s Novemeber 2014 dismissive remarks about Gruber as, “some adviser who never worked on our staff,” were mostly false.

“By HHS’ own documentation, Gruber was considered ‘uniquely positioned’ for a contract job assisting with Obama’s health care reform efforts. ... [H]e was a very important adviser.

“Further, while Gruber never worked ‘’on our staff,’’ he was paid by the federal government quite handsomely, and worked very closely with the staff. ... He also met with Obama in the White House and had a dozen meetings that often included some of the most senior members of Obama’s economic and health care teams.”

Telling the American people that we can provide free insurance for 39 million uninsured people without adding  “one dime to our deficits” was a half-truth -- as well as a half-lie. It was bait-and-switch. Slight-of-hand. The president’s remarks were made to gain the support of gullible Americans too “stupid (Gruber’s words!) to realize there is no such thing as a free lunch.

The president gulled the gullible by focusing the attention of Gruber’s stupid Americans on the pea -- the deficit -- while concealing tax increases under the shells.

Gruber is being honest when he says. “This bill was written in a tortured” way to make sure the CBO didn’t score taxes as taxes. And Gruber was being honest when stated that if “you made explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money -- it would not have passed.”

Are you one of Gruber’s stupid American voters who trusted  President Obama and the Democrats in Congress to provide health insurance for 39 million uninsured Americans a no additional cost to the American people?

And by the way: the CBO in October of 2014 revised its forecast saying that Obamacare will increase the deficit by $100 billion over the next decade!

Posted: Wednesday, January 14, 2015 12:00 am

By John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2015 John Donald O'Shea 

When Does Political Half-truth Become a Lie?

"Administration officials are coming forward with a grim compendium of jobs to be lost, services to be denied or delayed, military defenses to be let down and important operations to be disrupted. Obama's new chief of staff, Denis McDonough, spoke of a 'devastating list of horribles.'" -- AP

With each passing day of the Obama presidency, I am become more disillusioned with what I regard as the administration's reckless disregard for the truth, and the mainstream media's willingness to repeat the administration's propaganda, without making a semblance of an effort to fact check.

The president daily ticks off a "parade of horribles" that will occur once the sequester goes into effect. An obsequious press uncritically repeats whatever he says.

It is perhaps time for every American to read Wm. L. Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich." From 1925 to 1932, Shirer served as European correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. In 1937, Edward R. Murrow, CBS' European manager, hired Shirer as European Bureau chief. Shirer lived and worked in Germany from 1934 to 1940 (the years during which Hitler consolidated his power, raped Austria and Czechoslovakia, and started WWII) -- the years during which the German press was made politically clean -- politically correct.

Shirer writes, "To be an editor in the Third Reich one had to be, in the first place, politically and racially clean. The Reich Press Law of October 4, 1933, which made journalism a "public vocation," regulated by law, stipulated that all editors must possess German citizenship, be of Aryan descent and not be married to a Jew. Section 14 of the Press Law ordered editors "to keep out of the newspapers anything which in any manner is misleading to the public, mixes selfish aims with community aims, tends to weaken the will of the German Reich, outwardly or inwardly, the common will of the German people, the defense of Germany, its culture and economy ... or offends the honor and dignity of Germany ...."

Shirer goes on to describe the effectiveness of the law:

"I myself was to experience how easily one is taken in by a lying and censored press and radio in a totalitarian state. Though unlike most Germans I had daily access to foreign newspapers, especially those of London, Paris and Zurich ... and though I listened regularly to the BBC and other foreign broadcasts, my job necessitated the spending of many hours a day combing the German press, checking the German radio, conferring with Nazi officials and going to party meetings. It was surprising and sometimes consternating to find that notwithstanding the opportunities I had to learn the facts and despite one's inherent distrust of what one learned from Nazi sources, a steady diet over the years of falsification and distortions made a certain impression on one's mind and often misled it. No one who has not lived in a totalitarian land can possibly conceive how difficult it is to escape the dread consequences of a regime's calculated and incessant propaganda. Often in a German home or office, or sometimes in a casual conversation with a stranger in a restaurant, a beer hall, a cafe, I would meet with the most outlandish assertions from seemingly educated and intelligent persons. It was obvious that they were parroting some piece of nonsense they had heard on the radio or read in the newspapers. Sometimes one was tempted to say as much, but on such occasion one was met with such a stare of incredulity, such a shock of silence, as if one had blasphemed the Almighty, that one realized how useless it was to try and make contact with a mind which had become warped and for whom the facts of life had become what Hitler and Goebbels, with their cynical disregard for truth, said they were."

In America, we still have the First Amendment. But everyday advocates of political correctness, including administration officials, seek to stifle what they deem "politically incorrect," or "untruthful."

Recently, the administration in the stolen valor case, U. S. v. Alvarez, argued "that false statements have no value and hence no First Amendment protection."

Fortunately the court ruled against the government, but had the government prevailed, this government, which is already in the business of "redefining" what is and what isn't "religious activity," could quickly have gone into the business of defining what opposition statements are "false" so as to suppress them.

People who tell lies that are 100 percent false are almost always perceived to be liars. But the liar who skillfully weaves a fabric, by blending lies with truth,can dupe almost everybody. I do not believe that President Obama and his officials knowingly say things they know to be 100 percent false, but I do believe they operate on the principle that the "ends justify the means," and as such weave a blended fabric.

But there still is a problem. When the government, day after day, engages in hyperbole, exaggeration, and character assassination and mixes in a modicum of truth to give veracity to what otherwise could only be described as "untruthful," the government undermines the democratic process.

A majority fed a steady diet of half-truths can hardly be expected to make right and critical choices for the welfare of the nation. Shirer saw that first hand.

I suggest that where the government lies, and where the press repeats the lies, it makes little difference whether the press is controlled by law, or by its own pro-government bias.

Posted Online:  March 06, 2013, 11:18 am  - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2013
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
   


   


   

   

Can Democracy Survive When Political Leaders Lie

"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Mark 8:36

How far can a candidate (or political party) go to win an election? Can the candidate lie? Can the political party?

If a Super PAC lies to further the interest of the candidate or political party, can the candidate say, "They are independent; we don't control what they say." Or must the candidate denounce the lie told by the Super PAC?

And if the candidate opts not to denounce the lie and benefits, is he not complicit in the lie? If a friend of mine lies saying, "I have won the Congressional Medal of Honor," can I accept any advantage that follows from the lie?

If I don't disavow the lie and profit from the lie, do not I myself become a liar? Is it permissible to use an evil means -- a lie -- to achieve a good end -- victory at the polls?

On Aug. 7, Priorities USA, a Super PAC, released a political ad titled, "Understands." It features former steelworker, Joe Soptic. The ad is calculated to link Mitt Romney with the death from cancer of Mr. Soptic's wife. Mr. Soptic, referring to Bain Capital takeover of GST Steel plant, says, "I do not think Mitt Romney realizes what he's done to anyone. Furthermore, I do not think Mitt Romney is concerned.

"When Mitt Romney and Bain closed the plant, I lost my health care, and my family lost their health care. And a short time after that, my wife became ill ... she passed away in 22 days."

But here is the timeline:

-- 1993: Bain Capital acquires GST.

-- 1999: Romney takes paid leave-of-absence from Bain to run 2002 Olympics.

-- 2001: GST goes bankrupt.

-- 2002: Joe Soptic is laid off from GST, finds job as school janitor (at much lower salary).

-- 2006: Joe Soptic's wife dies from cancer accidentally discovered when she goes to the hospital for pneumonia.

So, on these facts, would any impartial American jury find Romney caused the death of Renae Soptic? I don't think so. A juror or two might be persuaded, but not 12.

So is this political ad a lie? A lie is generally defined as an intentionally false statement, or a statement made with a reckless disregard from the truth. Had the ad come right out and said, "Mitt Romney murdered my wife," that statement clearly would have been a lie under either prong of my test. The ad doesn't go that far, but it does falsely allege that Romney closed GST.

Romney didn't close GST. He had gone three years before to run the Olympics, and had no part in the plant shutdown, or in Mr. Soptic being laid off or losing his insurance.

To say that a "short time" after (in reality, four years), Mrs. Soptic became ill, and passed away 22 days later, ignores the timeline and the fact that Mrs. Soptic's cancer was discovered seven years after Romney went off to run the Olympics and four years after Mr. Soptic was laid off.

The purpose of the ad is to paint Romney as an "unfeeling predatory capitalist," who runs around closing plants, blithely unconcerned about who he hurts, and that the GST closing resulted in Mrs. Soptic's death.

So, why am I bothered by politicians and PACs that lie? If they lie to get elected, why won't they lie once in office?

Similarly, I am concerned about the Obama administration seeking to redefine abortion as a "woman's health care issue," and not as a "moral issue" as the Catholic Church argues. I don't trust politicians to tell what us is moral.

President Harry S. Truman once said, "The fundamental basis of this nation's laws was given to Moses on the Mount. ... If we don't have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State."

For many people in politics, lying has become a way of life. For them it is an acceptable means to an end. As long as they perceive the end to be a societal good, they believe the means chosen to attain the good are moral. Most churchmen would disagree.

The Catholic Church, the oldest of the Western Christian churches, after considering whether the ends justify the means for 2,000 years, teaches, "Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. Well-formed conscience is upright and truthful ...

"Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them. Some rules apply in every case: One may never do evil so that good may result from it; the Golden Rule: 'Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.'"

The Church's bottom line is: "One may never do evil so that good may result from it."

Truman saw that. If we tolerate politicians who lie to achieve a greater good, or who utilize lies put forth by their supporters, and refuse to disavow them, then lying becomes a permissible political tool to achieve what whatever the government labels or defines as good.

Posted Online: : August 22, 2012 3:00 am  - Quad-Cities Online

by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2012
John Donald O'Shea

Share