American writer and satirist H.L. Mencken wrote, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
Mencken’s dark and cryptic assessment of politics may be dismissed by some as the rant of a cynic, but an analysis of the style of politics that seems to be the norm these days indicates that Mencken’s observations were not only accurate, but prophetic.
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In fact, you may remember that we had video evidence of the manifestation of Mencken’s theory in the mid 1990s when then education minister John Snobelen made a video that was supposed to be seen only by his Progressive Conservative colleagues.
In it, Snobelen said that the way to govern was to create a crisis, or a perceived crisis to the public, and then present yourself as the one and only solution to that problem.
The manufactured crisis seems to be a common theme; in that same era, then-premier Mike Harris slashed social assistance rates, claiming that about 18 per cent of recipients were scamming the system.
Harris had no data to substantiate his claim, in fact, government stats showed that only 0.2 per cent of recipients made bogus claims.
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Sadly, that kind of misinformation continues to this day.
How many times have we heard politicians seeking to unseat a current government blame that government for the loss of manufacturing jobs, and then had a frustrated public ready and willing to the lay the blame there for those lost jobs?
But any economist, and most politicians for that matter, know that automation and advanced manufacturing technologies are responsible for the overwhelming majority of lost manufacturing jobs. But why let the facts get in the way of a misinformed rant if you can score political points?
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It would, of course, be unfair to paint all politicians with the same cynical brush, but it seems that all too often, truth is an unwelcome encumbrance to so many of them.
So, why do our leaders or would-be leaders attempt to mislead and misinform the public time and time again?
Another observation from H.L. Mencken might offer some insight.
He wrote, “The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.”
Bill Kelly is the host of the Bill Kelly Show on Global News Radio 900 CHML.
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