Is lying the result of dishonesty or incompetence?
Most of us assume that someone told lies because they are saying something that is different from the truth.
But what is truth?
Surely when we know what has transpired, we know what the truth is. "I stole the money and I try to hide the tracks to the money I have stolen."
But things can get a bit more complex. "I want the money but I do not want to know how that money comes about and how does it come to my access. All I want to know is how much is that money and how can I have access to it." One can pretend not to know the whole process. One can pretend to be stupid. One can pretend that one prayed and the money appeared.
Of course, all this pretending and not wanting to know exactly how the whole thing is done has been captured in that image of the ostrich sticking its head in the sand. But then someone has to tell the ostrich that its arse is sticking out.
One has to be really clever to be dishonest, as we also have an excellent example in our midst. That cleverness stems from playing the legal game. "Well, where is the evidence?" The trick in hiding evidence is to lay the whole theft in very public display, such as in the form of a public policy. "My purpose in this policy is to take money away from the rich and give it to my friends who are looking after me." This can be couched in very general terms. There is nothing to give the stolen wealth to friends because they are not given to the thief directly and the friends fall within the categories as defined by policy. Very clever.
The only person who can blunder in lying as in stealing is to be less than vigilant, by being incompetent. It is tough enough to cover all the tracks and pretend not to know; worse, is not wanting to know completely and then doesn't know anything at all. You have not way to control the whole situation. Your backside is wide open.
***
It is foolhardy to expect politicians to be honest.Politicians lie from the moment they decided to be politicians.
They tell themselves and their supporters: I want to be a politician to help the people.
There is nothing wrong with that as an intention. But what is very wrong with it as a statement of truth is that they do not have a clue as to how to help the people. They may know how to help themselves and how to help their friends, but they do not know how to help all the people in society.
They may know how to argue, how to disagree, how to protest, how to create a challenge. But can do many things that are negative. But they do not know how to do anything positive, by building on what is already good and creating a greater society.
That's why never, never, never ever believe in any one politician. Politics is never about the politicians. Politics is a process and it is always about the political process.
In democracy, the political process is always about changing the politicians and the democracy is in the choice by vote of the politicians. Democracy is not about one political master choosing the next political leader for us; that's political dynasty.
***
So now we have each group championing one cause and then appearing all over the place.
We have one championing "clean election" which becomes embroiled in calling for the resignation of the prime minister. I thought they are fighting for clean elections which are a very specific and very difficult thing to do. Do we clean up elections through crowding out in the streets, no matter how peacefully? Isn't there a "cleaner" way of doing the job more effectively?
***
I am wary of people playing with emotions through social media. Things can end really end up very messy.
***
I am calling for competence.
3 comments:
It is odd why politicians are called law-makers when many of them seem to be the ones breaking the laws. When citizens whom they are supposed to serve break the law, the citizens get fined and jailed but when law-makers break the law, they walk free and seem above the law because they do it again with full impunity and immunity the next day.
Are politicians also civil servants? They would be when they hold government posts. When that happens, they are as much under the civil service rules and regulations as other civil servants who report to them. If a civil servant purloins for personal benefit of family members a public good like some nikitigook fund on some excuse it will be used in any case to buy votes and future support, then one would expect action would be expeditiously taken by the executive arm to haul him up for breaking the law. If no action is taken, other civil servants will take it as a precedent to also do the same. And they have. For smaller misdemeanors, businessmen get slammed on money laundering charges but billions flying across the globe from public funds into personal accounts are not chargeable because it seems the money has more kinetic energy. The situation then becomes a catch-me-if-you-can game no different from a law-maker politician exercising power to create two set of standards for application of the laws of the land, one where he can bully others but others cannot bully him on pains of incarceration.
In any case, the executive arm will be thwarted from doing their jobs righteously according to the provisions of the laws of the land which they have taken oath to uphold in service to the general public from whom their wages are drawn.
It follows the executive arm is being tied to whoever it reports up and not to what is right. If the so-called commanders are bad people, then the executive arm will not be performing right which means its members are performing wrong.
What happens to the executive arm can also happen to the judiciary which frames the direction of justice so that citizens will have no enlightened recourse from even those who make laws and rules, to wit the citizens will end up on the receiving end of bad leaders, errant law-makers, compromised judiciary and a blindly obedient executive arm which are also civil servants whose total emoluments take up seventy percent of the annual national budget leaving only thirty percent for development to hopefully generate new funds just to pay off the toxic twenty five billion ringgit of interest accrued from just one fund miscarried let alone others. Since this is impossible to achieve let alone earning other sources of real income, the citizens will be consigned to living in a state of grave national debt miraged off by printing more notes which will weaken the currency even faster than is currently being experienced, a mirage such as one may see in deserts where camels ply sandy routes and people throw away perfectly good and compassionately donated food just because it does not comply with their view of certain restrictions; they rather die than live wrong yet by the same token they rather live wrong by their tribe than live right by all tribes.
2/2
What was a straight line has therefore become a crooked line made parallax into a number of distorted images none of which clarifying any solution to solve persistent and recurring problems of the own doing of a self-selected and self-protected few.
Is it entirely inconceivable that the citizens have had enough of all this nonsense and madness so they decided to walk the street in unison to clamour for change because the official media has blocked off publicity of all the wrongs done to them and their future generations?
These wrongs remain and have not been rectified. The only thing done about them is to evade intelligent questions where simple honest answers officially given would have satisfied even the most discriminating idiot. The answers given so far have neither been simple nor honest so that when the questions are repeated, new answers are given which stack one on top of the previous creating a mountain of lies contradicting one another.
Let us be benevolent and say it is really not carte blanche and deliberate dishonesty but incompetence leading to wishful blindness when exposed and then compounded by juvenile slytology just to wriggle out to the escaping door. If that be the case, let one and all start becoming incompetents since being incompetent comes with fringe benefits like cars, jewellery, handbags, apartments, land titles, and invisible prepaid supplies besides neat piles of non-taxable cash all excusable because the cause must be defended so that the tribe will not be erased from the earth. It will just starve to death.
What remains to be said about lying, truth, honesty, even hypocrisy? In a word, mojo. What are its impact factors? One, identity (namely, who do you really feel you are? Answer: professional public-service crook and troublemaker). Two, achievement (namely, what have you done lately? Answer: lie through the teeth, distract with other troubles to cause emotional outbursts from simpletons). Three, reputation (namely, what do other people think you are? Answer: see One). Finally, four, acceptance (namely, what can you change? Answer: are you nuts?).
The stealing, lying and religio-racist hypocrisies are so bad even the pirates of the caribbean will blush. The worst is the religio-racist. Minding other peoples' bodies is as right as consorting with crooks. Two wrongs don’t a right make.
Thhis is awesome
Post a Comment