Telling Us What We Want to Hear: Why Politicians Lie

I could give many examples of the outright lies and half-truths spoken by politicians in American history, but I don't need to do so to make my point. We're right smack dab in the middle of manure-flingin' season right now. You might know it as the 2008 Presidential Campaign.

The Republicans just finished their convention and the Democrats complete theirs earlier in August, so they should be relatively fresh in the attention-span-challenged minds of the average voter.

If I were an uninformed voter, all I would really know could be summed up thusly: there are no problems in this country but any problems that do exist are the fault of the other party. Huh?

Politicians lie, which I demonstrated in an earlier article. That should come as no surprise to anybody. They will say and do anything that tests well to get enough voters to vote for them so they can "win" the election and have some job security for the next two, four, or six years.

When Barack Obama picked Joe Biden to be his running mate during the Democratic National Convention, the Republican politicians, talking heads, and party faithful ripped the Democrats for lying, passing the blame, lack of experience (against Obama), and the belief that Democrats were going to ruin the country.

When John McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his running mate at the Republican National Convention, the Democratic politicians, talking heads, and party faithful ripped the Republicans for lying, passing the blame, lack of experience (against Palin), and the belief that Republicans were going to ruin the country.

In either case, no politician admitted culpability as to causing the problems our country now faces. Obama is a first-term senator, but McCain and Biden have been doing the Potomac Two-Step since 1982 and 1973, respectively. Most of the problems our country now faces can be traced back to long before Obama's term as senator and, really, since before Biden and McCain were a twinkle in their campaign manager's eye.

It is a common understanding that the only way to fix a problem is to admit that there is a problem in the first place, yet both parties want us to ignore the problem, what caused it, and how to really fix it. "Trust us," they coo, "and our party will fix everything." The morning after the election, the sweet talk ends and the American people are left with an unwanted political pregnancy. We can't terminate the pregnancy, the politicians say, because that would be wrong. We should have worn protection at the ballot box.

Politicians, not unlike the predators that prowl for one-night stands, are going to tell you whatever you want to hear so that you'll do exactly what they want you to do. They are not really interested in what you want or doing the right thing as much as they are after that one thing. The only way to protect yourself is to educate yourself and learn some political self-defense.

Once your eyes have been opened to the truth, you'll see that Dempublicans and Republicrats are all the same and are after one thing: your vote. They'll say anything that you want to hear and make you believe that they are the best candidate that can offer you whatever you want in exchange for your vote. Don't believe them.