“Of course,” the late P.J. O’Rourke wrote in Parliament of Whores, by way of explaining why government is boring, “politicians don’t tell the truth …. But neither do politicians tell huge, entertaining whoppers: ‘Why, send yours truly to Capitol Hill, and I’ll ship the swag home in boxcar lots. … There’ll be government jobs for your dog.  … Social Security checks will come in the mail not just when you retire at sixty-five but when you retire each night to bed. Vote for me, folks, and you’ll be farting through silk.'”

O’Rourke seems to have actually preferred a more prosaic style of political falsehood: In 2016, the long-time Republican endorsed Hillary Clinton for president over whopper-prone Donald Trump, citing her “lies and empty promises.” She’s “wrong about absolutely everything,” he said, but she’s wrong within normal parameters.”

What, I wonder, would O’Rourke (who died last year) have made of US Representative George Santos (R-NY), elected from New York’s 3rd congressional district last November?

Since the election, Santos has been caught in lies concerning where he went to school, whether he graduated, where he’s worked, whether he’s Jewish and whether his grandparents fled the Holocaust, whether his mom was at the World Trade Center on 9/11 and died of a related cancer, whether he’s a drag queen who goes by the name “Kitara Ravache,” whether he actually appeared in an episode of Hannah Montana, and where all that money that he “loaned” his campaign actually came from, etc.

“There are three kinds of lies,” Mark Twain wrote, (falsely!) quoting Benjamin Disraeli: “Lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

Politicians also tell three kinds of lies.

The first kind are lies about themselves — their experiences, their resumes, etc. Hillary Clinton didn’t come under sniper fire when visiting Bosnia. Joe Biden didn’t graduate at the top of his class in law school. Donald Trump can’t even stop himself from lying about winning golf tournaments.

The second kind are lies about policy, and range from what legislation a candidate really supports or opposes (then votes the other way on when elected) to what the actual policies will accomplish.

So far, Santos’s long list of lies really only involves the first of those two kinds. He hasn’t been in office long enough for us to know whether he’ll follow through on his stated policy positions.

The third kind of lie is one which Santos actually helps expose simply because his over-the-top technique draws our attention to it.

That lie is the claim that we, the poor, benighted, helpless public,  desperately need politicians to solve our problems. That they’re somehow better, smarter, wiser, and more honest than the rest of us. That without them, we’re lost.

Is George Santos honest? Clearly not.

Is he any more dishonest than Mitch McConnell or Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer or Kevin McCarthy? Not a whit.

He’s probably less dangerous than boring ol’ Mitch, Nancy, Chuck, and Kevin, though.  His outrageous lies were aimed at acquiring power. Their mostly unnoticed lies are aimed at exercising that power.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Here we go again: The “Fair Tax Act”  is out for its perennial limp around the dead legislation track.

The “Fair Tax” (or “FairTax” for those with defective space bars on their keyboards) proposes to replace the current federal tax regime with:

First, a 30% national sales tax, falsely advertised as 23% by calculating it “inclusively” — e.g. a 30 cent tax would be 23% of $1.30, which is the total cost, including tax, of a $1 purchase — on all services and “new” goods.

Second, a cradle-to-grave monthly welfare check for every man, woman, and child in the US, falsely advertised as an “advance rebate” or “prebate,” even though it’s not conditioned on payment of any tax at all.

Third, pretending to “eliminate” the IRS by re-naming it and/or parceling out its functions to other government bureaucracies.

In baseball, three strikes is an out. With legislation, three lies means extra innings until the bill passes or everyone dies.

It was a bad idea when Congress first considered it in 1999.

It was a bad idea when Neal Boortz and John Linder published The Fairtax Book (which should have been subtitled “Putting Lipstick on a Pig, Badly”) in 2005.

It’s continued to be a bad idea, and recognized by most as such, every time it’s raised its hoary head.

But for some reason, many supposed advocates of “smaller government” seem to think it would be an improvement on that metric. It wouldn’t.

“Fair Tax” advocates paint the proposal as “revenue neutral” (that is, the government would be taking just as much of our money as it did before). They also say that, with the monthly welfare checks, it would remain just as “progressive” — that is, redistributive — as the income tax.

What they don’t like to mention is that everyone who’d already paid income tax all their lives would have their savings taxed AGAIN, by 30%, when they spent that savings.

Or that the prices of “used” goods would rapidly rise — when the price of all “new” goods instantly goes up by 30%, there’s a lot of room to demand more for “used” while still remaining competitive.

Or that the “prebate” checks would instantly join Social Security as a political “third rail” that must not be touched, and a political football that could be kicked around to get anything politicians want by claiming a threat to the checks.

Does that sound like “smaller government” to you?

If so, check your hearing aid battery.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On January 23, a District of Columbia jury convicted three members of an organization styling itself the “Oath Keepers,” and a fourth associate of that group, of “seditious conspiracy” for their roles in the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.

There doesn’t seem to be much to quibble with on the verdict, pursuant to 18 US Code § 2384:

“If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.”

That is, the defendants do seem to have conspired to “prevent, hinder, or delay” the execution of the Electoral Count Act so as to prevent Congress’s confirmation of Joe Biden as Donald Trump’s successor.

What I find interesting about the “seditious conspiracy” statute — other than that Congress breaks it every time it conspires to pass a measure “hindering” the Supreme Law of the Land, the Constitution — is that it describes, in a nutshell, the operating theory of government itself.

George Washington is sometimes (incorrectly) quoted as warning that “government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force.”

Former congressman Ron Paul kept a placard on his desk reading “Don’t Steal — the Government hates competition.”

Government is an ongoing conspiracy to utilize force against you  on behalf of the political class.

If the conspirators steal something, it’s policy. If you steal something, it’s theft.

If the conspirators use force to overthrow, put down, prevent, hinder, or delay you — and they will ALWAYS use force if threats don’t get the job done — it’s “the law.” If you use force to overthrow, put down, prevent, hinder, or delay them, it’s “sedition.”

As an anarchist, I’d be lying if I claimed I wouldn’t like to see the US government overthrown, put down, prevented, hindered, or delayed at any and every opportunity. Not for some unworthy goal like keeping Donald Trump in the White House, but on principle.

I’m not keen on using force to accomplish that, but my hesitation is of a practical, not moral, nature.

Morally, any force I used against government would be inherently defensive, while theirs is powered by malice aforethought.

But as a practical matter, they’re a large, well-armed gang, fat on the take from hundreds of millions of robberies every year, while I’m just a guy who’d like to be left alone.

Furthermore, I can’t be sure that what follows their overthrow — which sooner or later, will inevitably happen — will be any better.

But I’m looking forward to finding out.

If this be sedition, make the most of it.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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