Why Congress Lies

Last I checked, the US Congress had an approval rating of 16%.  Obviously, the American people are not happy with congress.  But I submit that congress’ inability to accomplish the people’s work is not the most fundamental reason.  Sheer ineptness does not a villain make.

I submit that the most fundamental reason for congress’ low approval rating is very simple; they lie. 

Congress lies to the American people, and the people sense that.  Your congressperson, wherever you are, even if one of the “good ones,” lies to you.  It may be an active lie.  It may be a lie of omission.  It may be not correcting a mistaken public impression of the truth.  But if there is one requirement that is essential to the continuation of representative government, it is that those who represent you in government do not lie to you, any more than you would lie to yourself.  Those who represent you, for all practical purposes, are you, with respect to our government.  They simulate you, vote for you, represent your interests.  Your representative is your fiduciary, an individual trusted that his or her first obligation is to serve and protect your interests above all others.  How can that individual perform those duties and lie to you at the same time?  He (she) can’t.

So why would any elected member of congress lie to you?  One obvious reason is that he does not want you to know the truth.  Why?  Because if you knew the truth you would vote him out of office.  Why?  Because the truth is that, in his personal hierarchy of concerns your interests are subordinate to other more demanding interests, perhaps corporate interest, which have nothing to do with representative government.  After all, corporations have lots of money and can use congress’ legalized money laundering statutes…uh…I mean campaign finance laws, in ways to fund reelection campaigns.  But you already know all that.  So let’s talk about some things you may not know.

Your US Government is involved in all kinds of activities, which if you were privy you would strongly disapprove.  Those activities benefit private interests who hold power over political officeholders by the reasons above, but also over the inner workings of government, the “deep state” if you will.  They hold that system together by instruments known as “secrecy agreements.”

Practically every sensitive working of government is protected by secrecy agreements.  When individuals hire on to rewarding, but many times sensitive positions, before they take their seats they must sign secrecy agreements.  Before private contractors can perform lucrative work for the US Government, they must sign secrecy agreements.  And importantly, before your US Representative or Senator can gain access to information that is purposely held from public view, he must sign a secrecy agreement.  Anyone violating a secrecy agreement does so at the risk of prosecution, prison time…or worse.

Of course, when your representative signs a secrecy agreement, he does not know the secrets he is agreeing not to divulge.  What if those secrets involve unconstitutional activities inside the federal government?  What if those activities are illegal?  Well, in practice, that secrecy agreement is binding.  Your representative knows that he is in real trouble if he shares information he contracted not to divulge.

It used to be that secrecy agreements were all necessary to protect vital national interests.  The D-Day invasion, for example, could not have been successful without secrecy. 

But more and more, secrecy agreements are used as weapons formed to protect the private interests of those who are really pulling the levers of government.  Under this system, once your congressperson signs a secrecy agreement, for all practical purposes he can no longer represent you.  He chose to blanketly protect the interests of those involved in the activities he learns about, even when those doings might conflict with the Constitution, the laws or interests of those he is elected to represent.  He chose to blanketly conceal the truth from, and inevitably lie to those he is elected to serve.  He became another member of the so-called, “deep state.”  That is how the deep state works and expands.  He should do the right thing and step down.  But he won’t because that would defeat his primary life objective of ever-increasing his popularity and power.

The crazy thing is that the word eventually gets out anyway.  Intelligence agencies can’t keep people from videoing events and uploading them for the world to see.  Competing intelligence agencies constantly leak the truth. Reliable crossed-referenced accounts do exist.  And so when, say, you go to a representative such as 7^th District’s own Rob Woodall, and you ask him why he does not speak out publicly against Obama’s practice of taking our hard-earned tax dollars and hiring Al Qaeda contractors, America’s sworn enemies mind you, to take down foreign governments that pose no threat, and murder their leaders, ultimately leaving those countries in chaos, all he can do is smile, blame you as complicit with Obama and change the subject.

And they are all the same, friends.  Whether it’s Rob, Doug, Tom, Dick or Harry, they all lie to you and smile while doing it.  To restore American government, they must all be replaced.