The liberal totalitarian despite himself

In a July 2001 article at NewsMax, “‘Transparency’ Revealed: The U.N. Sees Us, We Can’t See Them,” I wrote:

[L]iberals, believing in equality, see power as an unequal and oppressive thing that must be eliminated. But the liberal state … represents the equality and well-being of humanity itself. Therefore, it is not regarded as an actor exercising power. And therefore its true power remains unseen.

I would add that liberals, even in the act of seeking their own very particular agenda and exercising their own power, do not see themselves as power-seeking and power-wielding agents. They see themselves as the neutral, disinterested voice of truth. This self-understanding is central to liberals’ identity.

Keep those thoughts in mind when reading Jim Taylor’s column in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, “The (Mis) Information Age.” Complaining of the terrible difficulties created for modern society by the jostle of conflicting factual claims, mainly those claims coming from various bloggers and extremists who in better, previous times would have had no public influence, Taylor offers his solution. Note that he covers himself with a claim of irony, but it’s plain he really believes what he’s saying:

Here is my proposal to return fact-based reality to our national dialogue (note: please don’t miss my ironic tone): The federal government should create a Department of Information whose responsibility it is to determine the facts behind any decision that confronts our country. I know what you’re thinking: This sounds like something that belongs in a totalitarian regime. But the reality is that someone has to decide on what is factual and what is not. So who can we trust to give us the most accurate information available? Big Business? Traditional media? The blogosphere? I certainly wouldn’t trust any of them.

Though our government is far from perfect, it does exist, at least in theory, to serve the best interests of the American people. That’s more than can be said for any other influences in our society; everyone else has a self-serving agenda. And our government already decides what is factual in many areas, whether the Office of Management and Budget deciding how much a proposed legislation will cost, the Federal Reserve describing the state of our economy, or even the decisions handed down by Supreme Court (though, interestingly, they are called opinions not facts). I know, budget estimates are often wrong, the Fed has made glaring economic-policy mistakes, and the Supreme Court can make some lousy decisions, but those mistakes may be more a reflection of the complexities of life and honest disagreement on ambiguous issues than of intentional misinformation.

Here’s the next part of my proposal. Anytime there is a factual dispute, the Department of Information would render a decision on what the facts are. Those parties who come out on the short end of those decisions would not be allowed to use their “facts” any longer (just like having potentially dangerous drugs or products taken off the shelf). If they do, there would be fines levied to punish the transgressors. This system would not only make clear what the facts are and empower those who want the facts to be known, but it would also discredit the lunatic fringe and reduce the influence of their views on the majority of people.

Uh oh, you may be thinking, now I’m trampling on our First Amendment rights. But we don’t actually have unfettered free speech. As Oliver Wendell Holmes so famously quoted (and was so often misquoted) in Schenck vs. United States in 1919, “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic” (italics added). Well, that’s what people with agendas do; politicians, any groups that begin with “Big,” television and radio talking heads and, of course, the lunatic fringe falsely yell fire in the theater of American life and it is causing a panic in our country.

Okay, so maybe a federal Department of Information isn’t going to fly. But the real purpose of my post is to emphasize how important it is for us to embrace accurate information to not only help us make decisions that are in our best interests, but also to use it as a cudgel against those who wish to distort or ignore the facts and impose their extreme ideologies on others.

James P. writes:

Jim Taylor argues that “someone has to decide on what is factual and what is not.” In the liberal worldview, this “someone” could never be the individual citizen; only the state could decide on behalf of the individual citizen.

It is curious that when he asks, “who can we trust to give us the most accurate information available?”, the one institution he does not name is the institution that traditionally is an impartial seeker of truth and fact: the university system. Why does he think the universities are not providing “trustworthy facts”? How does he think a “Department of Information would render a decision on what the facts are” without absorbing the entire university system into the Federal government? Is this actually what he wants, a Soviet-style university system with state-appointed professors?

LA replies:

James P. wrote:

Jim Taylor argues that “someone has to decide on what is factual and what is not.” In the liberal worldview, this “someone” could never be the individual citizen; only the state could decide on behalf of the individual citizen.

The individual human being as seeker and knower of truth does not exist in Jim Taylor’s world. Truth can only be known through an official government body.

This shows again how far liberals have moved from their roots. The very origin of the idea of democracy and individual rights is the view of the human being as one who can know the truth. If he can’t know the truth, why would he be given a voice in the government? Why would he have the right to speak?

A. Zarkov writes:

Jim Taylor writes, “The federal government should create a Department of Information whose responsibility it is to determine the facts behind any decision that confronts our country.”

Taylor presents a confused epistemology. Facts are not determined or decided, they are discovered. His confusion leads him to write nonsense about the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court does write opinions, not facts. The Supreme Court assumes that the original trial court has discovered that facts of the case (often not contested), and renders the ultimate and final opinion on how the law applies to the previously discovered facts. Our legal system, by fiat, takes the majority opinion of the Supreme Court as the definitive opinion. [LA replies: I don’t think you’re correct about this. It is common usage to say that that the jury determines the facts.]

Taylor goes on to compound the felony by telling us that only the government can provide the public with accurate information because only the government has no agenda! Is he writing this article from his padded cell in some asylum? The government is the most agenda-laden institution of them all. In my experience, information from the government is often the least reliable, mostly from incompetence, but often because because the information has been corrupted by a political agenda. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which finds ubiquitous use as a measure of inflation. However in the mid 1990s, BLS changed the way they compute the CPI, introducing new twists (hedonic methods), and geometric averages replacing arithmetic averages. In my opinion, these changes were politically driven to reduce the official the rate of inflation thereby reducing CPI adjustments to Social Security benefits and everything else that’s indexed to inflation. Of course BLS asserts that the new CPI is much improved, but they don’t provide the old numbers along with the new ones making all the price time series inhomogeneous. Note the government tells us they must make “adjustments” to temperature data expressly to make the temperature time series homogeneous. In both cases the “adjustments” serve a political agenda. To see the government data flim flam, go to the website, Shadow Government Statistics. There would be no need for such a website if Taylor’s view of government-provided information were accurate.

Now we see why Obama told graduating students at Hampton University that information is a “distraction.” He also inappropriately lumped the iPad (an information device) with the XBox (an entertainment device). Both Jim Taylor and Obama want the government to provide us with the “facts,” so that we won’t be “distracted.” How much more Soviet do these guys have to get before people understand what the Obama regime is up to?

LA replies:

That last sentence is worth repeating:

How much more Soviet do these guys have to get before people understand what the Obama regime is up to?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 14, 2010 11:53 AM | Send