In political philosophy, they call it “The Noble Lie”: the idea that, sometimes — for the public’s own good — a nation’s leaders must engage in outright deception. ADVERTISING In political philosophy, they call it “The Noble Lie”: the idea
In political philosophy, they call it “The Noble Lie”: the idea that, sometimes — for the public’s own good — a nation’s leaders must engage in outright deception.
If that’s a concept that sounds ripe for abuse, then your instincts are sound. In a nation built, as ours is, around the importance of the consent of the governed, the noble lie is a nonstarter. There’s a word for getting people to consent to a conscious misrepresentation of the truth. It’s called “fraud.”
Based on recently unearthed remarks by Jonathan Gruber, the MIT economist who was one of the main architects of Obamacare, that sounds like as good a description as any for how the Obama administration foisted health care reform on the American people.
In recently unearthed footage of a public talk by Mr. Gruber, the economist admits that the administration intentionally deceived the American people about the fact that Obamacare’s individual mandate was actually a tax and purposefully obscured the fact that the program was designed as a wealth transfer from healthy Americans to sick ones.
“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” Mr. Gruber noted, adding, “(C)all it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.”
Mr. Gruber’s contempt for the public doesn’t seem to have been an isolated incident. Another video has already been released in which Mr. Gruber cops to the fact that taxing insurance companies for so-called “Cadillac plans” (the informal term for expensive, all-inclusive health coverage) was simply a back door to taxing the insured customers (because the insurance companies would pass on the extra costs).
That plan worked, Mr. Gruber noted, “because the American people are too stupid to understand the difference.”
It’s good to know what our betters really think of us.
Mr. Gruber, is, of course, correct to note that a lack of public understanding helped Obamacare’s political fortunes. He is wrong, however, to attribute it to voter stupidity. When the White House was intentionally misleading the American people about the content of the law — and when Congress drafted a bill too large to be comprehended by anyone — there was no way for the public to develop an informed opinion about the program. If the voters erred, it was only insofar as they trusted the people they elected to office.
Abraham Lincoln, one of Barack Obama’s political heroes, once noted that, “Public sentiment is everything. With (it), nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed.” Mr. Obama long ago lost public sentiment on health care reform. That damage will only be compounded by the revelation that he never sought it in good faith to begin with.
— From the Orange County Register
