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Harold S. Reed Jr.

Owner, Speaker & Coach, HRJR Enterprises

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Why do people get mad when lied to by politicians ... especially when they basically beg politicians to lie to them?

As I've gotten older, I decided to make myself more aware of world and national events - especially our political process - I find myself growing increasingly disgusted.

It just seems like this society consists of people who, collectively, are as effective as a dog chasing its tail. I say this because it seems people get mad when politicians either appear to, or flat out, lie to them, but the only way politicians will get elected is if they tell the people what they want to hear (regardless of the real-time circumstances).

People want politicians to make everything all better with the same expediency as a mother kissing a baby's boo-boo ... and then act as mature as that baby when it realizes the pain is still there.

Topics: 2012 US election
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    Orlando Hawkins 20+

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    Oct 19 2011: Harold, you make an excellent point and like you, I'm really disgusted by the lack of political awareness in this country.

    Its amazing how language has a profound effect on the human mind and human experience. This correlation of extravagant human experience and the influential complexity of language/rhetoric has occurred many times in history(Stalin, Hitler, 9/11, etc) with the most recent being the election of Obama. The country was falling apart. As you already know many people were losing their jobs, education and homes. People were starting to lose their trust in government. Then all of a sudden Obama comes and preaches words of "progress", "American Greatness", "Yes we can" and people just willingly followed.

    Since the establishment of Public Relations Industry the real purpose of U.S. Democratic practice is for those at the top to control the public mind/public interest. I think it is safe to say that these politicians, these leaders have a profound understanding on the neurological, psychological and biological functioning in relation to the human mind, language and experience. Profound enough to keep the majority of people to continue to act like "immature babies".
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    Krisztián Pintér 200+

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    Oct 19 2011: i was stupid enough to go to the wall street topic, and tell people that governments do what people ask for. the experience was unpleasant. i wonder how far you get with it in a separate conversation :)

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      Orlando Hawkins 20+

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      Oct 19 2011: I actually agree and its usually the people that vote these individuals in that complain the most. Its one of the reasons why I don't vote. Its like giving someone the match to burn down my house and then complain about them burning it down. I see this a lot as well. With the election of Obama in the U.S. he stated what he intends to do with economy. He mentioned it may take more than "one term" to get things back on track. People celebrated and voted him in. Now the biggest complaint is that things are not recovering fast enough and that he is the main person responsible. Truth is the people are just as responsible as the politicians.
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        Harold S. Reed Jr.

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        Oct 20 2011: True, but since Obama DID say it would take more than one term to get things back on track, he has not lied. And as for not voting, that's more like giving someone the match to burndown your house. The only difference is when you vote, you know who you're handing the match to in the hopes they light the right kind of fire. By not voting, you're basically holding out your hand with the whole book of matches in it, while at the same time turning your head and closing your eyes. What happens then is whoever wins gets to walk up to you and take the matches you're holding out ... and when that happens, you really can't complain because you blindly gave the matches away.
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          Orlando Hawkins 20+

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          Oct 20 2011: True. I was merely responding to what Krisztian said about politicians are doing what the people voted them in for. One reason I heard why people voted for Obama is because he symbolized hope and progress whereas McCain did not. What I realize is that people were so caught up in how appealing Obama was (he was younger, new, ambitious, intelligent and above all, he has excellent rhetoric skills) instead of really listening to what he actually had to say, which, as we both pointed out, he did not lie but many individuals feel or act as if he had.

          I find the point you make about voting very intriguing but I would have to partly disagree, from a purely individual standpoint. In this case, at least from what I read from your comment, an apathy towards voting is equated with ignorance. This is partly true and this is partly false.

          I can't speak for everyone but for my individual case I actually keep up with current events, policies, etc. My main reason for not voting is because I think an incremental system, a system in which we pile laws upon laws, policies upon polices, is not an effective way of being progressive. There are some policies that I am very skeptical and critical of and given that there are many conflict of interest involved and that most of these politicians serves a higher agenda, I really do not think that voting will serve the interest of the whole, but only the poly-archy. Plus I really think my reasons for not voting are much more reasonable than why most people do vote in which I call blind democracy (i.e. voting due to religious convictions, because the candidate is pretty, etc, etc). Now if I was not informed and apathetic and did not really care about politics but yet criticized these politicians, the I would agree with you and I have met people like this.

          I do think I can criticize these politicians being that I keep myself informed. I did not even vote for Obama and yet he is still president. My lack of voting does not matter in this regard
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    John Rusk

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    Oct 19 2011: I recently listened to Tim Harford's TED talk ( http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_harford.html ) and found his thoughts relevant to this question. E.g. here's a quote from the middle of his talk, when he describes what he hopes we'll see one day:

    'When a politician stands up campaigning for elected office and says, "I want to fix our health system. I want to fix our education system. I have no idea how to do it. I have half a dozen ideas. We're going to test them out. They'll probably all fail. Then we'll test some other ideas out. We'll find some that work. We'll build on those. We'll get rid of the ones that don't."'
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    Harold S. Reed Jr.

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    Oct 19 2011: But this "game" runs how our lives are ruled. Is this not irresponsible conduct on the part of the people? Are not the people of our society basically gluttons for punishment?
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      Steven Dilloway

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      Oct 19 2011: Yes. This game does run how our lives are ruled. And yes, it is irresponsible conduct on the part of the people. That being said, I think that the people of our society put themselves into these difficult positions, which in turn, 'punish' themselves into a pit of despair.
      In physics (as is with this "game"), it is easier to destroy than to create.
      Entropy.
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        James Turner 10+

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        Oct 19 2011: Steven I truly believe that every life is ruled by your choices and commitment to society as you see fit. Look at the current protestors. All they want is what they want and when they don't get it they talk about violence, and antisemitism is coming up, anti-white hate speech is becoming more prevalent, hate will be the calling card of the protestors. They do not see the irony of what they are doing and will never see it because they will never see beyond themselves. They are making choices each moment and they will live with those choices. Oh they will whine and cry but they still make the choice and must live with it. Choices were made in the 60's the protestors became the yuppies and eventually the hated establishment again choices being made. It is really all about choices
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          Steven Dilloway

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          Oct 19 2011: ...
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          Harold S. Reed Jr.

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          Oct 19 2011: "Anti-White hate speech" ... Are you serious? I'm curious ... What exactly is that? It seems to me that anytime a person of color brings up the attrocities committed by whites over the centuries the accusation of "Anti-White hate speech" gets thrown out there. Personally, I put that right up there with "Reverse Discrimination," which by its very name implies that one form of discrimination is fine and only becomes a problem when it backfires.

          Yet ... That is another topic.

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        Steven Dilloway

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        Oct 19 2011: Politicians promise utopia? 50% of the US not paying income taxes?
        James, you're not making any sense...
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    Steven Dilloway

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    Oct 19 2011: because politics is replicated into a game of sport. power & respect my friend.
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