“If there is a form of government, then, whose principle and foundation is virtue, will not every sober man acknowledge it better calculated to promote the general happiness than any other form?” –John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

Recently, LZ Granderson, a commentator and writer for CNN News said this during a TV debate about Americans’ distrust of  President Obama vis-a-vis Obamacare:

“The question is, which lies can you live with? And, time and time again, Americans have said we can deal with the lies that President Obama tells us because we believe in his heart, he has the best interest for the American people. Every president is going to lie to you. Every politician is going to lie to you. The question is, which lies can you live with?”

So there you have it, America. A peek into the dark, twisted world of “progressive” logic.

Dear hard-working, patriotic Americans: LZ Granderson says he is speaking for you. He has anointed himself to be your spokesperson, partly because he claims to know what you all are thinking, but more importantly because he thinks he knows what is best for you. Yet Mr. Granderson does note cite his sources. How does he know all this? Did Gallup run a national poll that included a question like:

“If you agree that President Obama has your best interests at heart do you believe it is okay for him to lie to you about the most important issues that affect your health and well-being?”

No, there have not been any national polls that have posed a question like that and even if there were none would support Granderson’s false claim that “Americans have said we can deal with the lies that President Obama tells us.” If there was such supporting evidence Granderson would have certainly produced it by now.

I have a question for Mr. Granderson. If progressive, liberal policies are clearly so good for America in the minds of liberals like Mr. Granderson, then why would President Obama and the Democrats have to lie to the American people about the policies they want to impose on us? For instance, why did they tell us we could keep our doctor and our health plan when they knew it was not true? Why did they tell us that the new healthcare law would make health care more affordable when it will actually drive up most insurance premiums and add to our national debt? If their vision of America is clearly so superior, why doesn’t it sell itself. Why are the lies and deception necessary?

The answer must surely be that the liberal elite think that regular, hard-working Americans are clearly too stupid to recognize what is in their own best interest. That is in effect what LZ Granderson is saying. If he is correct, that Americans are too dumb to figure out what is in their own best interest, then surely the current batch of elected miscreants in Washington is the product of that stupidity. When I contemplate who populates Congress and the White House, I wonder if they are not absolute proof of the collective stupidity that Granderson alludes to. Sometimes it’s difficult to think otherwise.

What it really comes down to is this, if we live in a culture where lies are tolerable, even desirable, as in Mr. Granderson’s world, then how can citizens hope to make informed decisions about politics and policies that directly impact their lives? The problem is, they cannot. If we are continually deceived by politicians and their cheerleaders in the media, who claim to have our best interests at heart (and we would be foolish to believe their claim that they do), then we will more often than not elect people who create far more problems than they solve. Liars, cheats, and power-hungry fortune seekers are surely not attracted to Washington by the lure of solving America’s problems. They are there for much less honorable reasons.

“The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool.” — Stephen King

It is frightening to contemplate, but think about it – by the logical extension of his belief that Americans need to be lied to for their own good because they are clueless, Mr. Granderson and other progressives could argue that there really is no need to have any elections at all. If the masses are too ignorant to know what is in their best interest, then what is the purpose of letting the ignorant vote? In the liberal, progressive mind our representative form of democracy is just a big show, an expensive waste of time and money. Perhaps Mr. Granderson thinks we should just scrap our Constitution and just let the “intellectual elite”[1] run the country. Or perhaps, on the other hand, the progressive liberals think the electoral process is a necessary show, one that gives the illusion that the people are the masters and the politicians their representatives. Either way, the fact that a man with views like Mr. Granderson is given a platform on a major news network to air his anti-American sophistry is clear evidence that our Constitutional Republic is under attack from within.

No, LZ Granderson’s vision for America will only lead to our ruin. We must not accept it. The best thing we can do at election time is to support only those who are the wisest, most honorable and virtuous amongst us. If we can manage to do that collectively, most of our current and future problems will be solved. But it requires a different mindset, one that truly looks at the long term and insists on doing the greatest good for the most people, not just preferred groups. Hopefully, we are a little more advanced than just a bunch of wild, uncivilized scavengers fighting over the remaining spoils of another’s successful hunt, tearing at each other for our turn at someone else’s discarded carcass. Wouldn’t it be better to focus our attention not on what we can steal or scavenge from our fellow men, but rather on being excellent at something that other men and women value and will pay us handsomely for. That has a far better chance of leading to a general happiness in the United States and is far preferable to “Life, Slavery and the Pursuit of Carcass.”

Frotho Canutus

“Human government is more or less perfect as it approaches nearer or diverges farther from the imitation of this perfect plan of divine and moral government.”
–John Adams, draft of a Newspaper Communication, Circa August 1770

“Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the “latent spark”… If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?”  –John Adams, Novanglus, 1775

“I Pray Heaven to Bestow The Best of Blessing on THIS HOUSE, and on ALL that shall hereafter Inhabit it. May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule under This Roof!”  –John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, November 2, 1800

 “All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.”  –Sir Winston Churchill

“Time and time again, Americans have said we can deal with the lies that President Obama tells us…” — LZ Granderson

Link to video of Granderson speaking on CNN here: MRC LINK