Geodog

US law says it's ok to lie if the truth would hurt

One important part of raising a child is inculcating values. Almost every child goes through the stage where they discover lying, and are intoxicated by its power. They are so transparent at first that it is almost cute to watch. However, as parents, it is our job to teach them that it is better to accept the consequences of their actions than to try lie their way out of them, for both practical and moral reasons. "Lying always costs more in the end," we say. Even if it isn't empirically provably true, our society as a whole will be better off if everybody were to act as if it were true, so that is what we teach. We can sympathize with the often painful choices that being honest entails, understand the occasional failure, and even confess our own failures, but the basic lesson remains that nothing is more important than integrity. If I leave my children with that belief, I will have done well as a parent. Unfortunately, it often feels like I am swimming against the tide. Very little in our entertainment, business or political culture seems to actively uphold integrity as a core value. Sure, there is a little lip service, but that seems to be it. An infuriating example came to light yesterday.

Now, many of our politicians of all persuasions have had trouble being honest about a variety of things, and I have fallen down myself enough times to be wary of casting stones at others, but today I discovered it has become law in the United States that it is ok to lie if telling the truth would cost too much. The NYT reports that late Wednesday night,

Representative Nathan Deal of Georgia had an amendment snuck into the $397 billion spending bill that passed Thursday. That amendment would "permit livestock producers to certify and label meat as "organic" even if the animals had been fed partly or entirely on conventional rather than organic grain ... if the Agriculture Department certifies that organic feed is commercially available only at more than twice the price of conventional feed ...It was included on behalf of a Baldwin, Ga., poultry producer, the Fieldale Farms Corporation ... Mr. Deal received $4,000 from employees of Fieldale, which is in his district, during his last campaign."

How corrupt our political process has become, and how Orwellian our discourse. A Representative adds an amendment gutting a law in return for a $4,000 contribution. Now organic food is organic, unless it would have been too expensive to make it organic, in which case organic is non-organic, but still called organic. This kind of thing enrages me. I think Nathan Deal should be recalled and jailed. But he won't be, for this kind of corruption is legal -- indeed it is built into the system. And pundits wonder why people aren't more interested in politics. It sure makes this a rough country to raise a child in. I'm still looking for that Costa Rican blogger.

Link via Dave Farber's IP list. The NYT also has another article the same day about all the pork stuffed into the omnibus spending bill.