Truth and Trust, by Charles Laws.

There is one thing we can all agree on. No one likes to be made uncomfortable.

Our culture has developed strong resistance to behaviors which upset others. We are a people who seek pleasure. We neither reward those who make us uncomfortable nor try to act in ways that make others uncomfortable. Every political candidate knows that they are unlikely to get elected, or reelected, if they distress us in any way. They don't like painful truths, and, therefore, they do not tell us the whole truth.

I maintain that the strength our democracy depends on the informed decisions of it's citizens. You and I need to have the best information possible. In our present system politicians aren't likely to give it to us. We must find it for ourselves.

Politicians get elected by getting us to like them. The media of newspapers and television are in business to sell space to advertisers. If what they offer doesn't get us excited or makes us feel good, we don't buy the papers, watch TV or vote for the politicians. Thus, that which is dull or painful is rarely presented. We live in a world where our knowledge and information are filtered, and perhaps even suppressed, by the very people we depend on as the source of what we accept as truth. However, we are not unintelligent. We read between the lines, accept what we experience, and talk to our neighbors. We have a sense of what is going on. We suspect that we know more than our elected officials are willing to tell us. We feel marginalized by them and other "leaders" and can not trust them. We become apathetic. It is a sorry state of affairs.

I maintain that the public distribution of verifiable information should be the primary function of those we select as officials of government. What they know and learn should be public information. Government of the people, by the people, and for the people, must provide the people with the basis for fully informed decisions. Information belongs to all "of the people" of a democracy.