What is Truth?

Collectivists (including liberals and progressives) have their own definition of truth.

The classical definition of truth: “… something to be found, with the individual conscience as the sole arbiter of whether in any particular instance the evidence (or standing of those proclaiming it) warrants a belief.” (From F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents–The Definitive Edition (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, Volume 2) page 178.)

The collectivist definition replaces this with “… something to be laid down by authority, something which has to be believed in the interest of the unity of the organized effort and which may have to be altered as the exigencies of this organized effort require it.” (ibid.)

The end result is that “truth” is whatever the political organization needs it to be, and in the immortal words of Alcee Hastings  (D-FL) “there are no rules, we make them up as we go along.” And the rule of law is replaced by the will of the “party” and the will of the party eventually becomes the will of the “Leader.” (You may provide your own translation.)

This train of thought is not mere speculation — a review of history shows that time and again, in a collectivist society, independent and free thinking must be suppressed whenever it threatens the consolidated power of the collective. There is simply no other way for the control of the body politic to be maintained.

When Obama expresses dislike for a “free press” (aka “Fox News”), he shows the tendency for the collectivist to mandate control over thought and truth.

We see this playing out in several important current events:

1. Obama’s lies and broken promises (see my blog post of 19-Jun-10).
2. Obama: “We were on top of the BP oil spill from day one.”
3. Falsifying the recommendations of Obama’s panel of experts regarding an offshore drilling moratorium.
4. Falsifying or distorting climatological science findings regarding global warming.
5. The ever-popular sport of “blaming Bush” when in fact your own policies are the real cause (for example, the current financial meltdown, when in fact the policies that caused the problem at its core were the intense focus by the liberals, most notably Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, to extend vast numbers of doomed mortgages to those clearly unable to pay them).
6. Distortion of the facts in the immigration situation in Arizona.
7. Distortion and denial of “economics 101” in areas of job creation, taxation, government borrowing and spending, etc.

When you have disregard for truth as classically defined and replace it by truth as defined by the collective, you have moved away from the Rule of Law and substituted the Rule of Authority.