De staat als liegende Kerstman?

Waarom liegen politici? Omdat kiezers meer van een leugen houden dan van de waarheid. Kinderen geloven in de Kerstman, maar volwassenen niet meer. Maar volwassenen geloven wel en masse in de overheid, een volle nicht van de goedgemutste Santa. Kiezers zien de staat als de Kerstman die cadeautjes uitdeelt, als een goedwillende organisatie zonder eigenbelang die welvaart schept zonder dat ervoor gewerkt hoeft te worden. Deze cadeautjes moeten natuurlijk betaald worden maar burgers willen de rekening liever niet zien. Dus liegen politici (en maken steeds grotere staatsschulden) en raakt de kiezer teleurgesteld in de politiek waarvan hij de nonsens en leugens zo graag wilde geloven. Hieronder wat typerende uitspraken over het waarheidsgehalte van politici:

“All these politicians are smart. They realize that they are dealing with a dishonest, indeed, a corrupt electorate. They lie to the electorate because they fear that they will lose the elections if they speak the truth. Hence they acquiesce to “living in the lie” – the big lie that the state is Santa Claus. A corrupt electorate gets the politicians it deserves. Most politicians are liars, especially if they have been around for some time, because it is almost impossible to survive in European politics without lying. The welfare state corrupts the voters, the voters in turn corrupt the politicians, and the politicians corrupt the voters even more by maintaining the welfare state. It is a vicious circle, which can only be  broken when the welfare state collapses under its own inherent deficiencies. This will happen as soon as the money runs out with which the Santa Claus state finances the gifts and benefits that its corrupt electorate demands.” (Paul Belien, Communism Killed 100 Million People and All I Got Was This Lousy Democracy) “In the mind of the average person freedom is an abstraction like the Red Nosed Reindeer that occasionally drops gifts. Liberty is therefore something that should ‘give.’ […] There is a voting block [in democracies] that wants guaranteed hand-outs secured by political power that can defy economics. […] So voting to get something that no one can give [but] only promise, appears to be a viable course to follow.” (George Handlery) “We lied in the morning, we lied in the evening. […] It’s obvious that we lied throughout the last year-and-a-half, two years. It was totally clear that what we are saying is not true.” (Ferenc Gyurcsany, minister-president van Hongarije 2004-2009, in een bui van ongekende openhartigheid. The Daily Telegraph, 18 September 2006)