I grew up listening to a lot of rock anthems. Boston’s More Than A Feeling. Heart’s Barracuda. Rush’s Tom Sawyer (or almost anything else by Rush). Great songs that belonged in open air stadiums.
At Detroit sporting events, we have a ritual with Journey’s rock anthem Don’t Stop Believin’. We recognize the song from the first bar. We all rise to our feet. In the first verse, there is a lyric that begins “Just a city boy.” Then the DJ turns the volume down. The crowd erupts to finish the lyric, “born and raised in south Detroit!” Then the volume goes back up, and we keep singing. It is a great tradition.
The Grand Illusion
But here is a little secret that most people outside my beloved hometown don’t know. There is no such place as south Detroit. If we go to Hart Plaza – which is city center – and face south, we look across the Detroit River directly into Windsor, Ontario, Canada. In fact, Detroit is the only place in the continental United States where we look south to Canada. If we follow the Detroit river to where it turns south, we head toward what we call “downriver.” South Detroit does not exist.
Now I don’t blame Journey for this bit of misinformation. They probably didn’t know any better. And here in Detroit, we welcome the positive exposure and a reason to cheer. But it still causes me to wonder what else have we learned wrong from song lyrics. I sure hope School House Rock got it right.
You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet
I have a similar concern when it comes to politics. Except I don’t think it is quite as innocent and harmless as a rock anthem. So much of what we hear from politicians and government officials just isn’t so. Politicians calculate, obfuscate and even fabricate for political gain. The disingenuous reign supreme. They run the virtuous through a threshing machine.
Take our U.S. Attorney General, for example. Earlier this year, she announced the DEA under the current Administration had seized more than 21,000,000 fentanyl pills. This sounded like a notable accomplishment for law enforcement. Except the AG had just begun to dazzle us with her knack for numbers. She went on to claim that seizing 21,000,000 fentanyl pills equated to saving 21,000,000 lives. I understand the symmetry, but the equation did not seem right to me. My spidey sense was tingling.
A couple days later, the AG updated her figures. The President had not saved a mere 21,000,000 lives, but had saved 119,000,000 lives through the seizure of fentanyl pills. Now I was incredulous. But the AG still wasn’t done.
A couple days later, during a cabinet meeting, the AG updated her figures once again. This time, she declared the President had in fact saved 258,000,000 lives. Before making this statement, she looked at the camera and said, “are you ready for this, media?” Even as she said it, the AG knew people would find her figures hard to believe.
You Really Got Me
Here are some real statistics. Approximately 77,000 people in the U.S. died of fentanyl related causes in 2023. This is a horrific statistic. Even one life lost to fentanyl is too many. Still, I hope we all agree that 77,000 does not equal 21,000,000. Or 119,000,000. Or 258,000,000.
Here is another real statistic. The total population of the United States is about 340,000,000. Again, the fentanyl crisis is very real and very serious. But 2/3 of our population were not at risk of a fentanyl overdose last year.
The AG’s figures had no reasonable basis in fact. They were made-up. If true, the AG’s figures would have meant that the President had eradicated the fentanyl crisis (and then some). But that is not the case at all. The fentanyl crisis rages on. The AG’s figures trivialize the real lives destroyed by fentanyl and do a disservice to those combating the fentanyl crisis.
Won’t Get Fooled Again
I don’t know which possible explanation for the AG’s behavior is worse here. That the AG was naive enough to believe her figures. Or that the AG thought we were naive enough to believe her figures.
And it isn’t just the fact that the AG spewed facially inaccurate numbers. It is the fact that she told the lie on three separate occasions. It is the fact that she embellished the lie each time. It is the fact that the lie was at least 3,350 times bigger than the truth. It is the fact that she had time to think between lies, and she still went through with them. It is the fact that she gave the camera a cheeky smirk. This is the top prosecutor in the country. I don’t know how we can reasonably believe anything she says. I don’t know how we can take her seriously.
Notably, this story ran for just a couple days and did not garner all that much attention. The Administration throws so much new material at us every day that no one issue receives the attention it deserves. It turns out that flooding the zone, as some call it, works. We can’t keep up.
The Song Remains The Same
One reason I started writing this blog is because I lost faith in what the government tells us. So I eliminate the middle man, and I go straight to source material – like studies, legislation and court opinions. I have found over and over that politicians and government officials simply do not shoot us straight. If they support something, they embellish (or fabricate) the good news and hide the bad. If they oppose something, they do just the opposite. But no one seems to offer an honest assessment.
And I do mean to pick on the AG. Hers is the most ridiculous example I have heard in recent memory. But the problem is not limited to the AG, or to the Administration, or to any one party. It is endemic throughout the governing class. Presidents. Vice Presidents. Department secretaries. Agency heads. Representatives. Senators. Spokespeople. They tell some whoppers. We judge the truth of their statements – not from critical analysis – but from our own biases and prejudices. We stop at the headlines but don’t drill into the story. We don’t step back and consider whether what they are saying really makes sense.
I’ve Seen All Good People
In every other aspect of our lives, honesty and integrity matter. We teach our children honesty and integrity. We expect it from our friends and neighbors. We demand it from our co-workers. But we would not trust most of our elected officials to house sit our plants.
There are some good people in politics. People who tell the unadulterated truth. People worthy of respect. People we would want our children to emulate. Identifying the good people requires careful discernment. Too often we abdicate our responsibility to ascertain good from bad, right from wrong. We vote along party lines even when we know our own candidate is a scoundrel.
I say we should break this cycle. Partisan politics be damned. We should elect good people to represent us. People of high character. People we admire. We should vote for honesty and integrity above partisanship. Virtue above party. We get the government we deserve.