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Separating the truth from lemons is the American way

By Richard Williams - InsideSources.com | Nov 12, 2022

Richard Williams

In the aftermath of another turbulent election season, maybe it’s time for politicians, regulatory agencies and the media to return to something that feels almost quaint: the truth. During World War II, the “Superman” radio show writers coined the phrase “Truth, Justice and the American Way.” At the time, it was a way to cheer on the American military. I later grew up on Superman comic books, and, while I didn’t completely understand it, I knew it represented something great. A guiding light.

Truth and justice are what America is all about. We may sometimes disagree on the specifics, but we’ve shared an understanding. For one, our country was founded on the idea that no one has a monopoly on truth, even kings. We asserted that King George III “obstructed the Administration of Justice” and his character, “marked by every act which may define a Tyrant,” was “unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

In colonial America, they had the remarkable idea that there exists a marketplace of ideas where such things could be sorted out and “used continuously … by Puritans, printers, and politicians among others to justify their assaults on authority.”

In our current political sphere, truth is, at best, relative. Over the last few decades, we have seen commentators and politicians comparing who is the biggest or most outrageous liar. There was even a slogan about the relative effect of political lies: “No one died when Clinton lied.”

Others are absolutists pushing implausible facts without common sense and reason. These are illustrated by claims of stolen elections, or that massive spending will reduce inflation, and asserting a secured border and “settled” science.

Some seek a monopoly on science. Just as French King Louis IV asserted “L’état C’est à Moi” (“I am the state”), government scientists have attempted to silence alternative voices — e.g., “I represent science.” Their conclusions are frequently correct, but the exceptions underscore how science is an unending process of discovery.

Are we losing the marketplace for truth? Do we now have what economists call a “lemons market” for knowledge? George Akerlof described this concept using the used-car market, in which the seller knows more about his poor product than buyers. Buyers, unable to distinguish good from bad cars, will only pay the average price for either. That leaves little incentive to sell the good vehicles and every incentive to sell the “lemons.”

I think people are fed up with the information lemons market, in which they can’t tell good information from bad. More and more are tuning out commentators, politicians and federal agencies.

I think we long for a country lawyer who said, “Resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer.” That was our 16th president, Honest Abe Lincoln.

We’re sorry for the poor Russian citizens who hear that the Russians are winning the war against “Nazi” Ukraine and that their armies are not attacking civilian targets. While we thankfully do not live in such a speech-repressed false façade, we are surrounded by our share of preposterous calumnies repeated ad nauseum.

Perhaps some of our social communicators are afraid of giving away the truth too freely, as if (as author Beryl Markham put it) “truth is rarer than radium and that if it became easily available, the market for it would be glutted, holders of stock in it would become destitute and gems of eternal verity would be given away as premiums.” It is more likely about short-termed personal gains evidenced by booming sales of the worst lemons. But that is a short-sighted business model.

In 1952, on the TV series “Adventures of Superman,” announcer Bill Kennedy spoke again of a mild-mannered reporter’s pursuit of truth, justice and the American way. That same year, Dwight D. Eisenhower entered politics with, among other great qualities, “honesty” as a key facet of his character, along with modesty, duty and faithfulness. Judging by Americans’ search for truth in our social life, I think there is still a market for it — and not lemon lies — just as there was 70 years ago.

Richard Williams is a senior affiliated scholar with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.

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