government is about process not truth
That sounds philosophical. Oh no. It is philosophical, which means it is a statement that sums up innumerable examples, and applies to innumerable examples. And it means you gotta think about it a little if you are going to discuss government.
Pretend for a moment that we can divide the world up into those who KNOW the truth, and who want their version of the truth to be served everywhere and always. Because they know the truth, their opinions about what should be done - in public as well as private - are pushed as THE answer. On the other hand, there are people who either do not know the truth or have a bit of scepticism about their own mastery over all the ins and outs in that big Truth tapestry.
If the people who knew the truth were in charge of things, they would function toward the infallible end of things, right? Knowing the truth, they could do the right thing. They could execute criminals only when they deserved it. They could make companies hire exactly the right people, tell people where and how they could live, even pick out the right clothes on the right day. These truth-knowers, valuing their truthiness, would be useful in government, wouldn't they? They could be both judge and jury. They could be both the legislature and he executive and the judiciary could be tossed out the window because the truth would have been already served in each case.
Think about what public life and government would be like, however, if the other sort of people were running things. They would not be sure about what the truth was. Trying to pass a law would require research, science, planning and polling. Trying to put a criminal away would require expenses in time and money like collecting evidence, presenting both sides of a story, examining witnesses, crossexamination, and making sure the judge actually followed the law instead of doing what he or she thought was right. Things might not run as efficiently if government were manned diligently by people who were not sure about ultimate truth.
Which system do you think would work better, in this world?
I agree. Even when people DO know the truth in all cases, they are not really able to convince everyone. And the truth-knowers really do have to live and function in the same society, with the same government, as the rest of us. So even though it would be simpler to give control over government to the truthier of our citizens, we still have a lot of sceptics out there who would feel left out.
Another problem is that the truth-knowers have a doggone habit of disagreeing with each other. Of course, since they are in touch with some higher power that grants them access to truth, the disagreement must be some kind of glitch in transmission, or something. Still, their disagreement leaves us with no choice but to figure out what to do when we cannot get a clear and consistent story from the Truth-protecting segments of society. Disagreements pop up. And in trying to deal with them, we have developed mechanisms in government for muddling through.
Those mechanisms - not required by the truth-knowers of course - include things like rule of law, need for evidence, due process, balance of powers, constitutionality and the bill of rights. They include voting, which necessitates campaigning, which necessitates free speech, which necessitates a free press. Our system - acknowledging the sad existence of sceptics in society - works by having folks with different opinions try to convince the others. I can convince you with facts, with science, with examples, with the appeal of powerful ideas. And you can try to convince me by being free to dig into public records, comparing cases of success and failure from history, by bringing up more and more opinions by our many neighbors who may be impacted by a decision. We could both try to convince each other by arguing from legal precedent, by exposing conflicts of interest, by revising laws so they are more and more consistent, more and more fair.
These traditions - designed just in case our leaders are not always in command of the truth - have served us pretty well.
Some think it would be nice if the people who KNEW could be in charge of government. That would provide the benefits of the light of truth to those unsure creatures who like to ask questions. But in reality, we must recognize that the percentage of unsure is far far greater among us than the percentage of the sure.
So instead of a government that implements the truth, we have a government that sets up rules for process, so that the sceptics can fight it out with as much fairness and respect as possible.
Cool, huh?
