GW Bush and the Benefit of the Doubt

JL Wilson does not find the government credible at all: http://independentcountry.blogspot.com/2006/06/i-dont-believe-them.html

That’s because he is not an idiot. On Olbermann’s show last night, I heard Newsweek’s Richard Wolfe say that he was going to “give the president the benefit of the doubt” on something. I knew from that moment that Wolfe was a shill or a fool, or a bit of both. Bush hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt on anything. He has earned our complete disbelief of every utterance form his mouth and should be required to prove his assertions by clear and convincing evidence. Can you go wrong by assuming that everything that comes out of the regime is complete BS?

My father was something of a con man. He could charm the scales off a rattlesnake. I idolized him and was prepared to believe everything he said. I believed every implausible excuse he ever made for standing me up for visitation, and I believed every unfulfilled promise he ever made. I would defend him against anyone who questioned him. This went on for years until I developed a capacity to reason that was sufficient to overcome my blind faith in my dad. I reckon a lot of Americans see the government the way I saw my dad. He is just misunderstood, that’s all. He has our best interests at heart, doesn’t he? The critics are lying, unpatriotic, unable to see the danger the government is saving us from. For about a third of us, this faith seems unshakeable. The government can tell a hundred lies in succession, and this third is still prepared to believe government assertion number one hundred and one.

It takes personal responsibility and maturity to accept that the government is constantly lying to you, that the world does not make sense in the way the government and media have packaged it for you. You have to seek out and filter diverse sources of information on your own and think for yourself. This smacks of way too much effort for most Americans. They want to let daddy take care of such things.