For the Love of Truth

I don't usually write political blogs. In fact, I find most political blogs arrogant and narrow-minded, a forum for some angry non-voting citizen to feel as if they are somehow making an impact on the world by typing about the quality of government.

I am not claiming to do any different, but as I read yet more articles on WikiLeaks, I feel like I need to say this:

We're asking the wrong questions.

The Opinionator in the New York Times is asking if we're helped by reading WikiLeaks and knowing what the government is lying to us about.
The Christian Science Monitor argues that Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, is not to blame for the leaking of information, but the government officials who provided the information.
CNN asks, whose to blame for the damage that's been done?
MSNBC asks, how do we prosecute Assange since the documents weren't stolen but copied, moving this to an issue of intellectual property rights?

And, all along, I'm wondering why no one seems to be asking why our government is lying to us.

Sure, it has been since the beginning of time even before Plato wrote The Republic stating that different levels of people needed to have different access to information and rights.
And sure, there are certainly things that I don't need to know, like the drinking habits of Kim Jong Il (which, thanks to WikiLeaks, I now know).
But when my country is sending American soldiers to march alongside Pakistani soldiers in the battlefield and telling me they are merely doing training, I've got issues.
When the US has Yemen lying for them about the US's role in sniping Yemen citizens: I want to question our military protocol.

I'm not saying anything anti-military and I'm not suggesting the government should open up all their files.

But I am wondering if any of us really believe that being lied to is in our best interests. I'm wondering just how much deceit we'll accept from our country. I'm wondering at what point we cry out in the name of truth.

That's all I want. To know that my government respects me enough to at least say nothing in lieu of lying. To know that my government is conducting itself in such a way that it does not need to lie.

We impeached Clinton for lying under oath. Suddenly, that seems terribly ironic.