by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
The old saying goes that if you give typewriters to a room full of monkeys, eventually they will write a great novel. It isn't too much of a stretch beyond that to imagine that if you give a room full of politicians some time to themselves, eventually they will come up with a good idea. In fact, that may have just happened in the state of Indiana.
There are three candidates running for Congress in Indiana's 9th Congressional District: Baron Hill, the incumbent Democrat, Mike Sodrel, the Republican challenger who used to hold the seat, and Eric Schansberg, the Libertarian. As the campaign heads into the final weeks, an idea has suddenly been put forth by the district's Republican party chairman that all of the candidates be hooked up to lie detectors during an upcoming debate. His justification is that "while this format may unusual, I feel strongly that voters need to be able to make a clear decision without all the usual spin."
The Republican and Libertarian candidates have agreed, and the Democrat is thinking it over. The university sponsoring the debate is resisting this interference with their program, apparently seeing this last minute disruption of plans as being political in nature. Yes, it undoubtedly is political in nature, but that doesn't prevent it from being a good idea.
This political tactic out of Indiana represents a great use of technology! Maybe we should look at filtering the comments of every politician in America through a lie detector. When the President decides to have a news conference, hook that sucker up! When the crap starts flying at a city council meeting, check the lie detector needles and find out who is being honest and who isn't. Talk about truth in advertising! Citizens would be able to make truly informed decisions based on access to the real facts. There is no telling where a society armed with the truth might take our nation!
This truth thing might become so popular that it would spread beyond politics. How about car salesmen being hooked to lie detectors? Wouldn't it be so much easier to buy a car knowing what it was actually worth and not having to play the game in order to make the purchase? And how about television evangelists? Lie detectors would probably put those begging maggots out of business in a matter of weeks!
And then there is always Bill O'Reilly, but we may have to wait on the next generation of lie detectors to tackle a liar of that magnitude!
2 comments:
This would make watching the debates so much more interesting--not only to see who was lying but to actually hear some truth being told. And to make it even better, have some way to give them a little shock for an especially egregious lie.
I love the idea of giving a little shock for big lies! Would we be endangering our job security as social workers if society became too honest? I think it would be worth the risk!
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