Here’s a pop quiz. Who said, “Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies”?
A recent letter writer to the Denver Post’s editorial page suggested that we, the people, put an end to the pollster’s power in politics by lying to them. Great idea — but it’s already being done.
The talking heads on TV are always surprised at election results. They’re amazed that the vote tallies don’t match the polls. But I’m not surprised, because I understand what they don’t: People lie.
People lie to pollsters, regardless of the subject of the poll or who is conducting it. Political, social, personal, or professional, it doesn’t matter. Ask what anyone is doing, thinking, believing or planning, and you’re likely to get a falsehood.
Take, for example, the ridiculous surveys we’re always seeing that contend a majority of people are happy with their jobs. What a laugh. Anyone in a workplace knows everybody hates it there.
Mondays are spent griping about the new work week. Fridays are spent celebrating the anticipation of freedom. No one is happy, except maybe for the zillionaire owner and that guy who called in sick to go skiing.
There have been myriad surveys that say married folks like being married. The rates of affairs and divorces belie those claims. Ditto for parents. If they really found joy in rearing children, there wouldn’t be spankings, screaming, threats, and all the other things mothers and fathers inflict upon kids.
People lie to potential soulmates. They lie about wanting or not wanting marriage, kids, relocation, travel, or home ownership if they think it will get them closer to someone. I know a guy who joined one of those Internet dating services and was horrified by what he saw there.
“Ninety percent of the women on this thing claim that one of their primary hobbies is watching sports,” he complained to me recently. “What else are they lying about?”
Probably everything, buddy.
Many even lie about what they believe. How many people claim to belong to a particular religious sect? And how many of those regularly violate their church’s prohibitions against stealing, violence, materialism, greed, theft and, yes, lying?
Pollsters hear lies all the time. According to polls, there is virtually no racism, sexism, ageism, discrimination against reformed felons, recovering addicts, or those with disabilities. In the real world, however, things seem to be strikingly different.
But in the world of lies, politics is the magnetic north. I doubt there’s ever been a political figure who didn’t lie, regardless of party or office. I bet even Lincoln and Washington told a few fibs, if not whoppers.
And we voters know it and even endorse it. If we didn’t like party politics, there’d be no Republicans, no Democrats, only unaffiliated voters. If we didn’t like mudslinging and negative ads, there’d probably be no campaign contributions and probably no campaigns.
So, what do we have? We lie to pollsters, to one another and to ourselves. And politicians lie to everyone. It’s a lie nation.
I haven’t yet read Al Franken’s book “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them,” but I don’t feel I’ve missed anything. What truths can Al tell me?
And the answer to the opening question is Oliver Goldsmith — unless I’m lying.
