Taking it RAW: Why Honest Liars Win Elections

Libertarianism and science fiction go clammy hand in hand much of the time. The Prometheus Awards for Libertarian Science Fiction owes much to that kinship.

One of my all-time favourite science fiction series is Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It features, among many other colourful and memorable characters, a Cardassian named Garak. To cut an epic story short, he was a super spy attached to the shadowy and draconian Obsidian Order, the secret police/intelligence service (think a space-faring Stasi) that rules over the already bleakly authoritarian Cardassian Union with an iron fist.

In the series, Cardassians are ruthless expansionists, pariahs of the interstellar community for their brutal occupation of nearby peaceful and spiritual Bajor for over fifty years.

Exiled on to the titular space station posing as a “simple tailor”, he befriends a wet behind the ears Doctor Julian Bashir, a disciple of the lofty utopian ideals of the Federation. One exchange sums up Garak’s dedication to deception – and perhaps where we are as a civil society:

BASHIR: Out of all the stories you told me, which ones were true and which ones weren't?

GARAK: My dear Doctor, they're all true.

BASHIR: Even the lies?

GARAK: Especially the lies.

Guerilla futurist, science fiction author, and libertarian-before-it-was-cool, Robert Anton Wilson, was renowned for bending reality by mixing falsehoods, truth, and the unknown in his novels to such an extent "the reader must decide on each page, 'How much of this is real and how much is a put-on?'"

Anthony Albanese falling off a stage and insisting that it was a step back isn’t a deliberate obfuscation of reality, at least to die-hard Labor supporters. It is a test of faith. If you believe that, you believe everything they say is true. They never supported the stage three tax cuts. $275 off your power bills? No, that was modelling we didn’t even take seriously. They won’t enter an agreement with the Greens, ever! This just in: two plus two equals five.

The reality is that we have less money in our pockets than we did three years ago. We have limp, downward trending lined graphs and our own eyes to back that up. To quote another famous quasi-libertarian SF author, Philip K. Dick, “reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.” If this is our reality, why not vote for more of the same? Will the other guy with his honest BS do any better?

That said, do we even want an honest politician? In Wilson and co-conspirator Robert Shea’s Illuminatus! Trilogy, one of Celine’s Laws of human interaction and psychology is “An honest politician is a national calamity.” An honest politician will pass more laws and create more criminals. Honest politicians trying to change the world via the law will lead to tyranny via excessive legislation.

Talking about onerous laws, Labor is running its Mediscare campaign again. Why? Because 60% of the time, it works every time. Or does it? I mean, they trot it out at pretty much every election (if it isn’t Mediscare, it’s FairWorkScare.) We all know it costs us out of pocket to see a doctor whether they bulk-bill or not. Demand for free services are infinite, while doctors and their time is finite. Meh, I’m sure it’ll be fine.

The mainstream political parties of the day may as well not know the definition of what a woman is, because blurring and redefining reality suits their purposes. Jew-hating, intolerant of anything that isn’t in the Qu’ran, Hamas supporters are in solidarity with Aboriginal Australians and always have been. I mean, that’s a given! Buy as many keffiyehs and Che t-shirts as you can afford. The real arms race is between who has the most socialist role-play merch. It will make zero political or economic impact to the cause it supports. Just as intended.

Looking at the Labor or Liberal party manifesto, attacks from party ideologues are moot. So what if Dutton isn’t the reincarnation of Menzies? Who cares if Albanese doesn’t have the Ghost of Chris Watson haunting him as he stands atop the Light on the Hill?

Mainstream political parties are vessels for our outlandish and whimsical political wishes. We fill them with whatever signifiers we deign to lend them. Example: Labor stands up for the working class. Yes, the working class that definitely didn’t go to uni, aren’t worried about their “intersectional privilege”, and never sipped double espressos on the taxpayer dime. They are definitely not private school graduates who take up box ticker or paper-shuffler jobs in MP offices as lawyers or publicists until they’re one day elected themselves. These people have our best interests at heart. They have their fingers on the pulse of the nation. Because who else does? Ordinary idiots like you and me? Come on, don’t be so naïve.

When party leaders jump through clown debates as intellectually deep as a blow-up kiddie pool with a gaping hole in the side, the peanut gallery wonders: are we really supposed to believe all these blatant lies?

Yes. Especially the lies.