We get the government we deserve

When I was growing up on the faraway Pacific island of Catanduanes, I used to spend moonlit evenings at the town plaza listening to campaign speeches. There was nothing else to listen to or watch, and the “orators,” as they were called, were uniformly good. From them, I first heard quotes from Alexander the Great, Caesar, Cicero and Demosthenes. One of them particularly stood out. He seemed quite ordinary, but his entire personality changed the minute he spoke. And he told the most astonishing stories. The crowd loved him and he always got their votes. But one day one brash young man stood up to say this political Chrysostom had never kept a single promise he had made.

That arrow went home, and the poor fellow threatened to disintegrate. He must have felt like the Emperor whom the little boy with the big mouth said was naked as a fish after everyone else had fawned over his imaginary robe of gold. But before he went down, he said: “You accuse me of telling lies just because I tell you stories. At least, you have not accused me of telling the truth. I thank you for that. But the trouble here, my dear people, is that you think you have to believe everything I say when not even I believe it myself.”