David McElroy

Have you ever had a hankering to run for president? Well, now you can do it — for just $99.

It’s sort of like trying out for American Idol, it seems. You don’t have to be able to sing, though. You just need a platform and $99 entry fee. The finalists are going to compete on national television — just like American Idol.

I don’t think it’s a gag. It seems like a real effort to get people to plunk down money. But I find myself thinking that someone must’ve dreamed this scheme up while watching “Idiocracy.”

If you’ve been listening to any news lately, you know that Financial Armageddon looms if the politicians in D.C. don’t suddenly agree to a plan to raise the debt ceiling. Pretty much everybody agrees that such a thing is unthinkable. The only problem is that it happened 32 years ago — and it wasn’t a big deal.

If you own U.S. government debt, it’s a big deal whether you get paid of not. The security of knowing that the government is going to pay you is the reason so many people (and governments) lend so much to the feds. But in 1979, the government faced a somewhat similar crisis that led to lack of money to pay bondholders for awhile. And what happened? Not much.

Politicians and media like to scare you. Politicians like to scare you because scared people are motivated to support them on whatever crusade they’re on this week. Media like to scare you because it keeps you watching.

(If you really want to learn how the budget process is supposed to work — though I can’t imagine why you would — this week’s episode of the excellent EconTalk podcast covers it in more detail than normal people will care.)

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As a tool of control, there’s perhaps nothing more effective than questioning a person’s patriotism. In every group that I’m aware of, people are taught from a very early age that they have the duty to love the nation and obey its leaders and customs. This sets people up to be duped.

Nobody would accuse Hermann Goering of having been a pacifist or a peace-loving man. In fact, he was a dedicated Nazi who was the vile and contemptible head of the German air forces during Hitler’s invasions of his European neighbors.

After the war — while on trial for his actions as part of the war — Goering was candid during interviews with Gustave Gilbert, a U.S. psychologist who was also an intelligence officer. Gilbert published a book called “Nuremberg Diary” in 1961 based on his interviews with the Nazis who talked with him privately as a confidant during the trial. Here’s an excerpt from the book about a conversation with Goering:

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

“Why, of course, the people don’t want war,” Goering shrugged. “Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.”

“There is one difference,” [Gilbert] pointed out. “In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.”

“Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

When I first read an edited version of this quote some time ago, I thought it must be made up by someone trying to make the case that the wars the United States is currently engaged in are wrong. After all, if you could make the case that even the Nazis knew that war is driven by a political class manipulating the people, you’ve made your case. It turned out, though, that the story was completely true.

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