Create A New Branch Of Government: TRUTH.


Government traditionally consists of three branches: the executive, the legislative and justice. I propose to create a new branch, purely advisory, truth.

At the highest level, the three branches of government, with their corresponding functions had been conflated early in the Roman Republic (in the times of “Tribunes with Consular Powers“).

Yet, as the State became enormous and subtle, those functions became increasingly distinct. The notion of “State of Law” evolved into ever more prominence. Galla Placidia, reigning Roman empress and “Augusta”  proclaimed the “State of Law” very clearly in the Fifth Century.

She explained that the supremacy of the law required that it be applied to all, including, herself, the head of state. Equally.

During the European Middle Ages, Roman secular law, refurbished by Augustus Justinian around 540 CE, was a buttress against falling into what the areas conquered by Islam fell into (the arbitrariness of The One, anointed by “god” as a “messenger“).

For example, seven centuries after Justinian’s 40 year reign, the king of France “Saint” Louis admitted that he wanted to stab those who did not believe Christ in the belly, so that they would suffer more, but he could not do it, because it was against the (Roman secular) law!

Said Roman secular law became the foundation of all modern law, and United Nation law. Early on the Franks were equipped with their own tribal law, the Salic law (itself written originally in Latin), but they used it as an epiphenomenon on the main body of Roman law.

As the Franks were Roman authority in Gallia, Francia, and Germania, they adopted readily Justinian’s modifications. Their (re)conquest of most of Western Europe (507 CE-1066 CE), and their Renovatio Imperium Romanum (800 CE), insured that Roman law was European law for more than 2,000 years (most of the time, but for the occasional crusade, religious war, Spanish Inquisition, or bout of fascism a la Louis XIV, Napoleon, or Hitler).

Parliaments in the Middle Ages played the role of the Roman Senate. And they worked from the Roman legal system. France had 16 regions and 16 parliaments. They had to sign on any legislative, or constitutional change.

The parliament in London was endowed with extraordinary powers (much of them attributed when Montford tried to use it to become king). After the Republic nearly came back from action of the Paris parliament, little desirous to see in France what the London parliament had done (vote for cutting off the king’s head), the fascist youth, Louis XIV, shut them down (they were re-established by the revolutionary Louis XVI, and then they, in turn, shut down his attempts at making the plutocrats pay enough taxes).

I propose four branches of government: executive, legislative, justice… and TRUTH.

We need Truth Courts. One in the USA, one in Europe (although major European countries could have their own). Even the UN could have its own. A Truth Court could provide with unbiased opinions about various subjects such as Arctic Drilling, GMOs, Nuclear Technologies, circumcision and excision, stoning lesbians, drug legalization, and meta subjects, such as Much of FOX Is POX, etc.

We need Truth Courts to handle delicate subjects, and not just what were the forces behind Hitler, but also what are the forces behind the military-industrial complex, and the gifts it brings.

One of these gifts is the F35 “low observable” fighter-bomber that USA based military plutocrats persuaded many representatives of taxpayers in many countries to subsidy.

So far the program has cost 400 billion dollars, and not one single plane has entered service fully (although the plane has been “produced” since 2006). The cost is staggering: the Norwegian defense ministry admitted it could be as much as 762 million dollars per plane (the Pentagon had admitted only half that… so far, but recognized maintenance would be very expensive, easily doubling the price).

In truth, this is corruption at the highest order. As I will show in an accompanying essay, if the aim is really defense, an alternative offers itself, cheaper, safe and effective.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, Nelson Mandela’s great idea, has allowed South Africa to not go the way, of, say Algeria, or India. Both of these countries were torn apart, and have known war, civil or not, religious or not, more or less, ever since.

If Gandhi had been as smart as Mandela, not only would India, the Raj, not have split into three pieces, with millions dead, dozens of millions exiled, and a criminal and expensive arms race since, plus now the Damocles sword of nuclear war, but, moreover, other countries would have heeded the example (and Algeria would not have known 60 years of more or less hot uncivil war, plus millions exiled, and less economic opportunities for much of Europe, and all of North Africa!)

***

DEBATE ON TRUTH AS A BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT:

This house holds that: To insure civilizational veracity, let alone survival, we need a Truth Court.

“TRUTH” would be a new independent, secular institution. It would only provide with Truth Opinion. (Quite a bit like the Roman Senate provided only with Senatus Consulte, counsel, or advice, from the seniors… At least for a while, in the beginning, before the Public Assembly passed the bad law of letting the Senate decided in its stead.)

Alexi Helligar: Kind of like an official www.factcheck.org

PA: Yes. However, the mandate of factcheck.org, is, so far very limited as it checks mostly on USA politicians and their PACs. It is also privately financed. I am thinking of something huge, financed publicly, and to act as the fourth pillar not just of government, but of civilization. To find out all the facts, and likely consequences, related to human impact on the atmosphere, oceanosphere, geology and the biosphere, would be a primary target.

Andy Outis Would the jurisdiction of this court only apply to the fact-based community, or would Fox News audiences have immunity?

PA: Such a court would inform the commons that Much of FOX Is POX.

Andy Outis That happens on a daily basis. Their viewership doesn’t seem to care.

PA: They are living the lie. A Truth Court would help those who are addicted to lying sober up. It would be like being told that alcohol, or cigarettes are not good for health. Much of what passes for News at Fox News would be denounced as bad for mental health… by an independent governmental branch. Thus my proposition for four branches of government: executive, legislative, justice, TRUTH.

Andy Outis But that would take away their constitutional rites to be as ignorant as they wanna be!! Downright un American!!

PA: It’s indeed a rite, not a right. A tribal rite.

***

Patrice Ayme (with thanks to A. Helligar and A. Outis).

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40 Responses to “Create A New Branch Of Government: TRUTH.”

  1. anonymous Says:

    This is naive. A truth court would be co-opted and corrupted the day it was created. You have too much faith in the State. More branches of government is not the solution. The whole concept of State needs to be thrown on the scrap heap of history where it belongs.

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      Dear anonymous: Is history itself is a scrap heap? And what state do you propose to replace the State? A state of jungle? A state of dumbness? A state of mystification? A Party State? I mean, a Tea Party State?

      No more branches of government, just little white ladies having tea?

      Those who believe in the State will organize themselves in a State, and eat those who have returned to the jungle (if they can find any).
      The fact is that the USA is, first of all, a State. Everything else is secondary, derivative. When Admiral Nimitz and company were reduced to one aircraft carrier operating in the Pacific to stop the screaming banzai hordes, that carrier, the Enterprise, was operated by the State.
      And the only reason the nutty guy in Aurora did not kill more people is that the agents of the State, the police, where on the spot in less than two minutes. Although the insane maniac had covered himself in a police uniform, a detail given by the State to the agents of the State, by the State, allowed to recognize that he was not truly an agent of the State, and allowed to arrest him.

      Of course the Truth Court would have to be set-up so that it could not be corrupted. That was done without a problem in South Africa. Surely the more advanced countries can imitate, and improve, on what South Africa did? And, by the way, science, on which civilization rests and crucially depends, is all about truth. It does not get that much corrupted and co-opted… Not so much that it would be dysfunctional, in any case…

      All our present society, including the justice system, and, even politics already depends on truth. I just want to institutionalize it much more. Our society is the less naive society that ever was. What is naive is to believe that the State, that means the Neolithic, we can do without.
      PA

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  2. John Michael Gartland Says:

    Government and truth are mutually exclusive.

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      JMG: Cute formula, but the fact is, our present governments are the most truthful that ever were. It will be truth, or it will be death. I prefer truth. I just propose to accelerate the process towards veracity.
      PA

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  3. Old Geezer Says:

    I always like to quote Judge Learned Hand when it comes to “the truth”.

    “From a multitude of toungues comes the truth.”

    There is no Walter Cronkite to tell you “and that’s the way it is.”

    Perhaps there never was,

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      Dear OGP: Judge LH was speaking of the superiority of democracy over monarchy, or oligarchy. My idea is not to create a monarchy, or oligarchy, of truth, which is what we already have, as money controls the media… even the Internet media: people from the left have sent me hysterical propaganda from the financial scam artists proclaiming this or that with impacts on the markets.

      Just a subtle example: Krugman and some other pseudo consciously liberal advocate “Quantitative Easing”. But what did it do, what was it supposed to do? As this has been the most important part of the “economic” effort under Obama, it would be important to have the fact from an independent observer.

      True the OMB, the justice system, academia, the media, are also after the truth, but it’s all amateurish, dispersed, and often out of synch. Some outright lie, too. One has to distinguish lying on the facts, and plausible theorizing. An independent Truth System could have called the Iraq invasion for what it was, mostly a bunch of lies.

      I am not proposing to shut down the present truth seeking systems, nor that the Truth System could exert any material power, just spiritual guidance.
      PA

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  4. Paul Handover Says:

    Thinking afresh about how we should be governed over the next 25 year or more is critical to all our futures. One thing is for sure, if we don’t promote the need for integrity, truth, honesty, openness and debate over the coming years then …. I don’t know what to say! Would just fall back on that oft-quoted Einstein saying: Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      dear Paul: Arctic ice is tracking at the lowest minimum ever as I write this. So nature will not allow us to do the same thing agains and again, it will force sanity upon us… And the truth on us. A Truth System would just accelerate the progress towards reality, by helping against lies. Other things will have to go, such as representative democracy, not to replace by a fascist system (communism, nazism, fascismo, maoism, etc.) but its exact opposite, more and more direct democracy (even with the short comings it implies: California would do well with a Truth System inspecting California Prop 13, Jarvis-Gann).
      PA

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  5. EugenR Says:

    Dear Patrice, i don’t believe, YOU believe that anybody is interested in truth. You should know that there are only two kinds of truth,; One screaming on you from the Nazi-Communistic pamphlets, and the other one that hurts. The western society created an entire new branches of fields of study, to prevent from truth to penetrate to the human consciousness.These are called marketing, public relation, etc. If you want to present the truth as an agenda to the public, you have to impose it on them by force, and then comes the question, which truth you want to impose, the Nazi or the Communistic one.

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      Dear Eugen: I believe human beings are truth machines. That does not mean that what they believe is truly the truth, far from it, just something that passes for the truth in a satisfying way for them. I just proposing the set-up of an independent Truth System that would centralize efforts here and there, and that people could consult to make their notion of truth closer to the truth, and they would, because the real truth is mightier than a fake one. Say it would put out a study on the concept of race. The history, the facts…
      The public, after a while, would learn to refer to the Truth System, from grapefruit and statins to titanium nanoparticles and skin cancer, etc. It would be purely consultative. (As the old Roman Senate supposedly was… and long was, iunder the Republic.)
      PA

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    • Paul Handover Says:

      Eugen, your reply is very honest but nonetheless makes me sad. How could you see truth as an ‘agenda’? But what prompted this return to the keyboard was your reference to marketing as a branch of society enabled to “prevent from truth to penetrate to the human consciousness.”

      I sense you are revealing a terrible lack of understanding of the business of marketing (and sales). For many years in my past I was a Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing in Britain. Go to their website here http://www.cim.co.uk/Home.aspx and tell me where there is anything that supports your notion.

      Best wishes, Paul

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      • Patrice Ayme Says:

        Dear Paul: Business without a conscience is bad for conscience, bad for business, and bad for civilization. Indeed. The obverse is also true; good business, good civilization. I drive a BMW, the second one I own, but I feel much less good about it since BMW was condemned, and fined 163 million dollars, in Switzerland, a month ago, for unfair business practices. http://www.bmwcoop.com/2012/05/28/bmw-fined-in-switzerland-over-competition-concerns/
        PA

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      • EugenR Says:

        Dear Paul
        All the industry of advertisement is about disinformation and not about information. I can’t not to remain you the image making commercial in CNN about Arthur& Anderson, (see below), broad-casted weeks after its bankruptcy together with Enron, with whom they collaborated to manipulate the financial results for years,

        Being a add skeptic, when at first i saw the commercials of A&A, i immediately understood they have to be in big problem, and so it happened to be. But many people, who are not used to ask questions, accept that “Coke Adds Life”, or “with Coke the Life Tastes Good”, and drink the brown sugared soda as if it would be better than ordinary fresh water. Or what kind of information is in the slogans of McDonalds like: “I’m lovin’ it”, or “What you want is what you get”, or “It’s a good time for the great taste of McDonalds”, or “You deserve a break today…at McDonald’s”. Nothing about obesity, calories, fat contain, etc.
        I would be just happy if you find for me just one slogan of one international brand that provides costumers with information and not with disinformation. The result is, if i want to purchase a product, i have to turn always to costumers forums, hoping that it was not overtaken by some marketing firm.

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        • Patrice Ayme Says:

          dear Eugen: yes, well, times have changed and the Internet is now heavily manipulated. If i owned a business, it would be irresistible to have one of the specialized firm manage how my business would appear on the Internet. The same extent to anything. In the USA, public opinion was intensely, and expensively manipulated to be favorable to fossil fuels, precisely so that the USA would not turn as hotile to them as the EU. Hordes of scientists were paid. Still are. I was censored on a scientific site this week just for saying some scientific loudmouths who claim there is no evidence of any negative effects from the CO2 poisining, either evident, nor into plausible models.

          Even the New York censored me recently for just mentioning (as far as I can see) some historical FACTS. I would like the Truth System then to ask the NYT why it was I was barred from publication, and the explanation sent to me. A question of fiduciary duty. All big companies operate per the grace of the government, that is, us, the People. At least that is the theory, in democracy.
          PA

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  6. John Michael Gartland Says:

    TRUTH, it’s the new hate speech. “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” –George Orwell.

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      JMG: Do you mean that those in power are trying to persuade us that truth should be viewed as hate speech because it is a revolutionary act? Well, I agree. Telling the truth on the fractional reserve public-for-private money creation system is certainly a revolutionary act that even Karl Marx did not dare (nor, actually could conceptualize, although he condemned banking as a monopoly… which is close to the main problem).
      PA

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  7. Paul Handover Says:

    Patrice, further to your reply to my last …

    There is a lovely English saying with roots in the game of cricket: Always play with a straight bat; bent bats are practically useless!

    I wouldn’t set myself up to be anything than the average citizen but after a lifetime of being a salesman, then a business owner and then an entrepreneurial mentor/coach, the rewards, and I mean the tangible, ‘bleedin’ obvious’ rewards, of being integrous are utterly clear.

    Your reflection about your BMW makes the case. One takes years building up a trustworthy reputation and then, bingo, it’s ruined – and let’s not talk about the banks! 😉

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      Dear Paul: At this point the banks do not worry too much, because they have got away with, at most, a slap of the wrist. The contempt of the public is nothing to them: they still own the decision makers, and enough legislators (with the exception of France, where the FTT passed!) Quantitative easing send money directly to them… a reason why many European leaders are reluctant to do it again, as last time, just as in the USA many times, they kept the money to themselves…
      PA

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  8. EugenR Says:

    Dear Patrice; I would start to create tribunal for representing the false truths that are freely and without any punishment distributed among the people. just a few examples;

    http://www.wordlab.com/2005/12/coca-cola-slogans-taglines-and-jingles/
    http://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/marlboro-man/140170/
    http://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ronald-mcdonald/140171/

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      Dear Eugen: Part of my point.It’s one thing to use poetry, metaphors, singing, deliriously saying whatever, and deliberately misleading people by various techniques, with possible considerably nefarious effects. As one can see in Syria, all the lying and dissembling, even on seemingly esoteric and innocuous subjects, initially apparently without consequence, can lead to holocausts.
      Another example is all the scientists paid to lie about the poisoning of the atmosphere as being of no significance.
      PA

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    • Paul Handover Says:

      Eugen, let me jump in before Patrice. I would be the first to say that these advertisements look pretty shady in today’s better informed world. But I don’t know the history of those ads and what people’s beliefs were many years ago.

      But millions more these days know the truth of smoking and drinking colas and they vote with their feet. Surely, promoting the distribution of truth and giving people the power to make better decisions is a wonderful concept? Or am I missing something?

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      • EugenR Says:

        Dear Paul
        1. See my reply above to your first remark.
        2. Still Philip Morris, Coca Cola, MacDonald’s, etc are very profitable.
        3. The warning about the cigarettes causing cancer had to be enforced on the advertisements by law and is not part of a marketing campaign.

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    • Paul Handover Says:

      Eugen, I was reflecting about your responses earlier this morning and have to admit that I was being a bit too ‘uptight’ about the aspects of promotion that you raised. I have a fear of overbearing Governments and much prefer a society that tends towards more freedom. But the challenge of freedom is that is allows the freedom to do harm as well as good. Clearly there are going to be conflicts, for example, between companies whose duty to their owners is to provide a return to those that lend risk capital and the health of society in terms of food, smoking, etc.

      If Governments were truly ‘of the people, for the people, by the people’ freedoms would be moderated by those laws of the State that were in the interests of the common peoples. But, alas, that seems to be a wistful dream just now.

      While the detail of a Truth Commission would offer many challenges in turning it into a democratic reality, the idea is one that has much potential and merit.

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      • Patrice Ayme Says:

        Dear Paul: Thanks for the support. However I think that modern contemporary societies depend even more on truth than justice (obviously, as society has kept on going so far, in spite of the blossoming injustice of plutocracy!) Moreover we have Truth (Sub) Systems all over (including the Justice System).

        So I propose to institutionalize the reality we depend upon. A Truth System, separated and equal to the Justice System, the Legislative, or the Executive, not just a Commission.

        Of course, in practice one could start with a Commmission, just like the Euro was started as a plutocratic system, not a full democratic currency. (But, precisely, as one can see, with the Euro, there is a danger that one gets stuck with a half baked good, not edible, and ready to rot…)
        PA

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  9. John Michael Gartland Says:

    In America the plutocrats engaged in the incestuous relationship between the influential rich, the media, politicians, huge corporations, the so called Federal Reserve Bank, etc. would certainly not want the truth of the paradigm exposed to…the electorate–even if they could understand it.

    It is much easier to fan the red state/blue state divide with endless diversions that don’t really make a bit of difference for anyone. As long as nobody notices that the left and the right in America are really the same and are controlled by the same puppeteers the status quo continues.

    I suspect, in varying degrees, it is the same in the rest of the world. I could see something better than this.

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      Dear John Michael: It is not the same in the rest of the world. The USA is becoming increasingly plutocratic, relative to its own history, and relative to other countries. Most democracies have public financing of electoral campaigns.

      In France the controls are extremely strict. TV, radio and media exposure is strenously controlled by an independent agency. Just after the end of his presidential immunity, a massive descent of judges, bailiffs and police was made on ex-president Sarkozy’s homes, offices, files and computers. He is suspected to have received plutocratic contributions of the order of… $200,000 . Yes, much less than a million dollars.

      If confirmed, there is no doubt Sarkozy will go to trial, and then, probably, jail. Obama uses the presidential plane and go sleep with the Silicon Valley plutocrats, to raise millions a day, and has been doing that for months. In France, when Sarkozy started to go around with the presidential planes, he was asked, by the powers that be, such as the Electoral Commission, the Conseil D’Etat (no equivalent in the USA, the state legal counsel, and protector of citizens in their interaction with the State, an independent court), and the Constitutional Court (no equivalent in the USA), to declare his candidacy (and then strenuous control of his activities was mandatory).

      Conclusion of all these checks and balance of the democracy on the State: the Parti Socialiste won the French presidential election, and then the legislatives (they already controlled the Senate and the regions). Hence the Financial Transaction Tax is the law in France (as of August 1, 2012). Also the 75% margin tax rate. Plutocrats are not pleased.

      However, they act submissive, like lions trying to bite the whip, but carefully crawling back on their bellies. The billionairess Bettencourt, third biggest fortune in France, just sold the island she owned in the Seychelles, making three times the profit, claiming it was all a big mistake, and accepting to pay the 75% tax… On top of a six million euros fine, plus taxes to the Seychelles nation…
      PA

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  10. Martin Lack Says:

    A Ministry of Truth sounds somewhat Orwellian to me but, I agree with your praise of Nelson Mandela; and your comments about the folly of India and Pakistan, etc..

    However, at the risk of being pedantic, I think you mean ‘judiciary’ rather than ‘justice’ and, unless I am misunderstanding what you art trying to say (because I am not familiar with the history) ‘abrogated’ rather than ‘attributed’?

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      Dear Martin: In the USA, the “judiciary” is equivalently called the “Justice Sytem”. Exactly the same in France. I do not know much about Britain, where a special semantics and strange distinctions are operative (“barrister” versus “sollicitor“, etc.), and a brand new Supreme Court was set-up, in one of Bliar’s rare achievements…
      It is Orwellian at first hear, indeed, until one realizes that truth is what gets victimized first in all dictatorship, and the worlds Orwell describes. Our society depends completely on truth. Boeing and Airbus produce, first, truth. And that’s how they fly.
      PA

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      • Martin Lack Says:

        Thanks for the explanation, Patrice. Did I misunderstand your comment about Montford trying to become king?

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        • Patrice Ayme Says:

          Dear Martin: Very rushed right now, I have a half Pluto event to attend do (behind enemy lines!), I should b on the road. I did not notice something you say about Montford… A fascinating subject that brought, in multiple ironies, the Roman Republic style direct democracy to London, through Toulouse…
          PA

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  11. pshakkottai Says:

    dear Patrice:
    Re: I am not proposing to shut down the present truth seeking systems, nor that the Truth System could exert any material power, just spiritual guidance.
    My guess is that it will not be sufficient. The truth agency must have the power to prevent falsehoods from being propagated. For example things like “unsustainable deficits” and “national debt” being a burden on future generations which is patently untrue but the opposite is the propagated view. It would essentially have to censor what is propagated by the media and must have the authority to punish repeated violations. The members of this agency have to be prequalified and can’t be selected by popular vote. They should include scientists and philosophers and lawyers (but not exclusively) and men of letters and must be selected by their peers. Initially an ad-hoc committee may start the whole process. It requires a large supporting staff which may be selected as normal federal employees of the government.

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      Dear Partha: I agree with you. Some enforcement may be necessary. However, it could be indirect. And I proposed this a bit tongue in cheek, historically referring explicitly to the Roman Senate, which had only “counsels” to give. In truth, they were a bit more than that. (By the time of the Principate, under Tiberius, three centuries after its heydays, the Senate ordered (a few) executions.)

      So the Truth System could advise, counsel the National Assembly (“Congress”), or the existing Justice System that a violation of Truth is happening. One does not want to do as in the USA where a zillion of armed enforcement agencies (DEA, ATF, FBI, and countless acronyms I forgot, more or less shooting at each other, at least verbally).
      The idea is to hitch a ride on existing systems, such as academia as much as possible. Peer review would be universal, modulo the Internet (so strenuous, plausible objections would get priority as minority opinions, if they make somehow sense). In science too, “truth” is long in coming, often, and sometimes, the theater of multi century, or multi millennial controversies.
      PA

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  12. Elites’ Bad Faith | Patrice Ayme's Thoughts Says:

    […] and ought to be pursued with as much ardor as some forms of, say, pedophilia. A new branch of government ought to be created: TRUTH (independent of Justice, Executive and […]

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  13. Don’t Monkey Around French Tyrants | Patrice Ayme's Thoughts Says:

    […] someone says something idiotic, it ought to be condemned verbally (and I have advocated Truth as the fourth branch of government). But only tyrants send people to jail for suggestions of a non criminal nature. I fail to see what […]

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  14. Patrice Ayme Says:

    [Sent to Scientia Salon, July 28, 2014.]

    I propose to “Create A New Branch Of Government: TRUTH”. Differently from the other three (executive, legislative, justice), it would be purely advisory and consultative.

    The idea is that “truth” has become the most important factor in human affairs, now that traditions, including yesteryear’s moral systems, are becoming ever less important, the biosphere increasingly unstable, and an ever larger humanity harder to steer correctly.

    In particular, truth, and lies, impact moods, and (mass) systems of thought, before any reprehensible act really happen. But not before perverting souls (examples are climate/CO2 denial, or racial theories of the 1930s).

    A department of truth, although not a panacea, would tend to make the madness of crowds, and the erring of leadership, less crazy and dangerous. It would be an improvement on the present environment of anything-goes-even-if-it-means people dying en masse (Stalinism, Climate Change, Iraq 2003 invasion, etc.).

    Making “truth” an official product may sound anti-liberal, but it’s not. Just like justice enforces morality, official truth would help enforce sanity.

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  15. Patrice Ayme Says:

    SciSal
    July 29, 2014
    Patrice,

    “A department of truth, although not a panacea”

    Oh my, that term sounds like it just came out of an Orwellian novel…

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      The “Department of Truth” is post-Orwellian. Having grabbed and accepted the Orwellian nature of modern civilization, one embraces it, to better override it. Instead of living in impotent denial.

      Right now, all too many important truths (say about WWI and WWII, or “Communism”, or the genius of the USA) are deeply manipulated and produce moods which serve our masters. They are also demonstrably false.

      The Department of Truth could function as Criminal Justice did under Rome. Namely, it could be petitioned and summoned on matters deemed of importance on a number of criterions, private or public (number of concerned signatures, and/or, “authorities”, and/or importance of the subject).

      As far as Sartre is concerned, his relationship with the Stalinists soured in the early 1950s. At the world communist congress, one of Stalin’s own critters called Sartre, during the congress’ most important address, a “hyene dactylographique” (type writing hyena).

      As a result, the French Communist delegation, headed by Nobel Prize winner (and nuclear chain reaction discoverer) Irene Curie, rose and left said Congress. So it was not just Sartre who quit on Stalin.

      By May 1968, the French Communist Party was lethally wounded (and now many of its ex-voters vote for the National Front).

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  16. Paul Braterman Says:

    Paul Braterman
    July 29, 2014 • 10:41 am

    I can’t resist pointing out that the proposal for a Ministry of Truth has been anticipated. Or are you being ironic?

    [SciSal has made the same point. And since he is more practiced at detecting when philosophers are being ironic than I am, I infer that you’re not]

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      Hi Paul! Sorry, I just saw your comment now. I had given a more detailed answer below meanwhile…

      I am both ironic and dead serious. I read “1984” more than once, long ago.
      However, truth is sort of privatized right now: anybody can say anything, and present it as true, except when it’s explicitly against the (local) law. It does not really matter if it’s really true, or not.

      Libertarian will say: great, fine, whatever, truth will come out. Except countless holocausts in the past show that not all beliefs are created equal. Some are deadly… Especially to others.

      At the bottom of every single holocaust in history is a pack of lies. Lies are the fuel of the madness of crowds, and the privileged tool of plutocrats (who have the means to own all and any media).

      In Republican Rome, justice and certainly the police, were pretty much privatized: although magistrates were elected, they then used their servants, or private contractors, to enact their decisions.

      Meanwhile it was found judicious to professionalize justice and police (Philippe IV Le Bel circa 1300 CE).

      That’s all I suggest to do with Truth.

      Example: if the “Protocol of the Wise Men of Zion” had been officially demonstrated to be a forgery, Germans and Russians could not have goose-stepped behind lethal antisemites with as much enthusiasm as they did.

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      I guess “SciSal” is “Massimo”… Not Paul, hmmm…

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