Edmund Storms <[email protected]> wrote: The scary part is that intelligent people would consider this claim even > plausible when the idea is obviously the hallucination of an insane mind. > Of course the government lies, of course it does bad things, of course it > cannot be trusted. >
To some extent. As Ed says, you can predict with some confidence which parts lie, about what, for what reasons. Many parts of the government can be trusted, especially the uncontroversial parts. The Agriculture Dept. will give you excellent advice on your crops. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) has good statistics. I know they are good because: * They fit in well with other sources. * If the EIA misrepresented or misplaced the data, industry would raise a big stink. * Most of them come from industry. Say what you like about American industry, it usually provides good technical data. You can always trust things like the gas mileage estimates on new cars, or the watts and lumens ratings on lightbulbs. Because if one manufacturer lied about these things, the others would call them out. (That happens from time to time.) Some political or law enforcement agencies are corrupt or unreliable. The DoE is biased against cold fusion. But the government does operate in predictable ways. > Exactly. > Gaining any benefit from setting off a nuclear weapon anywhere in the US > gives no benefit whatsoever. > Exactly. They are not crazy. There are a few crazy individuals, no doubt, but overall people in the U.S. government today are sane. There are historical examples of mass insanity in governments. I would say the Japanese government in 1941 was crazy to attack the U.S. The Confederacy was a bit crazy to fight on after Atlanta fell in 1864. They should have negotiated a surrender. - Jed
