Transparency and truth are the fuels that run sophisticated civilizations. Without<\/p>\n them, the state grinds to a halt. Lack of trust \u2014 not barbarians on the frontier, global warming or cooling, or even epidemics \u2014 doomed civilizations of the past, from imperial Rome to the former Soviet Union.<\/p>\n The United States can withstand the untruth of a particular presidential administration if the permanent government itself is honest. Dwight Eisenhower lied about the downed U-2 spy plane inside the Soviet Union. Almost nothing Richard Nixon said about Watergate was true. Intelligence reports of vast stockpiles of WMD in Iraq proved as accurate as Bill Clinton\u2019s assertion that he never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky.<\/p>\n Presidents fib. The nation gets outraged. The independent media dig\u00a0out the truth. And so the system of trust repairs itself.<\/p>\n What distinguishes democracies from tinhorn dictatorships and totalitarian monstrosities are our permanent meritocratic government bureaus that remain nonpartisan and honestly report the truth.<\/p>\n The Benghazi, Associated Press, and National Security Agency scandals are scary, but not as disturbing as growing doubts about the honesty of permanent government itself.<\/p>\n It is no longer crackpot to doubt the once impeccable and nonpartisan IRS. When it assured the public that it was not making decisions about tax-exempt status based on politics, it lied. One of its top commissioners, Lois Lerner, resigned and invoked the Fifth Amendment.<\/p>\n A system of voluntary tax reporting rests on trust. If the IRS itself is untruthful, will it be able to expect truthful compliance from taxpayers?<\/p>\n Many doubt the officially reported government unemployment rates. That statistic is vital in assessing economic growth and is of enormous political importance in the way citizens vote.<\/p>\n It was reported in November that the Census Bureau may have fabricated survey results during the 2012 presidential campaign, sending false data to the Labor Department that could have altered official employment statistics.<\/p>\n In the 1990s, the method of assessing the official unemployment rate was massaged to make it seem lower than it actually was. Rules were changed to ignore millions who had been out of work longer than 52 weeks. They were suddenly classified as permanent dropouts and not part of the idled workforce.<\/p>\n Does the government release an accurate report on quarterly Gross Domestic Product growth \u2014 another vital barometer of how the economy is doing? Maybe not. Last year, the Bureau of Economic Analysis for the first time factored research and development costs of businesses into statistics on investment growth.<\/p>\n Suddenly, a cost became proof of business output and thus was added into the business-investment contribution to GDP. That new accounting gimmick may have added hundreds of billions of dollars into the equation of figuring GDP growth last year alone. Not surprisingly, the government reported unexpectedly high 2.8 percent GDP growth after the changes.<\/p>\n Is inflation really as low as the government insists? In recent times the government has not just counted the increase in the prices of goods, but also factored into its calculus theories about changing consumer-buying habits when prices increase. The changes have resulted in officially lowered inflation rates.<\/p>\n No one knows how many Americans have now bought and paid for Affordable Care Act health-insurance policies. There is no accurate information about how many young people have enrolled \u2014 critical to the success of Obamacare. Nor do Americans know how many enrollees were previously uninsured. Nor does the public know how many enrollees simply switched insurance from Medicaid to the Affordable Care Act. There is no information about how many actually have paid their premiums.<\/p>\n No one knows how many foreign citizens who entered the U.S. illegally were apprehended inside the United States and returned to their country of origin last year \u2014 a figure vital for any compromise on passing comprehensive immigration reform.<\/p>\n The Obama administration claims near-record numbers of deportations. In fact, once again a government agency\u00a0\u2013 in this case the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) \u2014 has\u00a0mysteriously changed the way it\u00a0compiles statistics. The ICE now counts as deportations those foreign nationals whom the Border Patrol immediately stops or turns away at the border. Such detentions were not previously counted as deportations.<\/p>\n The result is that bureaucrats can report near-record numbers of deportations, while privately assuring the administration that immigration enforcement has been greatly relaxed.<\/p>\n There is a pattern here. Changes in data collection seem to have a predictable result: Inflation and unemployment rates become lower. Economic growth becomes greater. The IRS focuses on government skeptics. The Affordable Care Act is not in trouble. Illegal immigration is not such a problem.<\/p>\n If the people increasingly believe that bureaucrats try to alter reality to reflect preconceived ideologies or the goals of the particular regime in power, then America as we know it is finished.<\/p>\n Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of<\/em>\u00a0The Savior Generals<\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0You can reach him by e-mailing\u00a0<\/em>author@victorhanson.com<\/a><\/em>. <\/em><\/p>\n \u00a9 2014 Tribune Media Services, Inc.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The massaging of critical data undermines our society. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online\u00a0 Transparency and truth are the fuels that run sophisticated civilizations. Without them, the state grinds to a halt. Lack of trust \u2014 not barbarians on the frontier, global warming or cooling, or even epidemics \u2014 doomed civilizations of the past, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[11],"tags":[726,1021,88,433,398,67],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1Rq","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10859,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/civilizations-darkest-hour-hits-the-silver-screen\/","url_meta":{"origin":7156,"position":0},"title":"Civilization\u2019s \u2018Darkest Hour\u2019 Hits the Silver Screen","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 2, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/National Review A masterful new film shows how Churchill saved the world from Nazi Germany in May of 1940. \u00a0 The new film Darkest Hour offers the diplomatic side to the recent action movie Dunkirk. \u00a0 The story unfolds with the drama of British prime minister\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Churchill"","block_context":{"text":"Churchill","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/churchill\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3555,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-burdens-of-general-petraeus\/","url_meta":{"origin":7156,"position":1},"title":"The Burdens of General Petraeus","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 17, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"No simple mission. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online I. Our Rules \/ Their Rules Several governments have defeated Islamic insurgencies, but usually only after about ten years, and adopting policies of summary executions and carpet bombing or shelling.\u00a0 The Algerians in the 1990s finally stopped the so-called Islamic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "August 2007"","block_context":{"text":"August 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/august-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4342,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-world-wonder-part-ii\/","url_meta":{"origin":7156,"position":2},"title":"A World Wonder: Part II","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 7, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"A Speech Given to the Woodrow Wilson Center on Democracy by Victor Davis Hanson Private Papers Part II: Spreading Democracy in the Modern World Now coming to more germane questions, what in the world would the United States think they\u2019re doing trying to promote democracy in areas in southeastern Europe,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "July 2005"","block_context":{"text":"July 2005","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2005\/july-2005\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2010,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/can-israel-survive\/","url_meta":{"origin":7156,"position":3},"title":"Can Israel Survive?","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Will Israel survive? That question hasn\u2019t really been asked since 1967. Then, a far weaker Israel was surrounded on all sides by Arab dictatorships that were equipped with sophisticated weapons from their nuclear patron, the Soviet Union. But now, things are far worse\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Israel"","block_context":{"text":"Israel","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/israel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8408,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-america-was-indispensable-to-the-allies-winning-world-war-ii\/","url_meta":{"origin":7156,"position":4},"title":"Why America Was Indispensable to the Allies\u2019 Winning World War II","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 14, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online May 8 marked the end of World War II in Europe 70 years ago \u2014 a horrific conflict that is still fought over by historians. More than 60 million people perished \u2014 some 50 million of them in Eastern Europe, the Soviet\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The World"","block_context":{"text":"The World","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Arsenal of Democracy: B-24 Liberator plant in Fort Worth, Texas. (U.S. Air Force)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/download-2.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2313,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/from-preparedness-to-appeasement-and-back\/","url_meta":{"origin":7156,"position":5},"title":"From Preparedness to Appeasement and Back","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Are we about to repeat this tired cycle? by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online By 1930 Verdun had been transmogrified almost into a dirty word in French schools. Throughout the late 1920s, the First World War was increasingly reinterpreted in the West as a futile bloodletting. International \u201cMerchants of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "September 2009"","block_context":{"text":"September 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/september-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7156"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7158,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7156\/revisions\/7158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"echosofstars](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/2619159204_dfe4e2befa.jpg?resize=300%2C295&ssl=1\")