Ministry of Truth?

[Dill]

(05-14-2022, 10:00 AM)StrictlyBiz Wrote: I wouldn't assume that those 4500 Americans wouldn't have died. There was large bipartisan support for invading Iraq. And yes, this was largely due to misinformation coming from the Government. Which reinforces my point...why does a government that has peddled misinformation get to decide what is and possibly censor disinformation? It shouldn't. 

Yo, Biz! Thanks for hanging in there. 
 
So a couple of points in response to the above:
 
I do assume those 4,500 Americans would not have died if the Supreme Court had decided for Gore.  Nor would we have accrued that 3 trillion debt or killed 150,000 Iraqis, whose lives also count. We can't learn from history or hold people accountable if we don't get this.
 
To claim "large bipartisan support for invading Iraq" is rather questionable. There was bipartisan support for a resolution ok'ing an invasion if need be, if other options were exhausted. Sure. Many who voted for that resolution opposed the rush to invade only a few months later, before those options were exhausted. 
 
There’s just no reason to assume that, had Gore won, Dems would have pulled the wool over so many Congressional eyes to get an unnecessary war. That mission is wholly attributable to the neo cons in Bush's administration, who wanted to take Saddam down long before 9/11, and who would not have been in Gore's WH. 
 
You make a good point when you say that “government disinformation” was behind the Iraq war. One of my favorite examples of such is Barr's intercession in the release of the Russia investigation.  NOT having a DoDis can’t prevent that kind of disinformation, once the disinformers are in power. And it is hard to keep our form of government if we do away with the presidency and the DOJ to prevent disinformation. Better accountability could work, but that is difficult when politicians ride disinformation to power in an already politicized the electorate. A year-and-half after the Capitol insurrection and the Green Bay Sweep, no one in Trump’s administration has been indicted. A DoDis might nip some of that disinformation in the bud, weaken the foreign amplification, though—though clearly the disinformers would not be in favor.
 
Still looks to me like having a dept. devoted to flagging disinformation from Russian troll farms and the like isn’t much different from the Coast Guard interdicting contraband, except a DoDis would not have that enforcement power. Really, who’s to say which drugs/weapons/human cargoes should be classified as legal or illegal? Do we want to leave that up to the government? Well, I am ready to, so long as we understand that government is not some separate entity over and above the people, but something we the people supposedly control and watch over.