Are there really any "truths" that the public "couldn't handle"?

[Smith_3]

As a kid I used to watch the X-Files alot. One of the main themes of the show is that the government keeps certain things secret, the existence of space aliens for instance, because "the public can't handle the truth". While I still like the show, I wonder whether this reasoning actually would make any sense in the real world.

Let's assume aliens had visited earth and that they are peaceful (I don't want to discuss whether this is possible or actually has happened here. I just mention that I personally don't believe this at all). Now what if the government knows about it and wants to announce it to the public. Let's say they take a sensitive approach and announce a week in advance that they are about to reveal something significant but that there is no reason to be worried. How would people react after hearing the "truth"? Would they really start rioting or something similar?

I don't want to discuss any conspiracy theories here. I want to discuss the impact that revelations of any kind could have on society.

Now let's say it was something more connected with our society. Let's say they revealed that Teddy Roosevelt was really Adolf Hitlers brother. Something tells me that most people would just shrug and carry on.

Let's say it was revealed that the Russians killed Kennedy. I doubt that, with the Soviet Union not existing anymore, people would react with more than saying "Well I'll be damned".

Or let's even say that something deeply sinister about our country was revealed, like that a conspiracy of Hollywood directors killed Kennedy and are also responsible for 9-11. Still, I think the public would mostly shrug. There might be a few individual cases of rioting, but I doubt that it would compare in scale to, lets say, the Oklahoma city bombing or Katrina. I doubt that the public would be capable of having a ordered, directed response to it spontaneously or that it would cause the foundations of our society to shake.

Now I do realize that there are certain things that governments should not reveal. The access codes for launching the nukes being one, or the exact location of all military facilities. But other than that, I am somehow skeptic that there are any truths that the public really "couldn't handle".

[Juche]

1. I don't know

I think opinion polls show about 20% of the public (myself included) subscribe to some or all of the ideas in the 9/11 truth movement and nothing has happened.

We have tortured about 30 people to death in the war on terror and barely anyone notices or cares.

Two elections have been stolen back to back.

Political prosecutions of people like Siegelman. The breakdown of the rule of law for the rich and powerful (those of us who are not powerful or rich are living under more and more draconian laws however). Pot is illegal, but international war crimes shouldn't be prosecuted.



I guess I'm jaded. I can't think of anything that would 'really' shake up the public. Those of us who actually pay attention alreadly know all this shit. The people who barely pay attention wouldn't believe it or care anyway.

[Believing Is Art]

2. When they say "the public couldn't handle the truth," what I hear is

"Yeah, we really botched up this or that so . . . we don't know what happened."

[hfojvt]

5. Really, and if the public learned that I stole $50 billion from the Treasury

Some people would not be able to handle it without losing their cool and demanding my head on a silver platter. Clearly it is in the public interest for each of you to take $100 million and just sweep this tiny little contretemps under the rug.

[Believing Is Art]

8. There's a difference between an isolated criminal act and

the subjects mentioned in the OP. For something like the Kennedy assassination, I think the reason we don't know is because somebody screwed up. Same goes for "unexplained sightings." "The public couldn't handle the truth" sounds a lot better than "umm, someone probably forgot to file flight plans and the ATC guys need coffee every now and then, I don't know."

[coyotespaw]

3. Perhaps you could come to terms with all the potential truths that you mentioned

do you really believe that the idiot in front of you at the 7-11, or the Hummer-driving-jack-off cutting you off on the freeway, or the dingbat prattling on the cellphone while you're waiting in line for your coffee could handle those same "truths"? The ugly truth is that most people are moronic sheep. That's why governor Bush occupied the White House for eight years. The vast majority of the American populace wants easy answers, not the truth. They want a bright shiny box, and don't care what's in it. We here on DU are, sadly, the minority. Hell, look at the drop in pork prices after people started hearing about swine flu. That will tell you how well the moron majority can handle the truth.

[hfojvt]

4. I think if the Earth was gonna be destroyed in 48 hours

unless a "galaxy" was found in Orion's belt, then the public would, quite naturally, freak out if they found out about that. Or if a nuclear war was gonna start because WopR was playing a game of "global thermonuclear war" with a teen-aged hacker, that the public would sorta freak out about that too.

Considering how some people freaked out about the comet Hale-Bopp as well as the Cyndi Lauper song it was named after that it's never good to underestimate the possibility of panic. Nobody wants to know about 1989FC until it has safely passed. BTW, the 'C' in FC stands for 'close'.

[readmoreoften]

6. You chose pretty banal truths, though.

People can barely handle the actual truths revealed through FOIA: MKUltra hypnosis and LSD experiments on GIs in the 1950s, MKNaomi biological warfare experiments conducted in the 1960s (for example, lightbulbs full of manufactured biological agents dropped in the NY subway system, blistering skin tests conducted on Holmesburg inmates to develop Acutane (tm), the entire transcript of the Church commission (congressional) in 1974.

Imagine if the "truth" gored sacred cows (not saying these are true, in fact, I'm completely making them up off the top of my head): if a popular politician like Obama was actually on the payroll of a corporation or Cheney was in fact a Hollywood actor whose character was hired to take the fall for the Bushistas or that nuclear arms are held in every U-Haul storage lot in America "hidden in plain site."

It's the uncanniness of hidden truths that "the public" can't handle, the destruction of the sort of "foundational myths" that Plato talked about The Republic. That sort of thing...

[Smith_3]

9. Ah, but there is a difference between a truth that will shake the foundation

and a truth that will get cause someone high up alot of trouble.

I'm not so sure that hiding those "truths" you are describing would be necessary for the survival of the nation. The people responsible would try to hide them of course, but because they want to cover their own asses, not because of damage that revelation might do to others.

[Hannah Bell]

31. I think the harder thing to handle would be the extent to which it would change the

meaning of one's own life story.

For example: if you'd been a gung-ho patriot your whole life & it turned out the political class were lizards from outer space your patriotism had effectively helped take over the world.

Or say you believed in the value of hard work, doing one's part, volunteerism for the good of the whole - but now, it turns out all your effort & good works have mostly benefited the lizard people, & you're just a stupid sucker.

[defendandprotect]

7. Recommend & k i c k for tomorrow . . .

[XemaSab]

10. I think there are truths that the public generally could not handle

Space aliens, 9-11, and the Kennedy assassination are good examples of things where if the wrong truth came out, it could easily cause major problems and general civil unrest. More likely, though, people would persist in denial. :shrug:

[Smith_3]

11. So then you are saying, you esentially agree with the way government handels such things?

Assuming there is something the "handle", the public is better off not knowing?

[Jeep789]

15. Your explanation works for a Presidential or Party term but not

the terms of a succeeding President of another party. If Obama found out that Kennedy had been assassinated by the Mafia or the CIA and released it now, how would it create civil unrest now? If we found out that aliens had been visiting us for 100 years why the heck would anyone panic now?

[DireStrike]

36. What do you think people would do if it came out that there were aliens?

:shrug:

[cherokeeprogressive]

41. I think it depends on which religious philosophies were totally invalidated by it,

and which ones were lent some credence.

[XemaSab]

43. I think there would be a big religious shift

not necessarily on the side of atheism. :shrug:

[catnhatnh]

12. Well suppose that multiple generations of an American Family

Manipulated banks, traded with Nazis during a time of war,worked to support the Bay of Pigs, were present and connected at the assassination of JFK, were implicated in the October surprise, were involved in the Silverado bank failure, ran the Iran-Contra operations, were friends scheduled to dine with the Hinckley's the evening one of them shot a president, Succeeded to the presidency thru a supreme court packed with stooges, ignored warnings of a terrorist attack, started an illegal war, suspended Habeus Corpus, tortured prisoners, and then we found out that a shitload of Democrats knew all of this and these clowns are walking around FREE-Well yes-we could still handle it, but real soon we will find out which "democrats" helped and see whether we demand a full accounting and criminal prosecution. And thanks for asking, because unlike so many I do not believe in "conspiracy theory" but rather as a sane person I believe in coincidence theory-that when bad things happen around your family over multiple generations and half a century....it ain't no coincidence.

[SpiralHawk]

24. "Smirk." - xCommander AWOL (R - BFEE)

[Selatius]

13. If you define "can't handle" to mean truths that piss off a shit ton of people, then no they can't

If the federal government discovered an advanced propulsion system that was run on something else besides fossil fuels and then buried the technology for the last 50 years, I think a lot of people would be pissed that they wasted all that cash on gasoline to run an obsolete design in comparison. People would be pissed, but the oil companies and their allies on Capitol Hill made out big.

Would people riot? Probably not. There'd be protests though. But if you're sitting in the big chair worried about the serfs rising up to kick you off the throne, I honestly don't think you care if they want to storm your keep or are simply gonna protest you before voting you out of power. You're still ending up with the short end of the stick no matter what happens, and that is why you want the secret buried for as long as possible. You want to hold onto power for as long as possible is why.

[struggle4progress]

14. "You can't handle this" really means "I couldn't handle you knowing this"

[OneGrassRoot]

16. I don't think there's anything EVERYONE couldn't handle....

I think what one group could handle is different from what another group could handle.

30% of the country likely couldn't handle any exposed truth about their government completely and totally betraying them in a way that resulted in mass deaths (including lying about going to war and other things that shall not be mentioned).

Sure there are things most of us here couldn't handle, as much as we try to stay aware of all scenarios and situations.

[Jeep789]

17. Doesn't "by the people" mean that the "people" need to know

the truth?

[annabanana]

18. Like anything else... Two heads are better than one.. and that's

exponentially true. The more difficult the information, the more people we need thinking about it and working on it..

[Hannah Bell]

19. I think the public can handle any truth so long as they share the same truth.

it's competing truths that make it difficult. or being conscious of not knowing what's true, a state i think more & more people are entering these days - the "typical" post-modern condition, maybe.

[Snazzy]

20. it's obnoxious and wrong

in our democracy for the government to ever decide there is information that cannot be made public.

What is restricted on the basis of national security is so amazingly far out of control. Current operations, techniques and systems sure, but friggin' stop there. Have strong oversight that actually gives a shit and answers to citizens on all secrecy. We pay the bills. Punish those who misclassify (usually to hide corruption or other misdeeds). Absolutely sunset all classification. A good thing we have FOIA, but it's weak in so many ways. The government does not have a right to treat us like idiots, children, etc. If I have cancer, I want to know. If a near earth object is crashing into NYC next week (a new movie on that every year it seems), tell me now. Fuck the pedantic "it would cause panic." Government is to serve us, not control us.

The US needs information laws and reform in many ways. Privacy for us, transparency for them (corps and gov).

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. I think the 'space alien' one is the only thing that might come close to 'unhandleable'

Because it would force people to profoundly rethink what they think of human society. It might well mean a complete change in economics, science, and religion. Humans would be seen to be less advanced than other beings. Not so much rioting as lots of depression and suicide among people who had a certain "we're the pinnacle of creation" outlook.

[DainBramaged]

23. Would those be Fundies you are referring to?

If that be the case....................

[muriel_volestrangler]

29. Yeah, pretty much

We'd all have to reconsider our lives, but it's fundies and ultra-conservatives who seem psychologically incapable of doing that.

Yeah, you could look on it as a welcome side-effect, if you want ...

[DainBramaged]

30. A welcome side-effect would be the World stop worrying about petty differences

and begin to worry about the potential for cosmic 'what-ifs'. The other embedded religions of the world would have a massive head explosion as well, but I think their IQ isn't sufficient to handle what their leaders can't explain. I think the Bible and Koran would become irrelevant in a hurry.

[DireStrike]

38. I highly doubt that religion becomes irrelevant.

There would be growth in new religions and mutation in old ones. And a good contingent of deniers who would still follow the old religions to the letter.

[DireStrike]

37. Sounds like a welcome change to me.

But then I guess some people would lose their electorate...

[stray cat]

22. There are certainly things that could cause mass chaos, hoarding, violent acts of self preservation

[Dinger]

25. That bu$h, cheney And the rest of their ilk were the real masterminds of 9-11

What in the hell would this country do if that actually came out? "Move forward"? What?

[Dinger]

26. That bu$h, cheney And the rest of their ilk were the real masterminds of 9-11

What in the hell would this country do if that actually came out? "Move forward"? What?

[shadowknows69]

27. An alien race coming down and letting us know they grew us in a petri dish would be big

I expect they'd need to deploy "peacekeepers" to stop the complete collapse of civilization. Hopefully those of us who aren't too attached to our self made "God" would be allowed to hang with our creators in futuristic safety aboard the mother ship.

[Fumesucker]

33. Childhood's End..

Arthur Clarke wrote it in the early 50's, in fact the original short was published in 1950.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood%27s_End

[shadowknows69]

35. One of the first Sci-fi books I ever read in fact.

Although I'm still not convinced the Overmind had our best interests at heart.

[Fumesucker]

40. That may be..

But our own leaders certainly don't always have our best interests at heart either, eh?

[Echo In Light]

28. Depends. I talk w/a lot of people in real life, and many suspect the WORST of our govt on any count

The internet is the only medium I frequently encounter such snotty, egomaniacal conspiracy deniers. For instance, during the past three yrs of working where I do, I've only encountered one person - out of too numerous to count - who disagrees w/the inside job angle re 9/11, and he's middle aged and used to be in the service. He's a good guy, but is very Archie Bunker-ish, and doesn't "buy that hogwash." lol

[OneGrassRoot]

32. Interesting...

I know a lot of the 30%ers (actually, it's more like 21% now, right?), and they can't begin to conceive of that little tidbit. That would do them in.

I think they can believe it of corporations (although they think unchecked capitalism is great :shrug: ), but to think their own government would intentionally cause catastrophic events against US citizens....nope, they can't go there. In fact, I do believe that even if they were presented with undeniable evidence and the rest of the world and country accepted it as fact and truth, they would continue to deny.

Their propensity for denial should not be underestimated. ;)

[Echo In Light]

34. True. If I recall, Jeanine Garofalo was the first person I heard make that claim re 9/11

The idea being that a significant portion of the denial is actually grounded in spite.

[DireStrike]

39. The funny thing is they would believe it if Gore had been in charge

I wonder how many "progressives" would dismiss it outright in such a case....

[OneGrassRoot]

42. Yep....it's the two different worldviews at play...

I completely agree.

;)