(NOTE: I wrote the following short essay in 1975. It was published in a publication called FEELINGS in that same year, a time when the surging Opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) was ridiculing me relentlessly because of my having received only 89 votes as the sole UBAD Party candidate (in the old Collet constituency) in the 1974 general election.

Today, May 29, 2023, the essay represents some of my thoughts as we Belizeans consider this terrible contract signed in 2020 by then UDP Minister Erwin Contreras with a group called Portico, or something like that, which was/is pushing the Port of Magical Belize, one of three cruise terminals being proposed as part of the Belize City marine environs where I grew up as a child and with which I fell in love.)  

HONESTY IS USUALLY THE WORST POLICY (or Confessions of a Political Failure)

The Bible really didn’t tell us the whole truth. It said blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the earth, when it should have said blessed are the rich, for they actually OWN the earth. Blessed are the meek, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Well, maybe. But blessed are the bold, for theirs is the kingdom of RICHES. Dishonesty began with the Bible.    

If there is one thing you will learn in politics is that honesty is usually the worst policy. Honest politicians are politicians who are out of office, and out of office politicians are failures. If things are bad, don’t tell them how bad, or they will panic. If things are good, don’t tell them how good, or they will become complacent, or worse, greedy. Never tell dumb, boring, or ugly people that they are dumb, boring, or ugly. 

The people who promulgated the thesis that honesty is always the best policy were being deliberately dishonest. They wanted younger people to be honest so they could punish them, and they wanted older people to be honest so they could exploit them. 

Experts of the Vietnam War figured that if the statistics of enemy casualties released by the United States Army were correct, the entire populations of North AND South Vietnam would have been wiped off the face of the earth five years before the war actually came to an end. Soldiers and officers and generals were looking for fame and decorations which would lead to promotions and more money. So when one Viet Cong was killed, they wrote down 16 Viet Cong killed and 5 imprisoned. Conversely, when the Viet Cong killed 10 Americans, the U.S. Army said the Viet Cong took one and a half prisoners. This is defined as propaganda. More accurately, it is the official telling of lies.  

In Belize, politicians hire mad men to shoot bullets into people. This is described as peaceful, constructive, Belizean revolution. More honestly, call it instilling terror into the hearts of the Opposition. Price controls are trumpeted as for the good of the poor consumers. But actually controls are a lever to pressure merchants who are opponents. The laws are not enforced against merchants who ‘donate’ sufficiently to the ruling party.

Politicians have battered the face of truth so much it is almost unrecognizable. Some of them who can tell pretty lies on the domestic scene believe they hear the truth internationally when they are drinking their own medicine. A foreign diplomat tells one expert in lies that his countryman who is really in a filthy cell is now lodging at the home of the chief of police. Not only does the expert in lies swallow this fat lie; later on he regurgitates it for the benefit of his countrymen and some of them, trained as they are to swallow bull s—, accept it as Bible, oops, the truth. When a local declares this is not so, they suddenly pounce, and just as suddenly recoil in shame and confusion. Aw, silly man.

Figure it out. If you spend your childhood telling the truth, you will certainly be punished almost every day of your life, and if you practice honesty in adulthood, you will just as certainly lose friends and gain enemies.

So, my friends, learn to recognize the truth when you see her. And you may court her, kiss her, even sleep with her, but do not love her or live with her. For she is a dangerous woman and might well set you afire after first making you prisoner. And when you who have recognized her are gone, she will writhe and dance and she will seduce some poor fool away from his sensible ambitions in life.

Brethren, become acquainted with dishonesty to the point of friendship, and you will live long and materially rewarding lives. You will be feasted and regaled by respectable society, and your children will have what you did not have. Your wife will keep up with the Joneses and you will be a social pillar. Perhaps your soul will pine away and die, but what does it matter.