Why on Earth---Are We Living in Wonderland?

Impossible Dreams

Alice: There’s no use trying; one can’t believe impossible things.

White Queen: I daresay you haven’t had much practice. When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

Many politicians seem, like the White Queen from Through the Looking Glass, to have had a lot of practice believing impossible things. For instance, just about all of them profess to believe that governments can “create jobs,” ignoring the simple fact that a dollar spent by government is a dollar not spent by private actors. Most of them kept right on believing it, too, even after massive “stimulus” spending failed to prevent the American unemployment rate from topping 10 percent in recent months. 

Politicians are covering up their ineffective efforts to govern with charades and masquerades.