Repeatedly, Duly Noted has claimed that advanced-country political systems are undergoing changes. Earlier, democracy as a system meant that a high degree of trust determined the relationship of the governed and those entrusted with the delegated power they needed to govern. This relationship between the people and the government has not meant that the former did not find reasons to dismiss their rulers. This liaison is an unequal one: the people may fire its government but we oppose attempts to “dismiss the people” by truncating its ability to choose its destiny.

To function, this system requires the free flow of information. An adjunct is accessible facts, and that the interpretation of the data shall not be subject to restrains. Yes, this approach creates a cacophony of noises that might be “disturbing,” while their contradictions demand that the citizen be enabled to sort out opposing narratives.

This system is in the process of breaking down. Through the control of what is allowed to become public, and by limiting what may be stated, the power of the political class grows to near dictatorial dimensions. How free is an election in which misinformed people cast ballots? Blame PC and its consequences. Some scandals that seeped recently into the media’s depiction of reality illustrate the point. This presentation will concentrate on the manipulation of the information of Europe’s migration crisis. Any global analogies you discover are neither accidental nor are they unintended.

Germany provides expressive examples. Her posturing Chancellor has caused Europe’s border controls to collapse through her unconditional invitation to global migration. Defiantly Merkel trumpeted that an unlimited moral obligation existed, and to silence those that guessed the volume of the inflow, she added that “we will manage that.” Naively, she underestimated the hordes her call would set in motion, while she additionally misjudged the difficulty of integrating the arrivals.

Thereafter, a rationally predictable inundation unfolded. Those that use their office as a soap-box are, as is Merkel, unable to acknowledge emerging facts, admit a mistake, and change course. That is so, because the Chancellor had catapulted herself from an office holder into a preacher with the attributes of a prophet. There is no retreat from the lofty heights created by such a self-pleasing leadership role.

Instead of an open admission of a miscalculation followed by a rectification, Merkel went into the “cover-up” mode. A strength of democratic systems is that they can admit mistakes and even accept defeats. Thus, the American system survived a self-inflicted loss in Viet Nam, while the USSR could not digest its soft-pedaled reverse in Afghanistan. Mounted on a pedestal, a ground-level correction is a closed avenue. Merkel — some now say “merkeld up” for “snafu” — chose to cope through serving up an artificial reality. As the wobbly construction imploded under the pressure of the events in Cologne, the belated homage to Potemkin revealed a humiliating metastasis in so-proper Sweden. With the genie out of the bottle, and with the devastating news about rampaging migrants in several cities, the unwanted information is growing from a trickle to an impressive stream.

True, the lawlessness of migrants that claim to have fled violence is not limited to Germany. However, most incidents that invalidate the idealized image have their venue in that country. Attribute that to a mandated political culture that bends back to atone through permissiveness for the sins of the great grandfathers. Furthermore, thanks to Merkel’s foolish swagger, it is Germany that harbors most “refugees” in Europe, who are, as all know, actually “economic migrants” from safe places.

Pressures are created by the discrepancy between the reality of the “guests’” behavior and their normatively attributed qualities. These force tottering elites to insist that, whatever the masses perceive, the tale they tell is more real. Believing that is an obligation. So, in Holland, “digital detectives” might “visit” those that protest too loudly the placement of migrants in their “back yard.”

This fiction goes beyond the area of integration, the acceptance of the country’s basic laws, and its system. In this realm, not only the will to adjust is absent, but even the tolerance for the indigenous way of life is missing. At best, exploiting the multi-culturally shaped weakness of the hosts, the right to a publicly financed parallel society is demanded. Recalcitrant separatism is demonstrated by the inclination to engage in what the host community sees as criminal. It is expressed by female circumcision, sex slavery, honor killings, incendiary hate preaching and such. The Swiss statistics — even they hide significant details — have a story to tell. 52% of the murders, 65% of the aggravated assaults, 67% of the rapes and 83% of the thefts are committed by aliens (24%). Out of 10 000, 90 natives commit crimes. Tunisians weigh in at 475, the Turks manage 305 and the Algerians score 296.

All such numbers are unpleasant facts that do not fit the normative picture. If the criminal way of life cannot be restrained, then the facts must be bent. There are several ways to achieve that. Last October Schleswig-Holstein decided not to act upon minor crimes attributable to undocumented “refugees.” Public transport avoids asking for tickets. Recently another decision followed covered by the political organs of justice. In the case of Syrians (fake passport are for sale) and Iraqis, due to Merkel’s “invitation,” violations of the “right to stay” are to be ignored. It makes little difference: tens of thousands have already gone underground.

Such manipulations explain early Warner Premier Orbán’s mockery about the attempt to keep “Cologne” out of the news. “Try to imagine, what would have happened if the Hungarian government would have kept for days the media from reporting mass atrocities that impaired the population’s security. What do you think, for how many days could I have stayed in office in that case?”

An accurate response to that one is as easy as drinking milk. Orbán is a vile person for permissive liberals, who “see no evil, hear no evil and who therefore love to suffer evil,” and that suppress “unfitting” news. The kind that would recall disturbing facts, such as that, even in “integration champion” America, 51% of Muslims believe that they should “have the choice of being governed according to the Sharia.” A quarter of those polled believed that, “It is legitimate to use violence to punish those who give offense to Islam.” A new European survey discovers that 44% of Muslim immigrants have “fundamentalist sympathies.” Such data shred the PC-inspired pretention that only an insignificant minority with that background are radicals. Any such censorship by Orbán would have had its magnified image projected on the world screen. Especially eager in that would be those that think that cover-ups for a good cause — which happens to be their own — are not only legitimate, but also an act of virtue.

As the number of migrants grows, their assertiveness expressed by transgressions will increase. Exposed to that, the average person is made aware that his experienced reality and its PC defined anesthetic media representations, are separated by light years. The ongoing loss of the credibility of traditional elites, and the corresponding realignment of forces, is a consequence of the attempt to govern by invoking non-fitting Nazi analogies, suppressed facts, and the silent treatment. Indeed, such tricks can postpone the discovery of growing trouble by the public. However, the longer the “heads-in-the sand” command postpones awareness, the harder will be the punch when the problem lands on the chin.

Therefore, barking at carefully selected shadows might persist and dominate the sound-track. Suspected elites will continue to diminish existent threats verbally. However, the inaction hiding behind such a pretended reality intends to leave substances unaltered. Making things look good, so that they can remain bad, means that, as long as the system continues to hold, the rot spreads. That will make the eventual reckoning painful and devastating. Lulled-into-sleep societies will pay the price. Along with nurtured illusions, the political class responsible for the deception will be swept into the dust bin of history. The critical question to ponder is, who and what will assume their place by filling the vacuum.