'Does the Government or Their Employees Tell the Truth?'

Most of us who are thinking people are well aware how our government, or really it's employees including its lawyers, always expect, and demand the truth from all of us, while they require we regular people always 'tell the truth'. Do you believe they tell the truth? Why should they when they can hide with relative ease, and impunity behind their badges, and government posts while being protected from even being identified in some cases by us.

The hypocrisy we're dealing with today with government is beyond belief for this writer. A government who big corporation lobbyists court, and placate, has an obvious 'conflict of interest' as they both consort together with outrageous, and obvious duplicity, while they work 'hand in glove' to steal our money through higher prices for goods, and services, and with layer after layer of taxation, and even higher taxes. The shear audacity of the bullies in our government is really best seen when they try to deny, or cover-up their mistakes, or worse, get the media to do this for them. What cowards.

Meanwhile, lobbyists continue to represent the large 'exempt' corporations and banks, who by the way, get away with selling 'exempt from registration' securities, without proper sanctions in place, such as insurance for questionable investment products such as certain mortgages sold in the secondary markets, or for hedging, or gambling with our money...This whole mess simply stinks of both Draconian, and Machiavellian corruption. I guess its really every man for himself, except the government has all of the weapons, that is to say the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Power. Washington D.C. seems to be a snake pit of the worst sorts of our land. The folks in Washington have learned they can get what they want without any sanctions while the attorneys, and the liberal media help them make it all happen. Why for example can't we get any legislation to limit the many frivolous and ridiculous cases trial lawyer file? You know what Shakespeare said, "First we kill all the lawyers."

The government and its employees with their sweet 'cradle to grave' pay-checks, paid holidays, paid health care, and pension plans just love to scare, sanction, or prosecute the smaller companies and little guys who ostensibly haven't policed themselves properly, but these government workers, and their lobbyist cronies are working for the big corporations where they normally have immunity from any real exposure like a businessman does. They know where their bread is buttered. That is to say unequivocally, they work for big business, and the government is in bed with them. I know it can be worse. The word 'bully' or dictator comes to my mind for some reason... some governments simply kill anyone who can read, write, or is educated. I spent some time in Cambodia during the Pol Pot regime, and can attest to this approach Pol Pot used against his own people before he was led out into the jungle, and was never heard from again.

Here is my question...who makes sure the government is telling the truth? The media? Right! The justice department, Right! How do you sue the government for defamation of character, or for questioning and destroying a person's integrity without evidence, or for slandering a person on the Internet by leaking or posting an inaccurate story on the net, especially if you are the little guy, or own a small company without the vast resources of the government to defend yourself? What if you don't have, or can't pay enough money, or you don't want your investors to have to pay a lawyer to set the record straight with a regulatory body, or someone working for a state agency who goes after you? This is a real problem, especially when the state agency decides to single a person out without due process, or without all of the facts, or more importantly refuses to report both sides of the story. What if this same state agency simply decides to use the media to report a story that is false to advance their own false assumptions, and their lies. Should we ask Joe the Plumber how to do it?

A lawyer once told me who had been a valedictorian in his Gonsaga Law School Class in Spokane, Washington. He said to me. "Dennis always follow your heart, and if you have difficulty figuring something out...its always about the money." Sort of like 'Occam's Razor', which is the principal in philosophy and science that assumptions introduced to explain a thing must not be multiplied beyond necessity, and hence the simplest of several hypotheses is always the best for accounting of unexplained facts. In other words if everything is in a state of flux, or unknown, just look at the most obvious solution, because this is usually the best answer. In the case of the government, its about their survival as they see it and want it, and about perpetuating the growth of more bureaucracy. The government and its lackeys do this while minimizing the productivity of hard-working businessmen who own small businesses, or with constant harassment of the citizens who are productive, and who make possible... the un-checked expansion of more an more government, and of course more laws. Seems like a vicious circle to me...but most seriously, when is the last time you met, or had to deal with a government employee who was comfortable with taking a risk? Any Risk? But they often can and do like to posture, and assert their authority while getting 'in your face'. Do you think you could succeed in business or sales with this attitude?

I feel the need to tell the other side of a story using a current example without naming names about the miss-use of a state's power by an individual working for a state, and then reporting in a newspaper or print story which is patently untrue, and doing so while falsely reporting, and using intimidation to distort the record to advance their agenda, or to justify their existence maybe?

My companies have been in the business of looking for and finding oil & natural gas for about 26 years now. We've had our good investment programs, and our difficult ones where we failed to meet our expectations of success at finding or recovering enough oil & gas to pay-out our investors over time. However, we drilled our new wells and completed our development objectives, often on expensive acreage where we were able to drill, and which were often previously owned by some of the biggest oil companies in the world. We hired petroleum engineers, geophysicists, geologists, and other experts to evaluate our prospects by researching the historical production record, and through well control analysis, and our own extensive experience in the areas we develop, we were able to make the best decisions we could to determine where to drill our new wells, sometimes deeper than 10,000' wells...yet we are said to be 'scam artists', and only re-entering 'capped wells', and not disclosing to our investors who we were, or what the risks are. (We put about 25% of our own money in the project in this case I'm referring to in our so called 'scam deal'...I suppose this doesn't count either.) By the way who made the state an expert on whether to open-up capped natural gas wells when natural gas prices haven risen 10-20 times in the last 25 years and oil is still up nearly 400% since a low it reached in about 1982-1983? I know of many companies, and operators who've re-entered plugged wells and have established successful commercial production of oil & natural gas over the years. These oil & gas people were able to apply newer technology, and take advantage of higher oil & gas prices to make this happen. I don't know about you, but I see government agencies who are always losing documentation, contracts, tax returns, and other important records continuously. I've never gotten an apology, or payment for my costs in supplying government agencies with copies of materials they've lost.

Apparently, we still have certain folks working for state regulatory agencies who haven't figured-out that oil & gas investments are risky. What planet are these people living on? Do they ever leave their offices and come-out to the oil fields? I would think not, nor do I think they understand 'risk' as the rest of us know it and experience it on a daily basis in our lives. This reminds me of Jack Nicholsen's quote, "Debate me, how can you debate me, you haven't opened your eyes in 20 years!" Why else would you hide in a office and be satisfied with a government check? As we say in the military, never turn-down a combat assignment as an officer. We combat veterans have a saying, "if you can't stand the heat of combat, stay in the rear with the gear'" Is there anyone out there who still thinks there isn't risk associated with drilling for oil & gas? I'm talking about people over the age of 21. Most of my investors are accredited, sophisticated, and qualified according to the securities rules, and they darn well know the risks. Yet we can read in the story I'm referring to that somehow these wealthy investors who visited our CPA's offices, and our development sites, and reviewed our files, and records somehow didn't know the details of our offers and the risks involved when investing. BS I say....by the way I will be working on Monday's national holiday for federal employees, and the government gets to take-off. DWS.