Salus populi suprema lex esto

Salus populi suprema lex esto - "Let the good of the people be the supreme law" or "The welfare of the people shall be the supreme law".

At one time or another, everyone from Cicero to John Locke has waxed poetic about this phrase, and its intended reach and meaning; and you can perhaps see, prima facie, as a mandate, why it made it on to the state seal of Missouri and a clutch of other US states - and is the motto which appears on the coat of arms of The City of Salford - the reluctantly conjoined twin of The City of Manchester - but it leaves one question dangling rather precariously: who decides the definition of 'the good of the people'?

If ever a term was left open to abuse, it is this.

Salus populi suprema lex esto

Harry Frankfurt's 'On Bullshit'

My sincere appreciation to Jack of Kent, who in turn acknowledges Simon Perry for this abridged appraisal by Princeton University philosopher, Harry Frankfurt, on the nature of bullshit - and those who bullshit:

"It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose."

Harry's full article 'On Bullshit' can be read at the link.

Harry Frankfurt's 'On Bullshit'