This year’s election circus has taught me something. No, this isn’t some diatribe about the Republicans or the Democrats. Rather, it’s about lying and our increasing acceptance of it.
As you’ve probably noticed in the presidential elections this year, there’s a lot of lying going on right now. Some candidates have a tad more truthiness than others. But it’s looking more and more like you can’t get to this level of power without becoming something of a liar, if not an all out pathological liar.
Not that the truth is absolute. Your truth may not be mine. In fact, it’s more than likely not. I get that. We all live and flourish in our own reality. Somewhere in that reality must be our view of the truth, otherwise we would simply go mad.
I certainly have played loose with the truth in the past. I admit, I was not a very big fan of it at times. I not only majored in lying at times, but should have been able to test out for a doctorate. I’m not particularly proud of it now, largely because I have met someone who holds herself up to a higher standard than drifting in and out of various levels of lying.
As you probably know, lying is a bit like drugs. There are gateway lies, those little fibs we tell ourselves and others. Then there are the real whoppers, so wrapped up in various levels of deceit that you can’t even find the grain of truth that must be, should be, somewhere at the core. This can be highly addictive.
When I was in my world of lies, it was easy for me to get away with just about anything. I could make anything work, largely because I am a great storyteller and could create fantastic scenarios to explain my absences or my deceits. I would never come up with a run-of-the-mill lie. Those were too easy for someone uncover. No, the lie had to be so amazing, so fantastic, that it couldn’t be confirmed and the other person had to be sure it was the truth because no one is that crazy to make up that kind of story.
When you are desperate to get away with something, you can be that crazy. And that momentarily brings us back to this year’s election. It seems that there are a lot of desperate people running this year. Their misstatements and often bald-faced lies can easily be researched and found to be false.
With the advent of the Internet, it only takes a few seconds to find out if something that was said was true or not. Hell, most media outlets even dissect a speech or debate and tell you if something that was said holds water or not.
Yet, we don’t seem to care anymore if the people who want to be our leaders tell us the truth, or even their version of the truth. They can make the most outlandish statements in the world and we just glom onto them, like taking a hit from a joint to stay high. We are becoming addicts of the worst kind. We are becoming addicted to lies.
There was a time when lying was not a good thing in government. If you remember your history – and more and more we seem to be getting Alzheimers in this regard – a president was forced to resign in disgrace because of all his lying and deceit. There were people who found out the truth and we, the people, demanded justice.
Now we just laugh at all the crazy lies. Or worse, we embrace them as the truth.
So what does that say about us? Not as a society, but as individuals. Does that mean that in this world today the truth no longer matters? That lies are not only O.K., but expected? That we no longer have a moral compass that says this is right and this is wrong?
I wonder now if we would accept the lies of our significant other with similar zeal or acceptance. Would we ever date, let alone marry, a pathological liar?
Of course not.
Yet, we are welcoming them into our nation’s leadership with a bloody welcome mat. We applaud their misstatements, mistruths and downright lies rather than be repulsed. We are holding these characters to a different standard than we hold our own family members to.
I don’t like liars. These days, I hold myself and my family to a very high standard. I can thank Kat for that. She has this thing about being honest and true to her word. It’s kind of rubbed off on me now. I expect my son to tell me the truth. He incurs my wrath when he doesn’t.
I come down on him very hard when he lies – and he doesn’t even have the codes to launch nuclear weapons!
Really, that’s my point. We expect others to be truthful to us, in our workplace, in our home. We want friends who tell us the truth, even if sometimes, it hurts. We typically don’t surround ourselves with liars and cheats.
So why, the question begs, do we allow this to happen in our country’s leadership? Why do we hold them to a different standard than our husband, wife, child or friend?
In short, what is wrong with us? What have we become, or what are we becoming, that we don’t demand the truth?
I know. Earlier I said that everyone has their own version of the truth. But there are still facts out there. There is data. There is verifiable truth in basic facts. The sun comes up every morning and goes down every night. Fact. Most of what politicians say are based in some kind of verifiable fact, whether it’s crime statistics, the federal budget or their own actions before they ran for the nation’s highest offices.
Do I have all the answers? Of course not! But I can safely say that I am not going to vote for an outright liar. I don’t care what they promise or how close their positions are to mine.
Sadly, though, I will only have a limited choice this year. I have to vote for the joker that seems to be lying the least. That, my friends, is a sad commentary about who we have become, as a nation and as individuals. It’s time to take a good look in the mirror and ask ourselves what we really want to be – as person and as a society –someone of high values, character and expectations, or a sideshow patron who can’t wait to see the next freak at the carnival.
In the Emerald City, continuing to demand the verifiable truth, or at least a little truthiness,
– Robb