Abraham, George and John

I’ve been thinking about lies and liars.  These are strong words.  This is serious stuff.

 As children most of us were taught to be truthful. To tell a lie was akin to any other bad childhood behavior, carrying the same punishment.    We also were taught to not call another person a liar.    Calling another person a liar was dealt with in the same manner as using any other four letter word.   You guessed it……Ivory soap.

 The challenge I as think about it is to determine the definition of lying.

 Let’s begin with that lying is not.

Lying is not the same as jumping to a conclusion before we have the facts.  Lying is not repeating something that we may have misunderstood.   Lying is not tweaking facts to fit our precepts.   Lying is not embellishing a story.  If lying were defined as any of these, I suspect we would all have to raise our hand and plead guilty.  Politics as we know it would all but disappear.

 What is lying?  Who is a liar?

 First, a liar knows all the facts.  I suppose we could elaborate on the word facts.  However, for the sake of time and purpose, let’s agree that facts are those pieces of information where sufficient research, expert evaluation, and historical documents support. Deliberately making a false statement contrary to the facts, while fully knowing the facts, with the intention to convince others to agree for our own benefit is lying.

 What then is honesty?  Who is honest?

 We each know honest people.  We have each experienced honesty on a personal level.  Throughout the history of our country, we have examples of leaders who were perceived as honest.  Those people would not lie.  Fact or fiction, George Washington was perceived to be honest because of owning up to chopping down a cherry tree.  It was important for George Washington to be honest.  He could not have led a rag tag army without the trust of the soldiers.   Abe Lincoln was perceived to be honest because as a young man practicing law in Illinois, he gained the trust of many.  This earned him the moniker “honest Abe”.  Jimmy Carter, though lacking in many areas, is perceived by historians as one of our most honest presidents.  In 2008 John McCain was running for president. A woman at a campaign event suggested that his rival, Senator Barack Obama was not a citizen… but was in fact an Arab.   John could have let it go, but took the time to respond saying “No, ma’am, he’s a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, that that’s what this campaign is all about”.  

 We have examples of honest people wherever we look.  There are people who don’t lie.  There are people who don’t support a lie.   However, most recently we also have examples of real liars in positions of leadership.  They are using that leadership to promote their own agenda, knowing full well what the facts are.  Their behavior is at best laughable, at worst, hurtful to our nation.

 We know who they are.   When facts don’t suit their agenda, they simply do without facts.  Lies are just another viable method of self-promotion.  No facts, only fiction.    But, we as citizens do not have the luxury of denying facts.   There are school shootings.  Ask the parents.  Ask the communities.   Climate change is real.  Ask the scientists.  Ask the communities where earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes are becoming an annual occurrence.   We can disagree on how we solve the challenges that face us.  However, we cannot be successful in finding solutions if we don’t base those solutions on the facts.  The liars have the audacity to label anyone who operates within the standard realm of facts a liar. 

There’s any number of reasons I suspect for an individual to become a liar.  Perhaps it’s profitable.  We see that these liars get invited to all sorts of posh events to spread their lies.  Perhaps it’s for attention.

It is very obvious that the more outrages the lie is, the more attention the liar gets.  Face it; few leaders gain any notoriety for being honest.  Even John McCain lost the election.  It isn’t easy being honest.

 How does honesty prevail? 

 I once worked with a very successful gentleman.  I use both words in the truest sense.  He was respected and admired.  He and his wife were active in recognizable organizations.  Let’s call him the Marrying Man.   One morning the Marrying Man came into the office with his normally well combed salt and pepper hair in a pile of frizzy curls on top of his head.  It was a most unusual sight.  He explained he was running late and did not have the time to dry and tame his hair after showering.   Well, about six weeks later, the curls were dried and tamed again.  A lie?  Maybe a fib.  After all, he never tried to convince anyone that not drying our hair would result in frizzy curls or that frizzy curls were necessary to be successful.  It was strange, but not harmful.

 Marrying Man talked glowingly about his wife.  Then, for a period of time, he didn’t mention his wife at all.  After a few months, he started talking about his wife again.  However, she had a different name.  Slowly, we learned that he had divorced and found a new wife.  Flash forward one year.  Marrying Man was mowing his manicured lawn and suffered a fatal heart attack.  His widow was grief stricken.  So was his ex-wife.  So was the other ex-wife.  So was the other ex-wife.   They were all were grief stricken enough to attend the funeral.    They all (except his first wife) knew he had an ex-wife.  They just didn’t know how many ex-wives.  Suffice to say, it was a good thing he was dead already.  Did he lie?  Yes.   Although he told each potential wife that he had been married before, he deliberately didn’t say how many times.  By not sharing this fact, he knew he could successfully woo each woman into a doomed marriage. 

 I tell this story as a reminder that all of us bear a level of responsibility when it comes to uncovering lies and a liar.  All the ex-wives of the Marrying Man could have uncovered his life of deception.  Instead, they accepted lies because it fit in with what they wanted to believe.  They wanted marriage.  They wanted a sophisticated man about town.  They wanted everything he offered.  What they didn’t get was what they wanted most—a lasting, strong marriage.  The Marrying Man got everything he wanted---until the day he died.

 If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that we all do the same from time to time.

Nowhere is this more evident than in our election process.  We don’t take nearly enough time to examine and vet our potential candidates for office.  Our primary election system is designed to give us time to ferret out these charlatans.  Yet, we often accept the views of media, neighbors, family, or the party we are most closely aligned with.  This method is no longer viable.

 There are those that have been elected to congress and those nearly elected to the senate who are liars.   Yet, they have been or have been nearly elected to make decisions that affect the lives of everyone in this vast country, including those reading this right now.  I suspect these people rise to this level because we think that the party they represent is more important than the integrity of the individual in question.

This is a very dangerous position.  We, if we continue to use this rationale, will go down the proverbial rabbit hole of destroying our democracy. 

 No political party has all the right answers.   Through diversity of race, gender, political and ethical differences, we have survived as a democracy for roughly 2.5 centuries.  It because of the differences of opinions that we find common ground and hopefully, laws and regulations that work for most of the people most of the time.  As was the case for the ex-wives, we cannot have a strong union when we accept lies or liars.   Facts cannot be ignored if we are to endure.

 Clearly that honesty matters.   Abe, George, and John all understood the burden of integrity they carried with them to Washington.  If we do not hold others to a level or honesty and integrity, we lose our own as well.