By William P. Meyers, iii Publishing

This essay is inspired by a lifetime of trying to sort through the lies told by my fellow human beings. And by hearing some news reporting saying Harry Reid was “lying in state.” Thinking: why not, he was a politician, he lied over an entire lifetime. Note that on the political spectrum, Harry Reid is reasonably close to me. The joke will be even better when Trump dies (if he does not ascend into heaven as his followers expect).

Lying comes in two major forms: purposefully lying and repeating lies while thinking they are true. In the second category there is a spectrum of moral hazard, ranging from repeating a falsehood heard from a reasonably reliable source to repeating a falsehood that is obviously or highly likely to be false based on its content. Everybody lies, the fair question being how much and in what situations. None of us are able to personally verify all we learn about the world. We can’t all go to Afghanistan to make sure it exists and the reporting about its society is accurate. We can’t all conduct quantum physics experiments or count every vote cast in every election. We need to depend on others. In many cases we have developed systems to try to insure the truth is told.

I was recently in a situation where I was expected to lie for a group I was in. Generally I am in agreement with the group, a Democratic Party organizations with a high percentage of progressives. I decided to resign my official position with the group, but stay in the group to continue to fight for better governance. This really pissed the liars off. Fortunately I have been though this before many times in my life (I am an old man). Most people calm down and, though they may refuse to admit they behaved badly, will eventually work with you again when you agree with them on a specific issue. What is frightening about humans is that a lot of them refuse to speak up even when they know the majority (or a vocal and typically cranky minority) is wrong. Even I have to choose my fights. I only have so much time and energy for the local democrats. I have to remind myself that where I choose to fight, someone else might choose to save their fight for another day or issue.

Now I will back up and use my childhood sorting out of lies, and cultural bundles, to show how much people can be up against. I was born a Democrat. My mother was from Texas and checked most of the boxes for a Southern Democrat in the 1950s and 1960s. My father was from Illinois and checked most of the boxes for a northern Catholic New Deal Democrat. Both were born before the Great Depression and lived through it. My father graduated from high school, worked a bit, then joined the Marine Corps in 1938. My mother worked as the child of a tenant farmer from an early age, then left school without graduating to work in a newly built uniform factory, for the army FDR was building to conquer the world, also around 1938. Like most Woman Marines my mother was dismissed at the end of WWII, but my father stayed in the corps until retiring in 1960.

READ MORE