Lying is not new. It is rooted in our fallen nature as humans. It shows up in many forms. Prevaricating, quibbling, equivocating, paltering, dissembling, or fibbing— it’s all the same. Only the degree differs. The end state is untruth. We have all lied at times. Often, it involved disguising the truth. Sometimes, to spare ourselves or others embarrassment. The “white” lie is the term of art without a trace of aesthetic value. More to the point, lying is wrong. The Ninth Commandment has something to say about bearing false witness. But like the other commandments, it is selectively obeyed by those seeking an alternative to truth.
There is much to say on this matter. But on my mind is how readily those participating in our public discourse rely on lies and falsehoods to advance this or that argument. In the many debates we are subjected to on television, lies substitute for facts. One person’s murder is another’s misfortune. The blatant Islamic-inspired terror attacks of 9-11 were pushed aside by a politician sympathetic to the perpetrators as “some people did something.” That omits necessary nouns and verbs to describe the raw truth correctly. It amounts to a lie.
Like many others, I find watching Congressional hearings on controversial issues very trying. In an effort to grab an “I gotcha” cable news headline, legislative inquisitors seek to entrap witnesses in ways that advance the questioner’s arguments. That is not lying. But certainly, the object is not to obtain the truth. Indeed, our Founders saw in the First Amendment a device to distill the truth of a matter by allowing robust, fact-laden debate. But when discourse devolves to choppy efforts to limit the full explanations of facts, it masks the truth. No, that’s not a lie, per se. But it is a step in that direction when responses are taken out of context to create a narrative that is every bit a lie.
To be clear, what passes for “debates” today does not resemble at all the characteristics of genuine debate. Classic debate involves structured and organized speeches, followed by questions, rebuttals, and closing summaries that lead the listeners to conclude winners and losers. That has been replaced with much shouting, ad hominem attacks, and accusations that have nothing to do with getting at the truth. Indeed, rebuttals in today’s debates frequently rely on one side or the other declaring that something that is indeed true is not at all. “That’s not true,” said one recent 2007 Presidential debater of an indisputably truthful fact. Is that not a lie to call something untrue that is verifiably true?
In this era of sharp political and social division, opposing sides have at their disposal an arsenal of twisted and distorted facts—themselves untrue—to hurl at one another. They also amount to lies. Sadly, political discourse has become coarse indeed. Deceit is its defining characteristic.
Closer to home, that deceit seems to have no limit, even in a referendum put to the people for consideration. Take the ballot question before Virginians on 21 April. Voters are being asked to decide on a constitutional amendment that would allow the current Democrat majority in the General Assembly to gerrymander congressional legislative districts, something Virginians roundly rejected in 2020 when they approved a constitutional provision requiring citizen participation in non-partisan redistricting. If passed, the amendment would permit the implementation of a new Congressional District map that would create a 10-to-1 advantage for Democrats, essentially eliminating 4 of the 5 Republican seat holders.
It is blatantly unfair, especially when done in the middle of the decade and not concurrently with a new census. Yet consider the deceitful ballot question voters are given at the polls that reads, “Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections?” To say this is a lie would be a gross understatement. It is a deliberate effort to tell a lie to obtain an injustice. Of course, Virginians should vote “NO” not only in opposing a corrupt provision, but also as a rejection of a bald-faced lie embedded in the ballot question. Both are perverse distortions of justice and truth.
It’s time for Americans to reject the culture of lies that has flooded our discourse in ways that would make the worst fabricator blush. A nation like ours cannot long survive if we hold in contempt the need for truth. We must be worthy of self-governance, and surely we will not be if we condone deceit in any form, even if those who practice it are of our own political persuasion.
When we wink at a political lie of convenience, we participate in its telling as if it were solely our own creation. That’s objective deceit.
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