“LIAR”

A will­ful depar­ture from the truth is an inten­tion­al embrace of lying.
Being ver­i­fi­able truth­ful is an impor­tant com­po­nent of one’s char­ac­ter. Character is impor­tant in estab­lish­ing trust.

Truth is vast­ly impor­tant for the smooth run­ning of soci­eties. Banks need to know that the infor­ma­tion we give them on our mort­gage appli­ca­tions are truth­ful in order that they may arrive at informed decisions.
Police Departments expect that when we make reports we speak the truth, so they do not go off inves­ti­gat­ing crimes which nev­er occurred.
We re not allowed to call the fire depart­ment to report a fire if there is no fire.
We are not allowed to shout “Bomb” on an air­plane with­out incur­ring seri­ous puni­tive con­se­quences, unless of course we dis­cov­ered a bomb, even then shout­ing Bomb is not advisable.

The Information we give to Schools, Businesses we deal with, Government Agencies, are all required to be the full truth. Failing which what­ev­er we seek is auto­mat­i­cal­ly denied some­times with even more seri­ous penal­ties ensuing.
Both Federal and local laws make it a felony to make false state­ments to law enforce­ment. In many cas­es lying on an appli­ca­tion, on appli­ca­tions to some school dis­trict is a crime.
Since the Government demand that we tell the truth why would we demand any less from our Government?

Truth is impor­tant when court­ing a poten­tial spouse. Each par­ty ask ques­tions with a a view toward gath­er­ing impor­tant infor­ma­tion which bet­ter informs them in their deci­sion making.
These are not new con­cepts, one of the 10 com­mand­ments God gave to Moses in the Bible charges, “Thou shalt not bear false wit­ness”.

So it’s clear that even ancient soci­eties under­stood the fun­da­men­tal impor­tance of telling the truth.

Enter Poet Mark Twain, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remem­ber any­thing”.
“A lie can­not live”. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
“I’m not upset that you lied to me; I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you”. — Friedrich Nietzsche.
“Lies are like cock­roach­es, for every one you dis­cov­er there are many more that are hid­den”. — Gary Hopkins.
“By a lie, a man…annihilates his dig­ni­ty as a man”. — Immanuel Kant.
“When you become com­pla­cent with some­one lying, whether it is a close friend, the media, or your gov­ern­ment, then you have essen­tial­ly giv­en them per­mis­sion to con­tin­ue to do so and most often at your expense”. — Gary Hopkins.

As a father of four sons I nev­er missed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to preach to them the impor­tance of telling the truth regard­less of the consequence.
I explained to them that in order for me to defend them from what­ev­er the world throws at them I must be con­fi­dent in the verac­i­ty of what they tell me.
It’s impor­tant that we rec­og­nize the impor­tance of truth in our soci­eties as Gary Hopkins said , when we become com­pla­cent with some­one lying, whether it’s a close friend, the media,or your Government, then you have essen­tial­ly giv­en them per­mis­sion to con­tin­ue to do so and most often at your expense.

We should nev­er, ever refrain from shout­ing down a lie. Lies destroys and cor­rodes us all and makes us all less as human beings.
Even in the leisure­ly pur­suits of ath­let­ic sports we expect ath­letes to adhere to strict rules. When Athletes cheat they erode the char­ac­ter of the sport they destroy the puri­ty of the sport.

So why are we afraid to call liars-liars ?
Why do we find alter­na­tive ter­mi­nolo­gies and char­ac­ter­i­za­tions to describe bla­tant and out­right lies?
Why do we nuance and tip­py-toe around disin­gen­u­ous bla­tant liars?
Why are we tol­er­ant of vile dem­a­gogues who delib­er­ate­ly tear down oth­ers who have far more char­ac­ter than they could ever have so that we may take notice of them?

A lie is a lie is a lie . It is not fudg­ing the truth, it is not mis­rep­re­sent­ing the facts, it is not miss-speaking.
Liars should not be pro­tect­ed with nuance.
We must hold them accountable .
We must call them “Liars”.