We all tell white lies - I'll give you an example. At some point today someone you know will ask you how you are and guess what you'll say? 'good thanks' or 'I'm fine' and then you'll move on to the meat of the conversation. If you said, 'I've got post-nasal drip and a mouth like the bottom of a birdcage' the pleasantries come to a screeching halt and - well it's awkward. So we lie. We lie to be polite, to make someone feel better about themselves, but these are harmless fictions.
I'm talking about the official, blatent, in-your-face whoppers. Lies that take us to war, or damage our economy. Lies that go on record as statements of fact. The truth is we have become lazy, we don't research, we don't question, we just believe and worse we trust. I was brought up to question authority, I never had much time for politics or politicians, they always make promises they can't keep and in political circles the bigger the lie the more people are likely to swallow it. The big offenders for this are news anchors mainly on the FOX news network - although there are offenders on other networks and of course big oil. But by far the worst are the people we democratically elected to represent us on a federal and state level.
Republican Senator for Arizona John Kyl - on April 8th - flat out lied about how many abortions planned parenthood carries out in the official records it will say 90% in a later statement from the senators office he said 3% but that isn't what goes on record. To their credit lots of people have called him on it - including John Stewart on the Daily Show - faux news has more integrity than FOX news. That's just one example I'm sure there are many more, so here's what I want to know.
In order to discourage this culture of twisting the facts to suit your political agenda (yes the D's do it too but not to the same extent as the GOP and the TP) why not hook them up to a polygraph while they're on the floor - if they're caught lying they can't vote on anything that day. And if you flip/flop you have to explain why you've decided to do a complete 180 on something you were so passionate about in state government (anyone? Romney?)
There are still some honest politicians out there but they are a dying breed. What was once considered an honourable profession and a chance to serve the public has morphed into smoke and mirrors and money. So when a politician or a pundit speaks by all means listen but try and discriminate fact from fiction and never stop asking questions.
http://www.freep.com/article/20110419/OPINION05/104190318/Leonard-Pitts-Jr-Political-lies-hit-new-low
