LIARS:...Our Politicians Have Grabbed Hard To The Nasty Habit...Cops Do It Too...Hey, Americans Love Lying...On A Resume, It's Okay...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas |...So, you see, everybody lies. It's the world we live in. Everybody. From our friends and pastors to our politicians. We hear lies about personal histories (things our friends, family and acquaintances did and did not do as military people and as working professionals), about our accomplishments, about who we really are and about our social meanderings.

Your neighbor is a high school dropout, but he insists on telling you he is a professional - not one course in college study or expensive coat & tie in his closet. Lying grabs him some cred, goes the line in the streets. It is what veterans also know as "stolen valor," when someone who never served a day on Navy base or Army post claims he did. Silly lies. Little lies. But lies just the same.

Our best-known national politicians now live the lie. Live it daily. Self-aggrandizing also goes on the resume. Lie often glossed over by another lie. The opponent is this and that, lies. Today, it goes without saying that lying is some sort of badge for most elected officials. They can't help themselves, not when they, too, believe that everyone lies.

Once, in an earlier America, it was actually frowned-upon. Once, a politician who lied would quickly find himself on the outs, forced to resign, which they did readily. Not these days. If it's not a lie, it's a refusal to acknowledge facts. "Why did you resign the post, sir?"

There is no answer.

The guy resigned a top-level political post and never told his friends or supporters exactly what happened, why he or she resigned. That's a part of the story. And, for those of us in storytelling, the information belongs. Oh, well. There will be no info and the brain will have to frame its own reasons, often a bad one or two.

Cops lie. Some of the best fiction, we're told, can be found in police reports.

Governors lie. An invasion at the border, ours has been crowing. When busloads of supporters show up to see for themselves, they find a calm stretch of the South Texas border, they find local residents in full frowns, they find that the hot story has been exaggerated. The word "invasion" has a clear meaning. What we have seen of the Mexican border and the on & off surges in immigrant arrivals is not an "invasion," not as any self-respecting military man would define the word.

But the lie accomplishes its task - it roils the citizenry, sparks interest in resolving the manufactured crisis and, ultimately, it serves one man's political purposes.

A lie draws no blood. Perhaps that is why lying is so easy, so handy, so apropos in the moment a politician reaches for a lie or two. Same for a straying wife or husband in the world of adultery. You lie for advantage, the cheapest there is.

The car is fully paid-for, they will tell you, when the bank owns the note.

I suppose I have lied a time or two. I mean, more than likely to women, never to my employers or banker. I actually thought it was cute, or, perhaps more correctly, being cute. I'm so sure I was also lied-to. My U.S. Navy recruiter told me I'd be able to "put in" for favored duty stations. Well, I did "put in," but I never got assigned to places I wanted.

Over the weekend, I heard several times that our religious leaders have been lying about the very ethnic makeup of Jesus Christ. The imagery at my church is of a tall, handsome, long-haired White man. Non-liars say Jesus was actually a dark-skinned Middle Eastern man.

Oh, well. Perhaps too many photos of the White Jesus, too many stained-glass windows with that image, have been printed and sold to ever make the needed correction.

It's actually hard to find a part of society where lying is not a player. Grocery store operators are said to now be lying about why prices have risen and stayed risen. One onion selling for $1.08? A concha of Mexican bread fame at $1.28? They lie and say the point of origin (farmworkers and bakers) are the problem, the gougers.

Eh. I know. It's just a dollar here and there. But why lie? Because it's the American Way?

Well, yes.

Does that explain Liar Extraordinaire Donald J. Trump?

Totally...

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