Lying

When I grew up, my parents taught me never to lie. As I raised my children I told them the same. Lying can be hurtful, misleading, and also leads you to feel bad about yourself. The purposes of lying are not noble, though I grant you the odd exception of what is often called the “little white lie” to avoid hurting someone’s feelings, or lying by omission for the same purpose. “How do I look?” does not always require a 100% truthful answer. Is this a slippery slope? If I answer “you look great” when you don’t, does that lead me to tell ever bigger fibs? Experience tells me not.

So what has gone wrong, that lying is the natural order of things. Every single day I read that the President of this great country tells a multitude of lies. He lies about gas prices. He lies about his election results. He lies about his predecessors. What is his purpose in telling these lies? He’s intelligent enough to know they are not true.

RFK Jr tells lies every day which are dangerous. He spouts statistics about health care that are made up.

I am sure that lying is not limited to Republican administration politicians, but the extent of it coming from Donald Trump is shameless, egregious and incredible. There are a lot of things that leaders should be – role model is one of them.

If I had young kids today I would be trying very hard to shield them from these role models.