The first casualty of war, they say, is the truth.
It's political season now with the presidential election occurring in less than two months.
A group of ministers has petitioned the IRS to deny tax immune status to religious organizations who support candidates from the pulpit. The attorney defending the political pulpits has said that ministers have the right to preach biblical truth to the congregation, and if this means proselytizing against candidates who favor a woman's right to an abortion and in favor of those against, then so be it.
"Biblical truth," I thought, "what is that? Another term for lies?
Then I read a column by Dionne in the WaPo in which he decries all the lies and half-truths coming out of one of the campaigns. Dionne seems to want "political truth."
What is political truth? More lies?
How about historical truth? More lies?
I grant that the truth can be found at the bottom of a bottomless well, as an attorney character in "A Civil Action," points out, but we deal in truth every day in court, in business, in investigations of one kind or another, etc. It's a federal crime to lie to a federal officer after you've been put on notice, which you usually are. A tax return, for example.
It seems to me that once you modify the word 'truth' with an adjective such as political, or biblical, you are negating the word modified.
Biblical truths are beliefs based on faith. Faith, according to Archie Bunker, is believing something that no one in his right mind would believe. That goes double for political truth.
Can you think of any other truth-negating modifiers of the word truth?
The thoughts of Mao? Millions of followers accepted his word as gospel until he led them over the cliff not once but many times, such as in the Great Leap Forward which killed anywhere from 25-30-40 million Chinese, all numbers I've seen in recent reading about China. Then he killed millions more in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in which young Red Guards all over the country destroyed everything that represented 'old,' including schools, teachers, party members, monuments, buildings, books, you-name-it. The country went crazy. But Mao spoke the truth, it was fervently believed, until he no longer did.
If the Chinese can go crazy, and the Germans, and the Russians, and the French, and the British, so can we.
We'd better try to keep our eye on the ball a little better or we'll find ourselves seeking dragons to slay abroad far more frequently than is good for our, and the world's health. Let's see, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq...how many wars in pursuit of political and ideological truth do we need before we realize that as the world's leading nuclear power we have a duty to keep our wits about us at all times and not fly off the handle when we get excited, or panicky, or talk ourselves into a sweat where we thing the sky is falling. Never underestimate the creativity of a hysteric, for worst-case thinking seems like a truth of its own, despite not having its feet on the ground of reality.
"Don't take any wooden nickels," my Dad used to say. That and
"Don't believe everything you hear, and only half of what you see...and none of what you read..."
Grandpa Leo was good that way.
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