If You Must Tell Lies –

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The other day I went down a rabbit hole, as people say these days, chasing the ninth commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” That’s the wording I remember from Sunday school days, the explanation we were given simply that lying was wrong. 

 

Newer translations online give the Biblical text as “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,” and while some internet sites read the commandment as forbidding any false statement, others, even religious ones, claim that the commandment is not about lying in general but only requires that we refrain from giving false testimony about another. I’ll leave it to you to go down your own rabbit hole(s), if you find the prospect inviting.

 

For the moment, however, for the sake of discussion, let us accept the narrower interpretation. I have personal misgivings about allowing even “harmless” falsehoods, as in ordinary situations, dishonesty does nothing good for relationships, but for now, let that go and agree – for the sake of argument or discussion -- that I can lie about my age with impunity, and you can lie about your natural hair color, but we are all forbidden by the commandment to speak falsehoods against our neighbors. 

 

The next obvious question becomes, Who is to count as my neighbor? Only someone who lives in my immediate neighborhood? Someone I know? Someone I like?

 

The Jewish people are told in Leviticus to remember always that they were once slaves in Egypt and should therefore treat “the stranger among you” as one born in their land, a neighbor, while anyone who claims to be Christian and a follower of Jesus should recall the parable of the Good Samaritan and its message that even our enemies are our neighbors and should be loved as we love ourselves. 

 

Telling harmful lies about another person is slander, defamation of character, and constitutes grounds for lawsuit, whether the words are spoken on the witness stand or in the street. (On the witness stand, it is also perjury.) And when such lies – about entire groups of people -- are spoken publicly and widely disseminated, putting the slandered at risk for their very lives, how can a candidate for any public office, how can any public person whatsoever, claim justification for such lies because, for instance, lies about Haitian immigrants in this country legally “brought attention to the legitimate issue of illegal migration”? No!  

 

No! The Republican candidate for vice president claims to be a Catholic and has borne false witness against his neighbors. He also possesses a degree in law and is guilty of slander. This is not a matter of taking something out of context, as the context is public and broad, and his attempted justification has been publicly given. Going to confession does not undo the harm he has caused. He is unfit for any public office at any level. 

 

Moral of my story: If you must lie, lie about your age, your weight, your hair color – in short, lie about yourself, not someone else, and keep your lies trivial, please, IF YOU MUST LIE AT ALL. -- But really, is it necessary? Is it good for you? Do your words and actions align with what you claim are your beliefs? At issue is what is called character.

Who are these so-called “socialists,” anyway?

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Or call them “Communists,” as Republican candidates often do. This year’s Republican candidate for the office of President of the United States is fond of throwing around the lie that his opponent is a “Communist,” a lie born early in the last century and has been dragged out over and over again by politicians who seek to win by inducing fear. 

 

There are also idealogues who want either no government at all or government only for military purposes. To them, anything more is socialism. 

 

But enough with the generalizations. Let’s get down to something specific and look at it more closely.

 

Food stamps. No actual “stamps” are involved (there were stamps from 1939 to 1943), but that name for the benefit persists, so I’ll use it. I was curious about the people Reagan years ago called “welfare mothers” and who they are today, so I looked into it. Data found by the Pew Research Center (full article here for you) is eye-opening. Take a look. 

 

The majority of recipients of SNAP benefits are overwhelmingly white (62.7%) and were born in the United States (a whopping 87.8%). There are almost as many two-parent families receiving benefits (43.9%) as single-parent families with only a mother in the household (45.5%). As for the age of primary recipients, 44.5% of recipients fall into the 25 – 64-year-old age range. (Pew gives 25-44 and 45-64 separately. I have collapsed them.) The full history of the government program can be found here. Today over 12% of the American population receives this benefit. 

 

There is no way to determine the political affiliations of recipients, but I vividly recall one of my students years ago at Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City, a self-proclaimed libertarian, who “did not believe” in government programs but acknowledged that her family relied on them. I did not then and do not now understand that. To me, what you do shows what you believe. If you believe in voting, for example, you vote. If you don’t vote, you don’t believe in it.

 

An important and often overlooked feature of food assistance in the United States is that it was inaugurated not only to alleviate hunger but also, essentially and perhaps primarily, to help farmers and business owners. Read about that here. The largest-ever expansion of government food assistance programs took place under a Republican administration for the benefit of American business. Communists? I don't think so.

 

Don’t fall for fake stories. And please don’t fall for name-calling and old, tired lies.

 

What Unites Us Is What Divides Us

We don’t agree on what the biggest problems are, we don’t agree on the causes of our problems, and we don’t agree on how to work toward solutions on even those issues we all agree are problems. So what on earth can possibly unite us? 

 

Emotions. We all love our country. We want to be proud of our country. We are, all of us, at times angry and frustrated, deeply saddened and impatient (with one another), wanting to be hopeful and feeling surges of hope, only to have it dashed once again. We Americans are all human beings with the same human emotions.

 

What unites us, though – the confusing stew of emotions – is also what divides us, because our emotions, too often, have different (you should excuse the term) triggers. It's enough to make a stone weep.