Integrity

Everyone thinks they have it. But not everyone does, clearly.

More than one person in my life has pointed out that I’m “too honest.” I don’t really understand that sentence. I mean, I get that telling the truth as I see it can cause negative consequences, but I’m comfortable with that.

Here’s what I don’t get. When did lying become an acceptable thing? Yes, all politicians lie. If they told us the unvarnished truth, we would never vote for them. Fine. But things have gone well beyond political spin. I saw the latest Romney commercial because I live in Florida and I can’t escape them even though I don’t have a fucking television. They’re like a virus.

I saw this commercial and they are repeating their Jeep lie. His surrogates are insisting that this lie is true. He’s repeating his welfare lie. A Republican politico is spamming lies via text.  The Romney campaign is training poll watchers to lie to voters.

OK, if you’re lied to, and you repeat that lie, that’s a problem. If you’re lied to and you later learn the truth and you keep repeating the lie, you’re just a liar. Yeah, Casey Pick and the Log Cabin Republicans, I’m looking at you.

When did we start accepting this? When did pointing to a false statement and calling it a lie become the wrong thing to do? When did pointing to the person who is knowingly repeating false information and calling them what they are, a liar, become the problem? When did not rocking the boat become more valuable than the truth?