It’s a simple enough exercise, good for getting to bedrock principles. I ask my ethics students if it is ever right to tell a lie. Roughly 90% of them answer in the affirmative, with almost all of them embracing the concept of the little white lie. The bedrock we swiftly get to is that they all embrace consequentialism. This is a view of ethics that suggests that the most ethical choice is the one that brings the best results. If we tell our neighbor their child’s performance of Annie’s Tomorrow is well below the stellar line, the child’s feelings could be hurt, the neighborly relationship damaged and other not so good things. Before I get to what’s wrong with consequentialism, however, I try to point out that they don’t really know the consequences of such little white lies. It may get them out of one mess but toss the whole world into a frying pan. What if, I ask them, our little white lies cause everyone to no longer believe anyone?
Such is the world we are entering into, not through little white lies but through politically expedient lies. Rumors are aswirl that the fires in Canada and in Maui are not just fires, but intentional acts for some nefarious purpose. I have no evidence of this save this- the ones telling us “There’s nothing to see here” are the same ones who not only told us to wear masks, social distance and get the jab, but who told us that if we were skeptical of them we were science denying hillbillies. To put it more bluntly, how can you believe a government that has demonstrably, repeatedly, brazenly and unrepentantly lied to your face day after day?
The truth is that we cannot believe a word they say. The same is true of mainstream media, including our former friends at Fox. Any group of people who say, right to our face, that a baby is just a mass of cells, that a boy is a girl and that drag shows for kids is just harmless fun is a group of people we ought not to believe when they say “We don’t know whose cocaine that was” or, “Run, hurricane coming.” It’s bad enough they constantly pee on our legs without them also telling us it’s raining.
We are to give the truth to whom the truth is due. That is not everyone always. But the citizens of this nation are due the truth from their government. There is no reason that would excuse their lies. Nor do the lies of government with Democrats in power excuse the lies of government when Republicans are in power. The grievous guilt crosses the aisle. It also, however, touches the citizens, you and me. We contribute to the wholesale erosion of believability with every one of our own lies, whatever color they may be, red, blue, purple or white. We are the people of the Book. The Book is true in all that it affirms. By resistless logic then we are to be a people who are true in all that we affirm. That’s no lie.