WHEN HATRED AND LIES BECOME THE NORM

By  Ruth A. Sheets

Lying is an integral part of Donald Trump's public behavior.  He lies whenever it occurs to him that a lie might work better than the truth, that is if he has any idea what is the truth.   

Yesterday, the Supreme Court's conservative majority confirmed as acceptable, Mr. Trump's hatred of Muslims.  They used as justification Mr. Trump's lie that travelers from a specific set of countries, mostly Muslim, puts the security of the United States at risk.  Alas, there is no evidence of this, but the Supreme Court majority says, that doesn't matter.  Mr. Trump says it is, so it is.  Wow!  That's a lot of power for someone who didn't win the popular vote and has little regard for the Constitution.

Everyone knows that throughout his presidential campaign, Mr. Trump told the nation of his intent to stop all Muslims from coming here.  That intention was never hidden.  Like everything else he says in hatred and most of his lies, it was loud and clear and harmful to many people, the kind of people Mr. Trump doesn't like.

Lying and some hatred (of women and abortion) was front and center in another Supreme Court ruling yesterday.  The conservative majority  basically said it is perfectly OK to lie to citizens, particularly women about their health care options. 

Fake health care centers have been set up all over the country to lie to women.  They have no medical help to offer, only lies about abortion, pregnancy, and a host of other issues facing women related to health care. 

California decided to order fake clinics to inform potential patients that other facilities could take care of their needs, while the fake clinics could not.  The Supreme Court has now said the state can't make the fake clinics tell the truth.  They can lie through their teeth, trapping mostly poor women into maintaining pregnancies they can't afford or physically handle.  Yep, lying is in the ascendency.  Free speech, you know.

These rulings  coincide with the cheating allowed in the June 25th decision permitting racial gerrymandering in Texas and probably other places too.  The justification is not very clear.  Are conservative justices OK with cheating and subverting the American voting system?  Or is it something more? 

One might have expected Mr. Thomas, the African-American justice to stand on the side of voting rights in this decision, but alas, no.  It is no surprise, however, that white conservative men are in favor of whatever will give white people the most power.  Racial gerrymandering, why not!  We'll find a reason to OK it.

These days, one cannot be shocked that Mr. Trump lies about immigrants, the activities of his staff, and just about everything else.  His followers love it.  They, themselves must lie regularly to be so positive concerning the lies so freely tossed off.  It's like a kinship. 

Conservatives want to have the Ten Commandments in every courthouse.  How is that possible.  One of the commandments is "Thou shalt not bear false witness."  False witness means lie.  Have they convinced themselves that the things Mr. Trump says are not lies?  Isn't that a kind of pretense?  Another word for pretense is lie.  So, perhaps they are lying to themselves too.  If you can't tell the truth to yourself, who can you tell it to?

Which other president has lied to the American people more than 3,000 times in just over 500 days?  No one, of course.  Even if one did not agree with the person in the White House, there was a sense that the person had some integrity.  That cannot be claimed for this White House occupant.  His hatreds and lying make him unique, and not in a good way. 

I get it that Mr. Trump often has no idea what is true and really doesn't care.  As long as everyone is bowing to and cheering for him, giving him everything he wants, like a spoiled child, he is happy and can gloat.  He does not want anyone challenging his hatreds and need for vengeance.  And, for the most part, people comply.  Republicans in Congress and in the states comply.  We learned yesterday that Even the Supreme Court complies.  

Hatred, lying, and cheating, the three pillars of Mr. Trump's presidency do not seem to be helping anyone but him.  He hopes Americans will ignore his lies because if he says something long enough and loud enough, he thinks we will all believe it.  What many of us believe is that we don't want lying, hatred, and cheating to be a norm for our society and will do what we can to see that these three are ultimately moved off the main American stage along with Mr. Trump. 

FOR THE WIN

by Ruth A. Sheets

WE Americans are very competitive.  We love to win.  For some, winning is everything, or as one coach used to say, "winning is the only thing." 

So, what will we do to win?  We know that some athletes will deliberately injure opponents.  They will dope and do a variety of other illegal and semi-legal things to increase their chances of winning as individuals or as teams. 

Of course, this is not restricted to athletes.  Parents sign their kids up for all kinds of programs to help their child get ahead, be the first, best, to go to the most prestigious schools.  Cheating is not off the table.  Teachers will sometimes change test answers to make their class seem more advanced, so they can win a bonus for their students' achievement.  Businesses claim artificially high profits so they will seem like winners in their field.  Students and others will plagiarize to produce "the winning paper."

People do win based on their own hard work and talent too, but if that doesn't work, some will break rules, laws, and Commandments to win.

You may have noticed I haven't mentioned politicians yet.  Politics is an entire field based on winning, just as athletics is.  Men and women who pursue a political career know this from the outset and often hone their skills in small election contests so they can build up to bigger things.  Along with their personal gifts, they tap into money, manpower, and advice from outside themselves.  Their basic tool is personal persuasion, but over time other things may be added to the toolbox.  Some of those tools can be immoral, sometimes, even illegal.  These tools have become nearly ubiquitous.  They are probably not used more today than in the past, but they now are enhanced by social media, 24/7 news cycles, the internet and instant communication, and other modern technologies.  These technologies in themselves are not the problem.  It is how they are used.  When winning is the only thing, lies, fake news, insults, disparaging slogans can spread at light speed to those the candidate or office-holder needs to win.

The 2016 U.S. Presidential Election brought to a head the question "What are you willing to do to win?"  The Democrats are seen as pathetic, weak because they did not win Congress or the Presidency.  What they also did not do (as far as anyone can tell) is check in with the Russians to see how they could smear or undermine their opponent.  They did not regularly insult, degrade, and dismiss women, people of color, Gold Star families, disabled persons, journalists, poor people, and others.  The party that won did all of these things and more.  They won.  What does that tell us? 

Perhaps there is some part of us that finds bullying compelling, despite what we tell our children.  Maybe racism and sexism are deeper and stronger than anything else in our culture including fairness, our religious beliefs, and morals.

Now, the "winners" need to keep winning.  What will they do to get a win, any win?  They will work hard to take away the ability to get health care for people who just found hope in the Affordable Care Act.  They will eliminate transgender people from bathrooms and the military for no other reason than that they can.  They will continue to further limit the rights of women to make their own reproductive decisions, They will hurt farmers so they can waste time, money, and manpower on a useless even ridiculous wall on our border with Mexico.  "I promised to do these things in my campaign and I have a mandate to do it." says their leader, no matter what works for anyone else or that he really has no mandate. 

Well, we are in for a difficult future since lying, cheating, colluding with foreign powers, hacking emails/records, disenfranchising voters, and eliminating civil rights for large groups of Americans are the predominant items in the political toolbox.  Now it is mostly Republicans and Conservatives who employ them, but, who knows, it could spread to everyone else if we don't demand higher standards for political behavior and future elections.  

They Call it 'Flexibility'

by Ruth A. Sheets

Just when you think you have experienced every manifestation of Romnesia, one more bit of craziness raises its head.  On Elliott Spitzer’s show on Current TV “Viewpoint,”  Romney’s frequent change of position and casual lying was referred to as “flexibility.”  Then, viewers were informed that this is just the quality needed for negotiating.

Since George Orwell’s classic “1984,” we have been aware of the power of language.  Give something a clever name and it won’t matter what that thing actually is.   Advertisers have taken advantage of this for years.  We call flavored sugar water things like Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper.  None of it is good for us in any way even the one named “Dr.”  The names are great, though. 

We expect politicians to manipulate language to catch the attention of particular constituencies.  That is just part of political life.  The current cycle has carried this idea to heights previously unimagined by most Americans.  

Mitt Romney’s handlers are masters at language manipulation.  They craft his message so carefully that the lies are often tucked in the fast flow of words that Romney pours out for his audiences.  The lies are carefully mixed in with truths and half-truths and when called on them, he will “double down,” strongly defending the lies. 

Mitt Romney lies so often he can’t possibly remember what is the truth.  But, he is a good Mormon, so we can’t call what he is saying lies.  We say he is flexible.  Candidate Romney is sooooo flexible he has no obvious set of core principles.  It doesn’t matter, though because the majority of folks who support him like his one main feature: White.  This means that whatever he actually believes doesn’t matter to them.  And, the lies are irrelevant too.. 

For the people on the fence, calling lies “flexibility” makes their choice of Romney acceptable.  Remember, these are good Christians who love the 10 Commandments.  If their candidate is a liar, they will have a personal conflict.  Renaming Romney’s lies clears up the problem for them.  Isn’t language manipulation great?!

Lying – Sin or Salvation

by Ruth A. Sheets

Lying used to be seen as the practice of the unholy.  Yet, these days, self-confirmed Christians lie with impunity.  In fact, many politicians now consider lying an effective victory strategy. 

In a culture where winning is everything, lying is certainly acceptable if it gets one to the desired end.  Why?  Why are we OK with lying and deceit, expecting it from our leaders.  Even though it isn’t true, we constantly hear “Well, everyone does it.”  Does that somehow make it right?

Mitt Romney has taken lying to a new height, at least in our lifetime.  He has said so many different lies that he can’t even keep track of them anymore.  And, the most disturbing thing, he seems sure of each statement’s truth as he says it.  He exudes a positive manner with each lie.  He is like the kid who truly believes he had nothing to do with the fight even though he is right in the middle of things with a bloody nose.  He can’t imagine how anyone could accuse him of lying or anything else .

Mr. Romney is so entitled and has been all of his life, believing that everything coming from his mouth must be true since he said it. A pronouncement from the lips of Mitt Romney should be taken as gospel no matter how often it contradicts what he said previously.  Expedience works really well for him.  Romney merely says what each audience wants to hear because that is what it takes to get elected in the warped America in which we live today.

A more interesting aspect of this issue for me is that when voters learn that Mr. Romney

has lied, and has done it over and over, they seem to like him even more.  The polls go up in his favor.  Do they really like liars?  

I am concerned that Mr. Romney can’t even tell the difference between when he is lying and telling the truth.  He does the lying with such ease and conviction that listeners who do not dig deeper can be convinced that he has always held this particular position and is being honest.  I have to admit that this to me, borders on mental illness.  I recognize the value of people who are living with mental illness, but do not want my president to be thus afflicted.

I keep hearing from Republicans that there is no racism on their part, yet, many Americans, professed Christians, religious people seem to want a serial liar over an African-American.  No racism?  Hmmm! 

The Message We are Sending

by Ruth A. Sheets

The election process keeps rolling on.  It seems we have been at it for years.  Oh wait, we have.  What’s the message we are sending to the world, our children, and future generations, running is more important than governing.

One of our candidates, Mitt Romney has no trouble lying on a regular basis.  Whenever he faces an audience, he says whatever he thinks that audience wants to hear.  No one really knows what he stands for and what kind of president he might be, but the election is really close.  What is the message sent forth? Lying works and if you say it loud enough and you act as though you truly believe your lies, people will believe them too and vote for you.  Mitt Romney has this one down.

Mitt Romney talked over President Obama in the first debate, showed him a lot of disrespect, even to the point of bullying.  The President was advised that if he were too strenuous in his debate style, he would be seen as “THE ANGRY BLACK MAN” AND WOULD SCARE FOLKS OFF.  Romney had no such directive or stereotype, so he could open fire, even though most of what he said was untrue.  What is the message? Bullying works and our racism is actually OK because it can get you what you want.

Mitt Romney supports denying women most of the rights they’ve earned in the past 40 years or so, and yet a large number of women are supporting him.  What is the message? Women’s needs aren’t even important to women, despite the effect of losing those rights on more than half the population.

The wealthy are buying the 2012 election with the blessing of the Supreme Court, and Americans go on as though this doesn’t matter.  They complain about the number of ads, especially the negative ones, yet they allow those ads and that money to persuade them.  What is the message? Money can buy anything and everything, even our democracy.

Conservatives claim to spend a lot of time trying to channel our founders, trying to figure out how those guys would have handled the situations we are facing today.  It is hard to imagine that our founders would have been pleased by this campaign.  Their message? Decide what kind of society you want, one ruled by the wealthy for the interest of the wealthy, or something that is more balanced and fair for the country as a whole. 

One would be hard put to see that Mitt Romney can possibly bring us to the latter. 

THOU SHALT NOT LIE – Unless You’re Mitt Romney and Company

by Ruth A. Sheets

People on the Christian Right want everyone to live their idea of the Christian life.  They cry out that God is not enough in our country and our actions.  They want the Ten Commandments (the Protestant traditional list) on every courthouse in America.  One might think these are people holier than most.

It seems to me that one would be wrong.  What the Christian Right wants is to be comfortable and to feel righteous, or rather self-righteous.  They pick and choose from the Bible what they will espouse.  They select the Commandments they like and discard the rest.  They claim to be followers of Jesus Christ, yet find most of His teachings unacceptable and put into His mouth things He did not preach.

Some examples might help to put this into perspective.  Jesus said nothing about homosexuality even though it was a common practice in the Greek and Roman world, yet the Christian Right is so sure that it is against God’s law, they would condemn people for it.

The 5^th Commandment is “Thou shalt not kill."  It works for them when related to abortion and human fetuses, but not when it comes to war, famine, capital punishment, over accessibility to guns.

“Thou shalt not commit adultery” is not a problem because one can simply ask forgiveness and go on with life.

“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor,” though, does not even seem to cross their radar.  Their candidate, Mitt Romney, bears false witness on a daily basis, as does his team and PACs, yet the Right does not call him on it.  Why is that?  Lying doesn’t count if it will get you what you want and if it will make America a “more godly place?”

As for Obama’s agreement with the states to make more flexibility in their welfare to work programs--Romney calls this “welfare with no work requirement.”  He knows this is a lie, but who cares?

Mitt said “Nobody ever asked me for my birth certificate 'cause they know where I’m from.”  When called on it, he said he was just using humor.  He knew this was a lie, but oh well.

Romney and Ryan continue to claim that Obamacare will take 716 billion dollars from Medicare recipients.  They know that is not true, but scaring older Americans is worth the lie.

Any true Christians would have trouble with the repeated lying of the Romney campaign, but what can the Right do?  He's all they have. The racism that sits at the core of Christian Right beliefs, and their illusion of having achieved everything in their lives on their own, make it impossible for them to rethink their position.  They have to pretend Romney is everything they want, so to avoid the dissonance, they just don’t hear what they don’t want to hear.  Hypocrisy is better than a Black president for one more term.

The Christian Right can’t help themselves, so the rest of us had better get to the polls  to protect all of us from their fear and deliberate hypocrisy.