—-Friedrich Nietzsche
I woke up last month to find that Roy Moore is not the new Senator elect of Alabama, thank goodness, and I hope most of America is sharing my relief. This was not a political call; this was a call for decency. I realize that all of the charges against him have not been proven, but when a public servant in his thirties is banned from an establishment because of his dealings with young teenage girls, I don’t want him representing any part of my country.
I wondered how the vote could have been so close with all of the accusations and bits of proof that covered the media, but I read something very interesting yesterday. Apparently Alabamans were not getting the same Roy Moore news that the rest of us were privy too. His name was connected with the term sexual harassment fewer times in the Alabama media than elsewhere, and the stories were skewed in a gentler manner.
It sometimes seems that the truth fights an uphill battle in so many walks of life. For example, I realize that it is important to protect all of our rights, but sometimes I think we are losing our right to a safe environment along the way. When many out and out facts are kept from a jury during a trial, for example, the outcome can be startling to a public that was allowed to know “the whole truth.” While a person’s past shouldn’t influence decisions of today, many times these past deeds are relevant to current ones. We will never know if O.J. Simpson killed his wife and her friend, but we do know that the jury believes that the addition of some blocked information might have changed the trial outcome.
I can’t say that I never told a lie, but it is a rare occurrence in my life, and it is almost always done to protect someone else’s feelings. I can’t imagine a relationship without trust, so I don’t want to take trust out of any of my relationships. One of the most difficult aspects of my raising children was the simple truth...they lie. Each untruth made me a little crazier, because I became less likely to have a quiet confidence in the culprit. I need to trust everyone implicitly or I start second guessing everything, and as one can imagine, the complete lack of respect for the truth in politics today is not contributing to a host of well rested nights.
Luckily, Arthur and those closest to me are either intrinsically honest or innately good liars, and I am going to go with the former. Since they have become adults, my children have little reason to lie, and I think my sister has the same need (weird genetics?) to be able to trust those she loves without question, so she remains as married to the truth as I am.
Of course politicians have a great deal more to lose than I do if certain truths emerge. Once someone of a certain age admits to an interest in young girls, he loses his status as candidate in the public eye and becomes more of a sleaze. Once a suspect admits he committed a crime, all that is left for him is the punishment. So people in the public eye will often lie, and those of us who vote for them simply have to get better at recognizing the true values that might be hidden beneath the false words.
Speaking of lies and people who tell them so well, Hourly History’s latest offering, Ted Bundy: A Life From Beginning to End (True Crime Book 1), gave us background on a man who lied to virtually every woman he met and yet went on for years without being caught. Since Beth used to tease me about always referencing Ted Bundy when I wanted to make certain she was diligent about protecting herself from men she didn’t know, I picked up this book to see if I could learn more about what made this monster tick. Though short, this was a thorough description of one of the most notorious of serial killers, and I found myself turning pages well into the night.
As always, a complete review of this book follows my blog.
Happy reading,
- Beverly