Thursday, December 06, 2018

Truth under Siege



With the current iteration of the Presidency of the United States, we have witnessed the apparent death of the truth. The blatant use of outrageous falsehoods promulgated nearly everyday by the President and his cohorts has clearly not been challenged by Republican-led Congress. Furthermore, this behavior has been implicitly condoned by the leadership as long as the political agenda of the party, that is clearly not supported by the majority of the citizenry, is not threatened.

In the past, when politicians were caught in a deception, they immediately attempted to minimize their culpability. Now, it seems, that even in the face of exposure, lies are repeated regardless of their authenticity. This is an exceedingly dangerous precedent; for, it is corrosive to any political system based and dependent upon the rule of law; without truth, law can become ineffective, irrelevant and destined to waste away.

Without relying upon the truth as a genuine reflection of reality, it will wither away from disuse. Without truth as representative of the gauge by which the successful resolution of problematic issues can be measured, disharmony and imbalance will only worsen. Without truth as the guiding principle of action, there is no motivation to remedy grievances. Without truth, justice itself becomes irrelevant. True civilization cannot prosper or endure without truth as the centerpiece of any moral compass. The meteoric rise and sudden and deadly collapse of Fascism is a historic testimonial to this reality.

If we, as a people, want to avoid such a kind of calamity, we must make it clear that the abuse of the truth and the legitimization of falsehood is not acceptable. We need to demand this of our leadership. By remaining silent, we inadvertently allow for the ascendancy of what is patently wrong and dangerous.

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