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Whose Truth Are You Believing Today?
by James Glaser February 25, 2015 
It seems like in today's world the truth depends on who you want to believe, and facts have little to do with it. In politics, Republicans have their set of truths and Democrats have theirs, and there isn't much overlap. Christians have two sets of Commandments they all claim came from God. One group claims God told them, "Thou Shalt Not Kill" and the other group has it as, "Thou Shalt Not Murder." That "murder" line opens up a lot of "killing" as being perfectly all right with God. Two truths, you could say. Washington tells us that if you are not out actively looking for work, or you are only working half time, then you can no longer be counted as being unemployed. In that same vain, if inflation is going up, it is perfectly all right, in our government's way of thinking, to change the formula used to calculate the inflation rate in order to bring that number down. Changing formulas can mean changing truths. We learn from our media that 22 veterans a day are committing suicide, but later we learn that number was figured out by getting information from less than half of the States, and the top two in veteran population, California and Texas were not even counted. So, is that kinda of true? The Washington Post seems to cover the lies of recent Presidents in this post:
OK, we all know President's lie, and the people who work for them all repeat those lies. So, when it comes right down to it, whom in this world can you trust, and how do you know when the truth is presented to you? First off, what is the truth? Merriam Webster puts it this way:
That line about "accepted as true" can get us into a lot of trouble. That is especially true when the media backs up something as truth that in truth is false. We have gone to war several times because things told to us as truth were in fact lies. Iraq had no weapons of Mass Destruction, and Vietnam never did attack our ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. You find out in school or after attending school that teachers lie. No, you don't need a college degree to succeed in life, just ask Bill Gates or any of the other billionaires who never graduated. Now, don't just believe me, but read Time magazine's list of the top ten college dropouts. So that opens up half truths. Some things are true some times, but not all the time, but if you are passing them off as all the time truths, are you then lying all the time, too? Getting the truth out of anybody is a process, be they the media, your friend, or even the President of the United States or your family member. If parents teach their children to always tell the truth or if a parent learns after years of experience their spouse is always truthful with them, believability is easy, and continues to be easy as long as truthfulness continues With any politician, truthfulness is hard to judge. Being honest and winning votes don't necessarily go hand in hand. Here are four pages of lies told by our current President as compiled by Politifact.com. Barack Obama is just a convenient example, as all politicians tend to tell their own truths that in many cases turn out to be lies. Here is a quote about truth I have always liked: "Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters." — Albert Einstein. That seems fitting when talking about politicians. So, when it comes right down to it, deciding what you are going to believe as truth requires a lot of time—the time it takes to hear a person over and over again on many different subjects where they have always been truthful. That track record of truthfulness allows you believe what they say, even if you don't understand the facts or history about that subject. Repeated truthfulness begets believability. |
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