The unspoken foundation of the human right Freedom of Speech was always truth. One doubts that the crafters of this American Constitution ever dreamed that an age would come when the lie was granted equal footing with the truth and both truth and lie lived in comfortable proximity under the phrase “Freedom of Speech”. The 21st century has managed to accomplish that sad feat. Our current leadership spins the truth with alacrity. Is spinning the truth slightly better than an outright lie? No. The truth is not the slave of the politician. Truth stands on its own linked to the center of the earth and pointing to the north star. The right to speak freely ends on the borders of a lie. Spinning the facts to blur the truth violates what the founders of this country intended in using the term ‘Free Speech’. We have only taken the next step when we move from blurring the truth with a disingenuous spin, to outright lying. Among the many things the right to spin and lie has cost us is the entire east wing of the White House. The American story is next on the chopping block.

A Modest Proposal for Good

The art of a good lie is to use facts in the wrong context. To say your facts are right to either yourself or to your debate opponent isn’t enough. Truth is fact and context in a proper relationship. Truth is conveyed most accurately through genuine art, literature and professional discipline. Truth can be unearthed through the authentic disciplines of history, science, journalism film making, and engineering etc. Truth is the rock mountain upon which we exist and truth while beautiful is not always pretty and certainly not convenient. Religious truth is not the prostitute so many want her to be in this time. Truth in religion seems always to generate meta-human kindness, love, beauty and reverence for the living and the dead. The cruel, crude language and brutal behavior of this day and this government have nothing to do with truth. Truth is always a challenge. Truth does not hide, but we hide from the truth for she won’t ‘make a great deal’. The first virtue of The Next Democracy is not freedom of speech, with a provision for clever lies, but rather the first virtue of this new 21st century democracy must be Speaking Truth, That would a huge challenge for current practice but would be very good indeed.

To read and offer help on the Next Democracy Project click: https://thegooddecision.org/your-sense-of-democracy/.