Truth in times like these will more often than not contain an arrangement of facts that are both painful and inconvenient. A recent public hearing showed a crowd screaming at a minority party representative to do something.  Do what?  The painful truth is there is nothing to do in politics if you have lost your power but to rebuild your base. Demanding action is somewhat pointless since upon losing power disorientation and rage get you nowhere. After being in power for a while one is used to starting what one wants started and stopping what one wanted stopped.

Truth and lies contain facts. Truth is the facts plus more and lies are the facts minus much. Intention drives both truth and lies. Most religious traditions forbid “bearing false witness.” As children we were spared the archaic language and were admonished not to lie. But today we are adults and what we are seeing in some leaders is ‘bearing false witness”. For instance to say this country is free of 261 terrorists after last week’s deportation debacle is a ‘false witness’ since not having provided due process, no one can know that. That is why we have due process and a judicial process. The truth here is much simpler. We are being informed of something no one can know as truth. That, from kindergarten to the grave, is known as a lie. Absent due process we have heard a lie composed of a “seat count on an airplane” (fact), a vague nontransparent investigation of sorts (fact) and an airplane taking off and landing (fact). The rest is fiction. We are not children anymore and have to live with the original interpretation of the moral code; “Thou shalt not bear false witness”, which applies to our children up to the President.

A government that avoids due process to make even one innocent person disappear is no longer a democracy. We are on the ice slope down as of last week. The first virtue of a true democracy must the telling the truth. Truth is the good of this posting. People tell lies occasionally and regret it especially when caught at the lies. But when a government or politician lies without regret in a standing pattern our country is in a clear crisis. Good is consolidating the new voting consensus around the virtues necessary for a democracy and speaking truth is virtue number one.