Crying Wolf

Remember when we were children and got caught telling a" little white lie"? I do. My mother would say: "You're like the boy who called wolf". She was warning that the practice of telling lies becomes a habit and before long nobody believes anything that you say. Then when you were in real trouble, calling for help, nobody would come to help. It sounds so simple now: Tell the truth. Lies are dangerous.  It sounds so middle-class, so middle-America, so GREAT!

That, my dear friends, is the America in which I was raised. If anyone truly wants to make America great again, this would be the first place to start.

But, let's be honest, this is NOT the idea behind making our country "great again". And, it is not just a campaign slogan, either. It is a deeply insidious belief that the more lies you tell, the less truth matters. Crying wolf in the reverse!

While it may be impossible for most of the world to believe the man-boy calling wolf, you can believe that the man-boy is a wolf in sheep's clothing trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes. Lookout!

From Paducah, Kentucky:

I Cannot Tell a Lie.

Whether those words were spoken by the "Father of our country", American History cannot say.* Yet, every schoolchild in the United States knows some version of that boy speaking the truth when he was guilty. Legend has it his father asked what the young George had done to the cherry tree, and he replied, hatchet in hand, "I cannot tell a lie".

How far we have come. Nowadays, we must sift through lies told every day, all the time, to get to the truth. The BBC has hired over 60,000 fact checkers to do this task. Believing whatever you want, is another way to go. Why not?

Like Ripley's "Believe it or not" there is a litany of unbelievables spewed on any given day. If you can believe the most egregious falsehoods about other people eating pets, it is not a leap to believing lies while witnessing just the opposite of what someone actually does. And, that is what the "Lyin' King" counts on most. Truth be damned!

Shocking as it is, we are not actually being asked to believe, but to accept, ignore, and proceed "as if". Even a gullible schoolchild understands the difference and why it matters. The facts are irrelevant in the eyes of the Lyin' King, who built a life, unlike the first President, on anything but truth. Here's the rub: for every person who wants to become a citizen of this country, there are certain questions, certain truths that must be accepted as fact. I wonder how many of us could pass the U.S. Citizenship test*? Try it. You may be surprised. I was!

We have each been given one unalienable right that separates us from those who want to one day be part of this country. That one right is our right to vote. It is what makes it precious.

Uncharacteristically for the Lyin' King, he is telling us the truth about how he will use our votes, i.e., for or against him. Depending on which way things go in any given state. His actions and words are telling us that our one unalienable right as American citizens will not be necessary if only the numbers can be fudged . . . ahead of time, no less. Believe it or not!

The Lyin' King knows he is staring down a possible landslide and that he will have to ratchet up not only the lies but the actual things he must do right before our lying eyes. We are witnesses to the man-boy with the hatchet cutting down the tree, cherries stuffed into his mouth, asking: "What tree?"

*www.mountvernon.org

**/https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/questions-and-answers/100q.pdf