So much is trimmed, redacted and altered and filtered, and censored these days that when someone is actually honest, actually cuts through the bullshit, it’s like a slap in the face. Who is this fucking Orwellian lunatic?
We have become so complacent with being lied to that if someone pulls the giant curtain back on the wizard, we think they’re being incredibly rude and insensitive. Bold-faced or little and white or even unintentional, a lie is a lie. Period. We can conjure up all the excuses we want. Justify until we’re blue in our big fat liar faces. Misleading and misrepresenting are just bloated $10 words for a fib. We dress up deception and parade it around as truth, all the while knowing we are full of shit. As they say, a pig with lipstick is still a pig.
Above the door to the Oval Office hangs an oak and brass sign that reads ‘Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur’, Latin for “the world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived.”See, that's actually a lie, but you probably thought “seems legit” or maybe even thought “no way... but there probably should be”. The point is, lying is too easy, and we accept it too readily.
Omission is a lie. Redirection is a lie. Distorting facts is a lie. Stretching the truth is a lie. Withholding facts is a lie. They are all lies. We pull a shit ton of wool over a whole lotta eyes. Breaking a promise you had no intention of ever keeping, covering up for others, and good old-fashioned hypocrisy are, you guessed it, lies. We have become a nation of extremely good liars. A society with so many pants on fire, you can see it from space.
We repeatedly promote our most proficient tricksters and shoot the messengers, sugarcoat our distasteful half-truths, and collectively swallow, and until we recognize how deceitful and twisted and dystopian things have become, valued characteristics like integrity and honour will wither and die on the vine. Honest.
@originallandlockedmariner
This exceptional piece was written by a writer whom I respect immensely