Honesty Is Such a Lonely Word

     Honesty. It’s such a simple word. It is much easier to be honest than to lie about anything. If you lie, you have to remember that lie and who you told it to. If you are honest, there is no worry about that. So why is it that everyone has to lie about so much?

     There are some people that will tell a lie so many times that they actually start to believe it as the truth. For generations mankind thought that the world was flat and if you sailed too far you would fall off. Really? Now, I understand that we were a very young and naïve people at that time but, common sense should tell a person that you can’t just fall off a planet. I could be wrong on that presumption, and I probably am, but still, me being the 20^th century person that I am I cannot understand any differently than I do. I did say 20^th, not 21^st, for a reason; I haven’t entered the 21^st century yet.

     Back to my topic: honesty. If people were honest instead of the lying, back-stabbing rumor-mongers that they are, the world would be a much better place. Politicians wouldn’t get elected that want nothing more than power, innocent people wouldn’t be incarcerated, or executed, for crimes they did not commit. Corruption wouldn’t exist because those that are corrupt wouldn’t have to be or they would be replaced by someone who wasn’t. Yes, if people were honest the world would be better off.

     The problem with that is that people aren’t honest. It seems to be ingrained into the human psyche to be dishonest and deceitful. It seems as though people have this inherent need to talk behind other’s backs, to lie to get what they want, to be corrupt, greedy, vain and hedonistic. People seem to need to downgrade by lying and rumor-mongering (a form of dishonesty) against others to make them feel better about themselves. People have to be intolerant of others because of differences then lie about those people.

     How about some examples? The Liberals vs. the Conservatives is a good one right now. Liberals are telling lies about what the Conservatives are saying and doing and the Conservatives are doing the same about the Liberals; and no one is willing to call either one of them out on their lies. The Muslims believe that the West is full of infidels and are the evil of the world (not that we aren’t in some ways) and the West is saying the same about the Muslims. There again, no one is willing to get to the bottom of anything because our respective governments are lying to us about everything. Lastly, every day, there is someone telling tall tales about someone else just to get them into trouble or destroy their lives.

     If King Obama was to be totally honest with the American people we would impeach him and throw him to the wolves, along with most of Congress. If ANY politician would be honest during their campaigns and then during their term of service, the country wouldn’t be divided against each other and most of those politicians wouldn’t even get close to being elected. I can say this about the King: he told us all, in his first campaign, what he wanted to do. He told us that he wanted to change the face of this country. He was honest in that respect, the people of this country just didn’t listen to what he was saying.

     If G.W. Bush would have been honest about Iraq and why he wanted to go back to war with them, would we have? Probably not. I don’t think that this country really would want to go to war against another country just for oil (which is why, in my opinion, we did not because of any terrorist act against this country). If the government was honest with the people I think we would have changed it out a long time ago. Why did G.H.W. Bush bomb Bagdad for three days and nights in 1990? It wasn’t to free Kuwait from Iraqi control. It was to free up the oil fields for us.

     Right now, with the Obama Administration fighting so hard to disarm America, would there be all these mass killings that are being mis-reported? Would the government cover up a lot of what they do to get what they want? Not if they were honest. I understand that there are some things the government cannot be forth-coming with or honest about when it comes to real national security but, most of what goes on inside the borders of this country should be totally transparent and open to the people. But, dishonesty and deceit are the name of the game.

     On a more local, personal side of this topic there are the innumerable times that some guy will go to a girl and tell her anything, anything at all, just to get down her pants. Girls will go to any length to keep some guy or destroy his life if they break up. If there was honesty, none of that would happen. My son, Mi Hijo, is as honest as they come. He will tell any girl that he will hurt them. If I can borrow a phrase from Zero Dark Thirty: I am bad news. I am not your friend. I will not help you. I will destroy you. Now, he isn’t that bad. He is one of those types that every girl should want. He is honest, kind, caring, a hopeless romantic and will do anything for anyone. The problem is this: he is a twenty year old guy that likes sex. Imagine that! He is true and loyal but he is also very particular. If a girl lies to him, he’s gone. He will be brutally honest with you and will do his very best to make you into the best you can be, whether you want to or not; therein lays the part that he will hurt them. He knows what he wants and if you can’t give it to him he will go elsewhere. He tells them that, what they do with it is up to them.

     Let’s get down and dirty now. How about those people that have to spread lies about someone because they don’t like them or because they are mad at them? I am the subject on this one. I have had my hometown turn against me because of lies. Rumor-mongers spread around that I am a dope-smoking, drug dealing alcoholic. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am subject to random drug tests because I drive a truck. I would lose my vocation if I got caught with drugs in my system. I don’t have money so I can’t be a dealer, unless I’m smoking or snorting up my profits which I can’t be because of my job so that lets that out. As for being an alcoholic- I drink a few occasionally. No one sees me inebriated because if I drink, I drink at home and don’t leave. The rumor-mongers, the liars, have gotten a whole town to believe that I am what I am not and no one is willing to even talk to me about it. Why should they? I am bad news and no one should even talk to me and, of course, I would lie about it if asked.

     I opened a gift store on the square, priced everything to save people money and tried to carry things that the people of this town would drive to Des Moines for. Saving money two ways: cheaper pricing and don’t have to waste gas. The liars, the rumor-mongers, spread that I opened a head-shop. Really? Candles, figurines, jewelry, incense, new age books and CDs are all things that are drug related. The only thing I carried that could be used as drug paraphernalia would be some tobacco pipes, rolling papers and cigarette rollers, priced cheaply because this town, this county, is extremely poor and a lot of people roll their own smokes. Yet, I opened a head-shop and no one, not one of these liars, would come in so that I could prove I was not what they said I was.

     Honesty would have kept my store open and probably saved a lot of people a lot of money. But, there again, people are not honest and people are not kind and people want to hurt others to make themselves feel better. Honesty is such a lonely word, but mostly what we need from everyone. Will anyone take this post to heart and even try to be a little bit more honest? I doubt it very much. It goes against the grain of most people to be honest. They act like they want to be, they say they are, they demand it from others when it would hurt them to be dishonest but, they can’t be honest themselves. Such a sad state of affairs and I wish to the gods in Valhalla that I could understand why it is so hard for people to be honest.