If you tell a lie and tell it intentionally and repeatedly, what does that say about you? Lies are generally held to be detrimental to society and the people who tell them; stories about this being part and parcel of our fables and myths. We have “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” as being one of the earliest examples of this type of story with more than a few modern takes on it filling the shelves of your local library. The moral of that fable is that one cannot believe a liar even when he tells the truth and that everyone suffers for it. All of the major religions have that their particular gods hate lies and liars. Indeed, the only time a lie seems to have any good ramifications is when a lie is told to protect someone from being harmed by people who are also breaking other rules of society, such as when lies were told to the Nazis when people were hiding those they would kill.
For all of the pious prating we’ve been hearing from political candidates, we’ve seen an explosion of lies being told recently though and being told by those who would attempt to wield power in the United States. There are always lies told during elections by both sides, quote-mining to misrepresent what was said, manipulations of statistics and indeed outright lies. But it seems worse now than ever before, and these lies are told for the express purpose of restricting rights to American citizens and to scare and mislead the public so they are not able to make informed decisions. And it seems that the Republican Party, the Tea Party and extreme religious conservatives are doing the vast bulk of it. Considering that the Christian religion and the Christian bible has repeated admonitions against lying and liars, one would wonder, like the boy who cried wolf, are they to be trusted at all about *anything* they say?
We have had Rick Santorum who is a self-professed Catholic who has lied and who has not admitted it or apologized for it despite his lies having been easily demonstrated. What does it say about a man who thinks that his constituency is too stupid or too lazy to check up on him, willing to use anything at his disposal to be elected? We had him lie about euthanasia in the Netherlands: (Colbert making fun of Santorum’s speaking from the “heart” aka inept lies: http://gawker.com/5893801/stephen-colbert-addresses-the-lies-that-rick-santorum-believes-in-his-heart and about how universities in California not teaching American history, http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/apr/03/rick-santorum/rick-santorum-says-american-history-not-available-/ both extremely easy to show as real whoppers. He’s also lied about the Affordable Care Act, a desperate hateful man claiming that it would prevent those who need healthcare from getting it. As this Forbes magazine article shows, he’s simply wrong and his claims are lies: http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/02/25/rick-santorums-despicable-and-hurtful-health-care-lie/ As far as I know, he’s never admitted he was wrong. Will he take the opportunity?
We have Mitt Romney, a Mormon who is sure his faith is the “true” one, lying that Obama is the one responsible for the national debt. Funny how no stats support that at all. He intentionally keeps up the lie that Obama will take away guns, playing on an ignorant and indeed ridiculous fear that depends on paranoia and the stubborn refusal to acknowledge reality. We have his campaign claiming that there is no war on women and that if there was one, it’s “really” the Democrats, ignoring that every single bill, federal and state, that works to eliminate the free choice of women for their health care, to not require equal wages, etc was written by a Republican. What I find even worse is Mr. Romney’s being too cowardly to speak out against people who have repeatedly and without evidence claimed that President Barak Obama is not a citizen. Sorry, Mitt, but tacitly accepting such lies makes you a liar too. For all of the claims of evidence that supports such a pitiful lie, from Sherrif Arapaio to Donald Trump, they’ve all failed to produce it. Lots of excuses and lots of lies like any set of conspiracy nuts.
We have David Barton, an evangelical Christian and Republican mouthpiece, repeatedly lying about the founding of the United States, and again being easily shown to be a liar but not being repentant about it at all. He indeed bears false witness against Thomas Jefferson, attempting to claim he was something he was not, that being a Christian in Barton’s warped image. Happily, truthful books about Jefferson have been written, and even written by conservative Christians who show that Barton is anything but honest or honorable: http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Jefferson-Right-President-ebook/dp/B007ZUDUAU
And we of course have our own Pennsylvanians who are liars too. We have Rep. Caltagirone who wants to make believe that prayer does anything in his attempt to sneak in a house resolution that makes a national day of prayer in PA. We have Gov. Corbett who wants to claim that there is massive voter fraud in PA and that we need more hoops to jump through to be allowed to vote, but golly didn’t find any of this fraud when he was Attorney General and didn’t do a thing about this supposed fraud until he needed to control who voted for whom in PA. Gov. Corbett also wants to force women to have unnecessary medical procedures and to be “shamed” into not having an abortion of their choosing by making doctors show them ultrasounds, and laughingly saying that women can simply “close their eyes”. We have Representative Kathy Rapp in cahoots with him on this one, having authored the bill for this and having lied in trying to claim it wasn’t to change the woman’s mind about the procedure. How typically inept and again seeming assuming that people are too stupid or too lazy to be allowed to make an informed decision. How “flattering” for their constituents.
PA Representative Saccone added onto the lies told by trying to claim that it should be the Year of the Bible in PA, for 2012, again making up lies wholesale in an attempt to sell his nonsense about how important the bible is. And he continued here. HR 535 was yet one more attempt to sneak such pandering nonsense into the official record of Pennsylvania. You never hear about these bills and resolutions until after someone blows the whistle on them. Why is such secrecy needed if the legislator in question honestly thinks that most people agree with him?
And finally, we have a new lie told by Representative Metcalfe, yet one more Republican in our hall of shame. This time the lies are being told to again attack women’s right to have decent health care by lying about Planned Parenthood. Here’s what he said
“Across the United States, Planned Parenthood performs an abortion every 95 seconds on 91 percent of all the pregnant mothers that walk through their doors. For every one adoption referral made by America’s largest abortion-on-demand provider, 391 babies are aborted. Each year, Planned Parenthood aborts more than 320,000 innocent lives and over 16,000 of those abortions occur in Pennsylvania. Regardless of their position on abortion, Pennsylvania taxpayers must no longer be forced to subsidize the loss of innocent lives. In reality, women in Pennsylvania will be healthier and the children safer when we permanently defund Planned Parenthood and its anti-family agenda. I encourage every taxpaying Pennsylvanian to contact his or her respective state lawmakers and demand an end to all state funding for Planned Parenthood through final passage of the Whole Woman’s Health Funding Priorities Act.”
And, again, it’s a lie. No, Rep. Metcalfe, Planned Parenthood does not perform abortions on 91% of the pregnant women who come to it for health care. It is a shame that you must intentionally lie in your attempts to force your religion and your personal beliefs on others. That you called your bill HB 2405 the “Whole Woman’s Health Funding Priorities Act” is a sad statement on just how much you are willing to lie to get your way. There is nothing in this bill that supports women’s health or that makes it a priority. It is just one more bit of pandering. I am however surprised that Rep. Metcalfe, et al haven’t resorted to the latest thing that Republicans attempt to do lately in Kansas and New Hampshire: repeating the false claim that abortions cause breast cancer and trying to force doctors to repeat this lie in any communications with their patient. The American Cancer Society says that’s wrong and a lie.
I wonder, will you try to keep the ACS from any federal or state funding since they also dare to reject your nonsense and demonstrate your kind as liars? If your cause is so right, why do you depend on lies to remove the chance people have to make an informed decision about it?
Here’s the rest of the representatives who want to take funding away from women’s health and who by signing on have accepted Metcalfe’s lies. Yep, the usual suspects are there too. I wonder how many of them have supported legislation to allow parents of all types to adopt children? It seems that along with working against allowing homosexual couples to have the same rights as heterosexual ones, they aren’t interested in getting kids off the foster roles either by their working with the American Family Associate of Pennsylvania, which indeed doesn’t care about American families at all, wanting to only have families they approve of be considered acceptable. My, they certainly do get their bloomers in a bunch when they rail against children having loving parents.
METCALFE – R , RAPP – R, AUMENT – R, BARRAR – R, BEAR – R, BLOOM – R, BOYD – R, BROOKS – R, CAUSER – R, COX – R, CREIGHTON – R, CUTLER – R, DENLINGER – R, DUNBAR – R, ELLIS – R, FLECK – R , GILLEN – R, HARRIS – R, HESS – R, HICKERNELL – R, HUTCHINSON – R, KAUFFMAN – R, KNOWLES – R, KRIEGER – R, MALONEY – R, METZGAR – R, MOUL – R, REESE – R, ROAE – R, ROCK – R, SACCONE – R, SONNEY – R, STERN – R, SWANGER – R, TALLMAN – R.
Now, one can make a mistake and be honorable enough to admit it and recant. But we have yet to see anyone who has made such a mistake accept responsibility for doing so.
The only good thing out of this is that by their actions one can easily see who is willing to do what for power and control. In this age of information, we can see what lies they are willing to tell to make the United States into a placed based on convenient lies used to control the population, to create a fantasy history where only white men are in power and have done no wrong, where everyone marches in lockstep to one authoritarian power claiming divine approval. And yes, if that sounds familiar to you, it’s because it is. The US has fought against such people in the past. Now we have to make sure they aren’t our future by confronting every lie told.
Club Schadenfreude 