Dishonesty runs rampant when partisanship matters more than truth

By David McElroy · August 20, 2011

In his 1925 book, “Mein Kampf,” Adolph Hitler explained what he famously called “the big lie.” He said that if you tell a lie that’s big enough, people will believe it, because they have trouble believing someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” Even though he wrote 86 years ago, that’s the heart of the playbook of modern politics.

The latest example is an attack launched by some progressive left liberal sites on Rick Perry. Nobody could accuse me of being a Perry sympathizer, but I’m a big fan of the truth. The accusation from PoliticusUSA and DailyKos is nothing but the Big Lie. Here’s the lede on the DailyKos story:

“It seems that the GOP’s present white savior, Rick Perry, has a BIG porno problem. Back in 1995, when his bouffant hairdo was barely all the rage, Rick Perry invested thousands of dollars into Movie Gallery, Inc, a porn distributor company. It was the largest distributor of porn movies, and was even opposed by the conservative American Family Association….”

That sounds pretty dramatic and clear-cut. It would be pretty hypocritical of conservative Christian-talking Perry, wouldn’t it? The problem is that it’s misleading at best. Movie Gallery wasn’t a “porn distributor company.” It was a huge Alabama-based company that became the second largest movie rental chain in the country. It was Blockbuster‘s biggest competitor, back when movie rental chains still mattered.

Rick Perry seems to have been an early investor in Movie Gallery, which — like every video chain — had a small “red light district” with soft core porn that seemed to rent to men in overcoats and dark glasses when nobody was paying attention. Social conservative groups such as the American Family Association had tried to pressure all of the rental chains into dropping their skin flicks, but nothing ever came of it.

If you read the comments under the two articles that I linked earlier, you’ll find that the vast majority of commenters are blind to the facts, even though a couple of scattered people point out the truth. Here’s the sick and twisted truth about human nature that we don’t want to realize: People are much more interested in accepting something that supports what they already believe than in finding out the truth.

No party has a monopoly on this, because it seems to be human nature. It’s the same utter disregard for the facts that led the producers of this anti-Obama video to claim — despite their disclaimer — that Obama had “admitted” being Muslim and for others to produce dishonest images such as the one at right. It’s the same dishonesty that leads desperate liars and fools to make similar claims in every election and political contest.

I’m not really here to defend Rick Perry against charges about porn. Instead, I’m just asking for honesty and decency. I’m asking that we all examine the things we’re saying and ask ourselves whether we’re being fair and honest. In the heat of a battle, it’s easy to believe that destroying your opponent matters more than the truth, but that’s not the case. The opponent will be gone. You’ll move on. But the lies you tell will live on inside of you — and slowly corrode your character.

Some of your enemies are going to lie — about the people you support and even about you. Some of your allies are going to do the same thing. Treat them both with the same standard. Make it clear to both of them that truth and character are more important than any particular dispute.

More than anything, though, hold yourself to a higher standard. In the end, you’ll feel cleaner and you’ll know that you have continued to improve yourself while others slid down into the abyss of lies. It’s worth it.

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It was five years ago tonight when Lucy first rode in the car with me. She was on her way to her “forever home” with me that night, but she didn’t know it, so she was terrified. It was a much happier and braver girl who took a ride in the car tonight so we could go through a drive-through window and order a hamburger for her — to celebrate five years with me. She had a great time. If she could remember five years ago tonight, she would be proud of how far she’s come, too. If you’d like to know more about Lucy’s journey from scared dog to brave queen of the household, here’s something I wrote after her first year with me. I’m hoping this girl will have many more happy years with me.

I’ve never been attracted to skinny women. There’s nothing wrong with someone who’s naturally thin, but it’s never been my preference. What has shocked me, though, is the judgment I’ve heard from women all through my life — about themselves and others — about who’s “fat.” I concluded long ago that most women in our culture have been brainwashed to believe that skinny is attractive — and that anything other than skinny is ugly. I first assumed that I was the oddball — for preferring women with bigger and heavier bodies — but I’m coming to the conclusion that most men naturally feel this way to one extent or another. I just ran across new research by a couple of Northwestern University psychology professors that shows that women seriously overestimate how much a straight man will be attracted to a skinny woman. In a perfect world, we would all be at a healthy weight, but when it comes to attractiveness, too heavy is more attractive than skinny. At least to me — and to a lot of men, too.

Years ago, I heard a question that seemed very insightful at the time. You’ve probably heard it, too. What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? The question is intended to help you uncover things you really want to do, but which you’re afraid to try — for fear of failure. In an interview today, I heard the great marketing guru Seth Godin give a different point of view. He said the better question is to ask what you would do even if you knew it would fail. That struck me as far more insightful than the original version. We ought to be doing what we know is right, not what will maximize our success or praise from others. There are some battles that are worth fighting even if you believe you’re doomed to failure. Those battles are often for love or important ideas or our children. Some things are simply worth fighting for — and the truth is that you might win anyway. Do the right thing. Take the chance.

The more I understand about myself, about human nature and about the nature of reality, the more I realize I’m a radical by the standards of both Modernism and Postmodernism. Seeing the things which I’m stumbling toward makes me an enemy of many of the core ideas upon which contemporary culture is built. It exposes the culture as a monstrous lie — like a dangerous infection that’s slowly destroying what human were created to be. My “inner observer” has always known that truth was found in the ideas of the Enlightenment, but I’m slowly finding words to explain what has merely been instinct until now. The Enlightenment was humanity’s great leap forward, but shallow and arrogant thinkers for the next two centuries threw away the fruits of that achievement. We can’t go forward as a species until we go back to correct this intellectual and spiritual error — and part of that is acknowledging that our collective attempts to do away with our Creator will always fail.

I’ve come to believe that some of us — including me — aren’t very good at knowing how to be happy. I don’t mean that in the sense that happy talk and positive thinking should be able to make us happy regardless of the circumstances. I mean that some of us had so much experience with being unhappy when we were young that we were trained to be unhappy — and that being happy is an unconsciously uncomfortable thing. When I look at times in my past when I should have been happy, it rarely lasted. I believe now that I found reasons to be unhappy — and caused real problems for myself — because being comfortable and happy felt so foreign to my programming. If I’m right, this means that some of us have to do more than just change our circumstances. It means we have to learn how to accept the happiness that we unconsciously fear we don’t deserve.

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