Telling Truth / Telling Lies | Eastern North Carolina Now

    I am getting concerned with truth these days. It is almost Christmas and telling lies is supposed to get you a lump of coal and bundle of switches. Here is what I mean:

    The first two paragraphs read:

    "The North Carolina Republican Party has a problem. Well, it's got a lot of them, but it's got one big one. The guy who's supposed to be the face and leader of their party can't tell the difference between the truth and a lie.

    It's one thing when he says that he won't sign any bill that further reduces access to abortion. Or that that he won't accept any tax reform that is not revenue neutral. Those are political issues and, while he may get slapped around during election season for flip-flopping, they aren't, by themselves, fatal missteps."

    The article goes on to cite issue after issue involving untruth.

    I have a problem with people who prevaricate. It started with our children and the stage in life where all children want to test their parents over what is true and what it made up. The first lesson we all teach is "tell the truth at all times, no matter what." We have growing young grandsons who have experienced a father who lied at every turn. He is my ex-son-in-law. The boys he influenced are slowly coming out of it. Our son has 2 children who are long over the lying stage of life. He learned the lesson of telling truth from us and practiced it carefully, even as a teenager. His boy and girl find it easy to tell the truth!

    I remember how I tried to lie as a child. My parents were slightly different. You could get away with it for longer with my mother than with my father. Their classic story on me was learning to read. My dad came in to my mother bragging about how good I could read. Daddy took my Dick and Jane book and sat me beside him and was equally amazed at my new skill. THEN he turned the pages to let me read another story. I could not do it! He discovered I had memorized the things with which I had impressed my mother. The second I was off to something testing my real reading skills, I was a fake!

    Perhaps this describes what is happening in politics these days. We have a bunch of "obsessed to please" people who are so bent on doing the dance to please that they have lost the ability to think and tell the truth. We know the power of money to influence the decisions in NC. We just finished the most expensive campaign in history between Thom Tillis and Kay Hagan. I thought she was honest and down-to-earth in every debate I witnessed, but Tillis won. . .

    All he could tout was how he was going to stop the President if he became our NC Senator. That was the puppet speaking for the Conservative mantra = "WE HATE OBAMA." I fail to see the wisdom of much Mr. Tillis and Mr. McCrory are doing. We have a budget not being met. It has nothing to do with too much spending. It has everything to do with a new state tax code greatly favoring the rich and corporations of NC. After several years of Republican leadership and actions, we are in a mess. Our teachers are underfunded despite an Education Lottery. Many public services are greatly curtailed or eliminated. Our State Mental Hospital is closed. Is it possible many of those dismissed patients went over to Legislative Hill from Dix Hill and got jobs with all the Conservatives---just asking . . .

    The last thing I cite is something long ago sold to us as Trickle Down Economics. Mr. Reagan was a great salesman. His thesis was --- if you lower the taxes on corporations and individuals they will spend the saved money expanding their business and growing America. Jobs will flourish and their tax savings will "trickle down" to us working people. It has been some 20 years since that promise and "great concept" went into practice. Under the George Bush Administration we had a Recession suddenly take place.

    My question is: "How long does a Recession have to last before it is, in reality, a Depression?

    I am a small businessman who cares for trees in home owner yards. Suddenly, my business went to nothing. It wasn't that people no longer cared about their yards and trees. It was the fact that such work is expensive and average people could no longer afford to have it done. Outside an ice storm or hurricane NOBODY is dealing with their trees. All of us in this line of business are struggling to survive, much less get ahead. I thank God I bought expensive equipment without financing it! It is not running that much, but it is not getting the normal wear and tear either. I have wanted to sell it, but all other people doing tree work can't buy it. They are trying just to stay in business with minimal spending like me.

    I used to work in high class yards of North Raleigh were people average $500,000 on their house. Some of my nicest customers were such people. They worked hard and were honest, but they no longer called for my services. Even those you might think were rich could not keep up their yards and trees as they had. They still hire yard service. It used to be twice weekly, but now it is once a week. Some have to do it themselves once more.

    Money is not "trickling down" for the simple reason the corporations and wealthy 1% are being stingy. The new building in industry is all overseas where labor is cheap and there are less stringent environmental regulations. The banking by the rich is offshore. Our US banks do not even have money to lend these days.

    Who lied to us????

    Are we smart enough as parents to catch our children in their lying stage of life and correct it?

    Is, perhaps, all the police brutality issue more related to children getting big without being taught to be honest and tell the truth?

    Maybe, the greatest problem is how we get lied to all the time by commercials, coupons, auto rebates, lottery wins

    and life these days is NOTHING BUT LIES AND DISTORTION????