Is a prez above the law? Is just being himself when he lies reason enough to let it go? Inquiring minds wanna know. The lying tweets that are being released convulsively and loose cannony by the frantic donjohn are being recorded.
People like to "classify" their lies (white lies, bold-faced lies, etc.). That way they can justify their telling of them. Nowadays lying is commonplace in our society. We tell them to our bosses, our spouses, our children, our friends... and we rarely think anything of it. It's just "what you do". Yet, despite our casual use of lies, we all hate being lied to. It's rather paradoxical that people go around telling lies to others, yet when they find out that they've been lied to, they get irate. We teach our kids not to lie and will even discipline them if we catch them doing it. However, we'll turn right around and lie to others - right in front of our children. Is it any wonder lying has become so commonplace? People claim that they have to in order to survive in life, yet when their leaders lie, they quickly jump on them as if lying were a capital offence. Double standard?
Yes, "a lie is a lie is a lie", but we've lied so much that we've changed it to say, "a lie is only a lie if you get caught telling it". The only thing a lie does is deceive. However, not only can it deceives others, but it can also deceive the one telling it. If we lie often enough, we'll begin to believe our lie is truth. For when we lie, we must tell another lie to keep the first lie from being discovered. Then we must lie again to keep the second lie, as well as the first lie, from being discovered. After awhile we’re lying so much that we forget what the truth even was.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive” - Sir Walter Scott
I think you may have missed my point, or I may have misstated it (forgive me). Let me try to explain (hopefully without making it worse). I’m not saying everyone is a “liar” (as in we constantly lie), but rather that everyone does lie - even me (and the last time was probably at church Sunday morning). Unfortunately, we (may) do it more often than we realize.
According to the dictionary, a lie is -
1- a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood
2- to speak falsely or utter untruth knowingly, as with intent to deceive.
Given this definition, telling a dying person they look beautiful when in fact they look like crap isn’t, technically, a lie (flattery) as it isn’t meant to deceive, but rather to uplift. The reason we tell them that is because we love them. If we didn’t love them, we sure wouldn’t tell them that (people don’t bash or disrespect people they truly love).
In general, we teach our kids not to lie (I’m sure you parents taught you that as well). We tell them what a lie is (the definition given above). Yet we, as parents (again, generalizing here), turn right around and lie in front of our children. (i.e. we call in sick to work just to get the day off we tell someone we meet that “I’m fine”, when in fact we have the flu and feel like death warmed over, we tell a dying person they look beautiful when our child can clearly see (from his point of view) that they are as ugly as crap, and so forth). As adults, we don’t usually think of these as “lies”, yet according to the dictionary definition, they are. Now, from our kids (non-adult) point of view, they see that it’s OK for mommy and daddy to lie, but if they do, they get in trouble. Perhaps you saw this when you were a child (or maybe not). Kids learn more from what their parents do than from what they say (actions speak louder than words).
I also said that people hate being lied to. Do you like being lied to? I sure hate it (be it a friend, the president, or whoever). Yet when we lie to them, we (usually) think nothing of it. “So I called in sick to work when I wasn’t… it’s not like they didn’t owe me a day off.” We kind of forget what it’s like on the receiving end of a lie (i.e. when one person calls in sick means it means those who did come in have to cover for that person.