Michael Bresciani
2009 the year of the lie - - 2010 the year of reckoning
By Michael Bresciani
Those who think truth is a relative mix of situation ethics, existentialist mind wresting and just doing what feels good, usually don't bother with questions about what is true.
Those who seek only the truth stand in shock when they discover how few people care about the truth altogether. This is what we call a sad truth.
Trying to keep up on current events is hard enough but trying to keep up with the latest fabulous falsehoods, fickle phantasms, feints, fibs, fabrications and flip flops of the far left, Dem's and liberals who now follow the President in metered step is completely exhausting.
The task of following the lies is daunting so I thought I'd just jot down every lie or flip flop that only the President made since he began to run for office. I couldn't keep up with that either. To my surprise I found a few websites that were already engaged in cataloging those lies. One site has a list of over 150 specific lies the President has told in slightly less than two years.
Unfortunately one or two little websites on the backwaters of that vast informational ocean we call the internet doesn't draw very much attention from anyone. With only one TV news agency that still endeavors to tell the truth (Fox) and the other half dozen major outlets doing most of their reporting from the hip pocket of the President, most of America it could be said, is walking in the dark.
Even more disturbing is the fact that many of them prefer to take the walk down liar's lane rather than cutting through the barrage of rhetoric, exaggeration, hyperbole, deviance and political baloney. Who wants to cut through a thick jungle if there's a nice clean paved road to the same destination? The trouble with that easier PC road is that it doesn't always lead to the place a person or a nation wants to be.
Americans who are dedicated to the truth find themselves frantically swimming back to the lighthouse each time another politician, educator, news anchor or mindless minion wrecks yet another ship in this grand old fleet called the United States of America. If we named our years like the Chinese then 2009 might be called 'the year of the lie.' Those sick of witnessing national shipwrecks have already begun to name 2010 the 'year of reckoning.'
Perhaps it is what caused actor Ben Stein to say recently that he thought President Obama is unconsciously wrecking America all the while he believes he's doing what is good for us all. Perhaps it is the same unconscious drive that brought over a million people to the inauguration of the President in Washington DC, even though not one of them was actually formally invited.
The only way to gather a million people anywhere is to give something away. There is never an empty seat in the audience of the Price is Right or the nightly broadcast of Wheel of Fortune or the venues where Oprah gave away cars to some of those in the audience. The promise made on the day of the Obama inauguration was that 'change' was about to begin. In order to give change a chance, something had to be given away, to the astonishment of those now carefully following Obama's antics, appointments and approbations it seems he is prepared to give the whole country away.
It is said that people who don't want to face the apparent truth simply deny what they see. That may work fine for the simple follower but leaders are straddled with the task of creating an alternate truth for the remaining folks who still want the real answer and for the record itself. Here is where a leader creates a truth to substitute for real events in real time. Sounds like double speak, so let's see if we can find one prime example.
After the attempt to blow up a Detroit bound flight on Christmas Eve the suspected terrorist was taken to hospital and security agencies scrambled to piece together what went wrong. With access to the reports of every major intelligence agency, several days on the beaches of Hawaii to collect his thoughts and an entire nation waiting in the wings for a chance to hear the assessment of the events and what could be known of the suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, here's what we got. Mr. Obama labeled him as an "isolated extremist" and returned to the lavish beaches of Hawaii. This is an alternate truth from what looks like an alternate universe.
We all accept the whimsical notion that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' but has the extreme political correctness of the day finally put truth under the same maxim? Is truth only in the eye of the beholder? In fact some things are just plain ugly regardless of who is doing the beholding. The truth is just like that; it stands on its own with or without anyone's support or recognition. It's OK to see Mr. Abdulmutallab as a terrorist even as we wait for the President to catch up to the truth.
The ugly truth is that we now know that Mr. Abdulmutallab had strong ties to Al Qaeda and should not have been allowed so much as a chance to fly a kite over the United States much less to board an airplane bound for one of our major cities.
The nation seems to be splitting into two camps, one I call the Pontius Pilate crowd and the other is the band of faithful that think truth not only can be known but it was incarnated in the person (Jesus Christ) who said he was the truth (Jn 14:6) Those in the other camp make box office history by attending movies about vampires and avatars then sit around in college classrooms, discussion groups and TV punditry spectacles debating the old Pontius Pilate nonsensical and dishonest retort of "what is truth?" (Jn 18:38)
If someone never knew the truth or if they still need to ask the question of what it is, doesn't it seem that this would be the last person we would want to elect to public office? Not today.
Truth is never relative and it is not born of convenient similitude. Al Gore's inconvenient truth is one such example. In spite of serious dissent from the scientific community, doctored scientific evidence and a biblical promise that global warming will not be what brings down the rise of man it still looks that way, so why give it up?
Cronies of Darwinism fare no better. If we look like monkeys we must have come from monkeys the millions of missing links notwithstanding. The Darwin scheme has seen its better day since the advent of creation science but why give it up?
If we insist on discovering truth by loose associations then what is the difference between Bernie Madoff's robbery of billions of dollars and Barack Obama's nine trillion dollar debt bequeathed to our grandchildren. If it looks like a Ponzi scheme then who should we put in jail, can we say for sure? If we followed the same protocols we did for Darwinism and global warming then we must conclude that if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck then it must be a duck.
Just when we are nearly convinced that we have a duck, we hear a zipper and out of the duck costume steps a man who says just because it looks like socialism, just because it looks like a Robin Hood complex, don't worry it's not socialism or her nasty twin communism, it's really something called 'change.' Here is where we might want to hear someone say amen but we could even settle for a duh if there's a teenager in the house.
The other truth about those who can't seem to identify the truth is that they are never true to much of anything with the exception of their own personal interests.
It is recorded no less than eight times in the four gospels that Jesus said "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." It is puzzling only because almost everyone he spoke to had perfectly good ears. The mystery vanishes when it is seen that all that is heard that has any lasting value was said to come from revelation. The best example is when Jesus asked his disciples who men thought he was. They offered a few answers but then he asked them who they thought he was. Peter answered that he was the Son of the Living God.
Christ said he indeed was correct but then he said "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." (Mt 16:17) Truth was not relative to what surrounds it or what speculations accompany it. According to Christ rather than being relative it was revelational.
When something is revealed it is God breathed and it passes out of the normal spectrum of time. It is not just an old thing from the past or a piece of the future somehow made known in the present. It is from the realm of the eternal. Such truth will withstand every test of time, it will outlast everything cast against it and when all lesser truths become moth eaten memories long since forgotten, the truth of God will be seen to establish a kingdom that will never end.
The last but equally important thing about truth that comes from revelation is that it is always applied truth. It is never general proverbial wisdom or mere 'take it or leave it' moral-isms and pious platitudes. It speaks to one person, a nation or the entire world and does not require the assent of the hearer to be true. It is never truth in the eye of the beholder. Because it is from eternity it crosses generational lines and there is never a time when it is not true, it applies in every moment of time, past, present and future.
Here is one of those truths. Be it president or pauper the Lord hates lies. The source of lies (Jn 8:44) has not changed since the days of antiquity; the result of lies is always the demise of the liar and those who believe those lies.
America was not founded on lies, it has for a time followed a few crafty pied pipers but not for long. It is this great nation that produced great minds like that of Abraham Lincoln. He addressed the business of piping an alluring song to the people to misguide them. Yes, we have all read it at some time or another but let's look at it once again as we start the new year of 2010.
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time." Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
© Michael Bresciani
January 3, 2010
Those who think truth is a relative mix of situation ethics, existentialist mind wresting and just doing what feels good, usually don't bother with questions about what is true.
Those who seek only the truth stand in shock when they discover how few people care about the truth altogether. This is what we call a sad truth.
Trying to keep up on current events is hard enough but trying to keep up with the latest fabulous falsehoods, fickle phantasms, feints, fibs, fabrications and flip flops of the far left, Dem's and liberals who now follow the President in metered step is completely exhausting.
The task of following the lies is daunting so I thought I'd just jot down every lie or flip flop that only the President made since he began to run for office. I couldn't keep up with that either. To my surprise I found a few websites that were already engaged in cataloging those lies. One site has a list of over 150 specific lies the President has told in slightly less than two years.
Unfortunately one or two little websites on the backwaters of that vast informational ocean we call the internet doesn't draw very much attention from anyone. With only one TV news agency that still endeavors to tell the truth (Fox) and the other half dozen major outlets doing most of their reporting from the hip pocket of the President, most of America it could be said, is walking in the dark.
Even more disturbing is the fact that many of them prefer to take the walk down liar's lane rather than cutting through the barrage of rhetoric, exaggeration, hyperbole, deviance and political baloney. Who wants to cut through a thick jungle if there's a nice clean paved road to the same destination? The trouble with that easier PC road is that it doesn't always lead to the place a person or a nation wants to be.
Americans who are dedicated to the truth find themselves frantically swimming back to the lighthouse each time another politician, educator, news anchor or mindless minion wrecks yet another ship in this grand old fleet called the United States of America. If we named our years like the Chinese then 2009 might be called 'the year of the lie.' Those sick of witnessing national shipwrecks have already begun to name 2010 the 'year of reckoning.'
Perhaps it is what caused actor Ben Stein to say recently that he thought President Obama is unconsciously wrecking America all the while he believes he's doing what is good for us all. Perhaps it is the same unconscious drive that brought over a million people to the inauguration of the President in Washington DC, even though not one of them was actually formally invited.
The only way to gather a million people anywhere is to give something away. There is never an empty seat in the audience of the Price is Right or the nightly broadcast of Wheel of Fortune or the venues where Oprah gave away cars to some of those in the audience. The promise made on the day of the Obama inauguration was that 'change' was about to begin. In order to give change a chance, something had to be given away, to the astonishment of those now carefully following Obama's antics, appointments and approbations it seems he is prepared to give the whole country away.
It is said that people who don't want to face the apparent truth simply deny what they see. That may work fine for the simple follower but leaders are straddled with the task of creating an alternate truth for the remaining folks who still want the real answer and for the record itself. Here is where a leader creates a truth to substitute for real events in real time. Sounds like double speak, so let's see if we can find one prime example.
After the attempt to blow up a Detroit bound flight on Christmas Eve the suspected terrorist was taken to hospital and security agencies scrambled to piece together what went wrong. With access to the reports of every major intelligence agency, several days on the beaches of Hawaii to collect his thoughts and an entire nation waiting in the wings for a chance to hear the assessment of the events and what could be known of the suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, here's what we got. Mr. Obama labeled him as an "isolated extremist" and returned to the lavish beaches of Hawaii. This is an alternate truth from what looks like an alternate universe.
We all accept the whimsical notion that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' but has the extreme political correctness of the day finally put truth under the same maxim? Is truth only in the eye of the beholder? In fact some things are just plain ugly regardless of who is doing the beholding. The truth is just like that; it stands on its own with or without anyone's support or recognition. It's OK to see Mr. Abdulmutallab as a terrorist even as we wait for the President to catch up to the truth.
The ugly truth is that we now know that Mr. Abdulmutallab had strong ties to Al Qaeda and should not have been allowed so much as a chance to fly a kite over the United States much less to board an airplane bound for one of our major cities.
The nation seems to be splitting into two camps, one I call the Pontius Pilate crowd and the other is the band of faithful that think truth not only can be known but it was incarnated in the person (Jesus Christ) who said he was the truth (Jn 14:6) Those in the other camp make box office history by attending movies about vampires and avatars then sit around in college classrooms, discussion groups and TV punditry spectacles debating the old Pontius Pilate nonsensical and dishonest retort of "what is truth?" (Jn 18:38)
If someone never knew the truth or if they still need to ask the question of what it is, doesn't it seem that this would be the last person we would want to elect to public office? Not today.
Truth is never relative and it is not born of convenient similitude. Al Gore's inconvenient truth is one such example. In spite of serious dissent from the scientific community, doctored scientific evidence and a biblical promise that global warming will not be what brings down the rise of man it still looks that way, so why give it up?
Cronies of Darwinism fare no better. If we look like monkeys we must have come from monkeys the millions of missing links notwithstanding. The Darwin scheme has seen its better day since the advent of creation science but why give it up?
If we insist on discovering truth by loose associations then what is the difference between Bernie Madoff's robbery of billions of dollars and Barack Obama's nine trillion dollar debt bequeathed to our grandchildren. If it looks like a Ponzi scheme then who should we put in jail, can we say for sure? If we followed the same protocols we did for Darwinism and global warming then we must conclude that if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck then it must be a duck.
Just when we are nearly convinced that we have a duck, we hear a zipper and out of the duck costume steps a man who says just because it looks like socialism, just because it looks like a Robin Hood complex, don't worry it's not socialism or her nasty twin communism, it's really something called 'change.' Here is where we might want to hear someone say amen but we could even settle for a duh if there's a teenager in the house.
The other truth about those who can't seem to identify the truth is that they are never true to much of anything with the exception of their own personal interests.
It is recorded no less than eight times in the four gospels that Jesus said "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." It is puzzling only because almost everyone he spoke to had perfectly good ears. The mystery vanishes when it is seen that all that is heard that has any lasting value was said to come from revelation. The best example is when Jesus asked his disciples who men thought he was. They offered a few answers but then he asked them who they thought he was. Peter answered that he was the Son of the Living God.
Christ said he indeed was correct but then he said "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." (Mt 16:17) Truth was not relative to what surrounds it or what speculations accompany it. According to Christ rather than being relative it was revelational.
When something is revealed it is God breathed and it passes out of the normal spectrum of time. It is not just an old thing from the past or a piece of the future somehow made known in the present. It is from the realm of the eternal. Such truth will withstand every test of time, it will outlast everything cast against it and when all lesser truths become moth eaten memories long since forgotten, the truth of God will be seen to establish a kingdom that will never end.
The last but equally important thing about truth that comes from revelation is that it is always applied truth. It is never general proverbial wisdom or mere 'take it or leave it' moral-isms and pious platitudes. It speaks to one person, a nation or the entire world and does not require the assent of the hearer to be true. It is never truth in the eye of the beholder. Because it is from eternity it crosses generational lines and there is never a time when it is not true, it applies in every moment of time, past, present and future.
Here is one of those truths. Be it president or pauper the Lord hates lies. The source of lies (Jn 8:44) has not changed since the days of antiquity; the result of lies is always the demise of the liar and those who believe those lies.
America was not founded on lies, it has for a time followed a few crafty pied pipers but not for long. It is this great nation that produced great minds like that of Abraham Lincoln. He addressed the business of piping an alluring song to the people to misguide them. Yes, we have all read it at some time or another but let's look at it once again as we start the new year of 2010.
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time." Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
© Michael Bresciani
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
