Thursday, January 12, 2017

The Normalization of Prevarication

Prevarication is lying, just so we are on the same page.  It can also mean in loose terms skirting around an issue in order to conceal the truth.  Either way we look at the definition I think we can agree when it comes to high stakes business or political positioning where human beings are affected, prevarication is not a tool, it is a vile weapon.

In business there are financial repercussions also known as Fiduciary Responsibilities so when something important to the representation of a business transaction is purposely fabricated, there are lawful penalties that result in financial and legal repercussions.

But in public service or politics, prevarication has little legal repercussions and has become a tool of dirty partisanship and tragically for Americans has been weaponized to distort reality and create ill will toward minorities, ethnic populations and genders.  Now we can argue till we’re blue who is using this more but when it is obvious and the electorate does not call it out and voice loudly that it is inappropriate then we have a real systemic problem.

When the electorate (you) does not call out our elected leaders for blatant lying and prevarication simply because you support that particular party or issue, then the access of evil has been accepted and endorsed.  Tolerating this blatant lying is a moral and spiritual cancer.  American’s are charged with the duty of policing our elected officials even after they are elected and especially after they are elected! 

This is critical because not doing so is unpatriotic and un-American and the damage to living breathing Americans is real and critical.  An issue dear to my heart is the privilege of being able to marry the person of my choice, in my case my partner of 30 years Steve.  When the Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that it was legal for same sex couples to Marry it carried with it 1100 rights and privileges we had no access to prior.  I have had many people say this is against their religious principles yet nowhere is anyone making these people Marry a same sex person.  It really is that simple. 

My one big example when I speak with people of faith is this; if Steve were to get hit by a car and ended up in the hospital, I could be denied access to his hospital room.  I would be outside while he was lying in dire pain, alone, afraid and then die without his life partner at his side. This is less than not acceptable, it’s inhumane.  Not likely to happen you say?  FUCK yeah it has happened!  A doctor that had a bigoted view of same sex relationships could deny access to the other partner.  Families that objected to their son of daughter’s partner would have the right to deny access to his or her's dying partner before Same Sex Marriage was legal nationwide.  To make matters worse the family could then steal all of their bank accounts, insurance policies and property leaving the partner with little or no recourse despite both having contributed equally to the joint estate.  This is merely one of the reasons that legal status for same sex marriage is so important.  From what I have seen most straight people take this privilege for granted as it is expected, but not me.

Now if you have heart felt religious objection to same sex marriage then you can exercise your 1st Amendment Right to voice that objection BUT you don’t have the right  impose your religious objection on others who do not share your religious conviction and make them do things they do not support.  Freedom of Religion and Freedom from Religion is the implicit 1st amendment division between church and state identifying individual and equal citizen protections and rights.  Freedom of Speech is exactly that, it is not the ability to deny another American the same rights and privileges that other American’s enjoy.  But that has come into question due to the prevarication that “Religious Freedom” should allow institutional and legislated division between American’s which is a bastardization of the concept of Freedom and is truly un-American.  But many have bit hard on the concept because it was a “manufactured concept” to manipulate the weak minded and impressionable.  Think about it, are you one of them?

The same could be said about abortion.  I fully understand the concept is horrific to many people of many faiths but enslaving a woman to carry to term a baby for whatever reason is violating her freedom to choose how she can treat her body literally strapping her down to a hospital gurney for 9 month forcing her to give birth.  I wonder how “people of faith” would react if a law were passed that said the man responsible for the pregnancy against the woman’s wishes would immediately have his balls cut off so he could not repeat the same transgression.  That would raise some eyebrows and drive home the point of not being in control of your body.  During the election debates Trump said "With what Hillary is saying, in the ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby."

This was a gross manipulation and a lie!  In reality 1.2% of abortions are performed after 21 weeks and most of them were for life threatening problems to the mother.  So the lie played well to the worked up Pro-lifers but it’s still a lie.  The same rhetoric about Planned Parenthood using Federal tax payer money for abortions is a blatant lie.  Federal funds by law are not used for abortions period and abortions account for only 3% of the services Planned Parenthood performs for Women, Teens and Men.  But the prevaricated rhetoric turned the public discourse to Planned Parenthood being an abortion mill.  That is a lie and a vile cancer that the public is being manipulated with, using lies to get the electorate worked into a frenzy to get the result some group wants at the expense of truth.   Reality TV has stolen our soul and reason and fed our contemptible desire to fight for some outrage at the expense of another American.  We must hold ourselves and our elected officials to a much higher standard of truth or we allow the country to be manipulated into a blind Fascist Oligarchy.

I have been vocal on what I liked and what I did not like about the Democratic Addenda and the Republican Addenda both of which were drafted at each party’s convention prior to the election.  No party has all the answers but the conversation about what and who we are as a nation and how we honor all American’s has to change.  My litmus test for a proposed law or change to a federal policy and services is as follows; does the change treat all American’s equally as well as benefit the majority.  We have to leave out the religious points of view because not all American’s share that faith.  We cannot legally cut out any one person due to gender, orientation, skin color, financial status or nation of origin for disparate treatment.

Lastly, we have to call out when our elected officials use prevarication and lies for the purpose of getting elected thru manipulation or to distort public perception and we must call it out quickly and terribly.  This was the failing of the media in this election and the failing of any American that only wants to see their party come to power at the expense of equality and fairness.  American Values have a basis in equality, fairness and freedom so anything that lessens this cannot be tolerated by us the electorate, the media or our elected officials.  It is time for a revolution of decency where all American’s are treated equally.  Women, men, gay, straight, trans, black, white, Asian, American Indian, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian, Hindi, the whole diverse pie that is America.


If you stand for only some American’s, you stand for nothing remotely American and shame on you and shame on us for letting America fail to express the promise of America’s heritage and founding principles of fairness and freedom. 

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