Keep turning over the rocks
Jim Thompson
By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist
Former FBI director James Comey is the latest prominent Washingtonian to appear to be wishing malfeasance on the current president. He is being investigated by the Secret Service.
The mainstream media is now self-reporting on their bad acts during the Biden Administration.
Exhibit One: Jake Tapper’s book forthcoming book, “Original Sin.”
Trust in the officials in Washington and trust in the media are at an all-time low. Integrity is hard to find.
Why is this?
Going back a number of decades, I remember vaguely when the idea that truth is what you define it to be came into vogue. I want to say this was around the late 1960s, but I am not sure.
Go to Wikipedia and look up “truth” and you will get little help. Reading what looks like an approximately 10,000-word treatise to define a five-letter word is not comforting to me.
I prefer the quizzes on truth from the mothers in the greatest generation (like my mother) to define truth. Standing before the judgment of this juggernaut, one did not dare not tell the truth. OK, maybe I got by with a little lie once in a while, but it was extremely infrequent.
Today, politicians and the media lie with abandon. And for you Democrats who think only the Republicans lie and for you Republicans who think only the Democrats lie, you are both wrong.
In our political system, the judiciary is supposed to be the final arbiter of truth. However, we have seen the judiciary turned upside down as well.
But we can’t give up, for without truth, we really have nothing. It may be that it must be thrashed out in the court of public opinion these days, but we should not stop the trashing.
Or turning over the rocks. Turning rocks over often reveals the snakes. The snake enticing Eve to eat the fruit is the original sin and the original lie. We must not forget this.
Today’s liars are accomplished at their avocation. They are all around us. They are as polished as the snake-oil salesman.
We need to constantly evaluate matters we encounter and test them with the standards of the mothers of old like my mother and hopefully, yours.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.