Truth vs. Lies and Half Truths

Thomas Jefferson, a strong proponent of education, reportedly said, "An educated citizenry is a vital prerequisite for our survival as a free society." For many years I assumed he was primarily referring to formal education but as the USA and Canada have become more and more ideologically separated, I have changed my understanding of his statement to put the word informed in place of educated. As I reflect on my experience, that includes almost 40 years in and around Washington DC, where I witnessed "how the sauce is made" up close and personal, I am more convinced than ever that my modified understanding of Jefferson's concern is more and more relevant. If one takes an objective look at our so-called news outlets and concludes that they are non-partisan purveyors of the news and objective journalists, they must have dozed off in journalism 101. They are all propaganda machines for whichever political party that they are representing while being portrayed as reliable information resources to an uninformed public. They are just the opposite. I believe this has amplified our differences to the point that there seems to be no common ground. If this persists the free society that we all enjoy is doomed just as Jefferson prophesied. We have gotten to the point where we do not have an informed citizenry. We now have an indoctrinated citizenry fed by the biased press, that is nothing more than a propaganda arm of both major political parties.

Several years ago, my wife and I were on a Mediterranean cruise, and we had selected a shore excursion to a winery. Part of the visit to the winery was a luncheon which was served at one big table. My wife was seated by my side and on the other side there was a woman who I had not previously met, so we introduced each other. She was from Southern California, and upon learning that I lived in Mexico during the summer and in El Paso Texas the remainder of the year, she asked me what I had witnessed at the border, since I live very close to it. I told her that I have a close relationship with several senior people at the border patrol, and I know several ranchers whose property is right on the border, so I started to tell her what they had told me. About two sentences into my report her smile turned to a frown and her face turned red. She pointed her finger at my face a loudly exclaimed "you are a liar". She whipped her head around with her back to me and never looked at me again. I was stunned. After all, I live on the border, and she doesn't, and she asked for my input. I concluded that she didn't want the truth, only corroboration of the narrative that she already believed.

Since my report did not do that, I had to be lying.

It occurred to me that the majority of people in the USA do not live close to the border, and the input they are getting from the news outlets forms their opinion about what is happening there, and like the lady from California, who probably still thinks I am a liar, they are convinced that what they hear is the truth, and anything else has to be a lie.

I had a similar experience several decades earlier in Washington DC. At the time I was the president of an international trade association, and our association was a member of a small business lobby group.

Since I lived near DC at that time, I participated in lobbying on Capitol Hill and hearings relating to issues of importance to our members. After a day of participating in hearings many times I would go home and listen to the TV narrative of what had transpired that day and was shocked to hear a report that totally contradicted what I had witnessed. The bias of the press troubled me. The public would never hear what had actually transpired, only a version of it that fits their preconceived narrative. Anything else must be a lie. This was a scenario that repeated itself many times during my tenure in DC.

When I first began to participate with the small business lobby group I was introduced as "the only real person in the room." I quickly figured out that was code for I was neither an association professional nor a career politician as I was elected from the membership of my trade association as the president. This was to inform them to watch what they said around me as I might reveal their habit of justifying lying and bribing people to promote their cause to my membership, or more damaging, to the electorate at large. It is no wonder that many call Washington DC the swamp. These are the swamp creatures that live there and, in many cases, determine our destiny.

It doesn't take long for one to realize that everything in Washington DC works in a quid pro quo manner. Money talks and everything else is passed by and never gets to a vote. If that wasn't true, there would not be any lobby groups in DC spending billions of dollars. Did you ever wonder how almost all elected officials leave office much richer than when they arrived. That is not unique to one political party or the other. Sadly, it is true of all of them.

My growing concern for distorted reporting drove me to write a book titled Searching for Truth. It addresses major issues facing the USA and attempts to present enough impartial data for the reader to make more informed decisions.

My problem in conducting research for the book was in finding substantive data that contradicted the narrative being promoted by the mainstream press. That wasn't because everyone was in lock step with the version the press was promoting. It was because search engines prioritized the same information that the politicians and the mainstream press were promoting. It turned out it was a difficult, but not impossible task and, for the most part, I refrained from giving my own opinion, and, at the very least, provided the reader with data that they probably had not heard before, and left the decision making to them.

I was surprised to learn how many times the distorted version that the press promoted didn't outright lie about the issues, rather many times they just conveniently left out key facts that did not support their position. Half-truth is almost as bad as lying and leaves the consumer with insufficient data to make an informed decision. Both bring Jefferson's prophecy closer to reality.

Most people know that medical professionals that prescribe medications have the task of weighing the positive from the negative benefits of the drug they are prescribing. My doctors have always informed me of those facts when prescribing medications, allowing me to weigh the net benefit after hearing their input and make the final decision about using the prescribed drug.

We should demand the same consideration from our elected officials and if we don't feel they are doing that we should vote them out of office. As for me, just tell me the facts, all of them, and give me the opportunity to make an informed decision. I don't need anyone to tell me what I am hearing so forget the talking heads telling me what I heard.

How do we make informed decisions if we only hear one sanitized version of the issues? Worse than just hearing one version of any given situation is that what we hear is not all of what is really happening and has been tailored to influence us to support one political party's agenda or the other. Because we end up believing these lies and half-truths, we are driven even further apart. We have been inundated with this kind of narrative which has been a catalyst for many to move to Mexico to escape this non-stop barrage of misinformation.

I have talked to many who now make their home here in Mexico but have retained the political differences that they brought with them from the USA and Canada. Many say they moved here because they were fed up with what was happening in their respective countries but, in fact, they really brought it with them as it is a frequent topic of conversation.

I find that they are passionate about their beliefs that were based upon lies and half-truths to start with. Certainly, life moves slower here, and it is time to just chill out and leave the propaganda machine behind.

Author: Tim Eyerman