THE LIES

the lies, the lies; i am so sick of the lies. one could make a great start on a new direction for politics if any person elected to any office had to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, just as any person addressing a court of law must do. how can it be acceptable, accepted, commonplace, that when politicians speak we reflexively try to assign a sort of 'truth quotient' to everything they say? declarative statements are either true or untrue. i don't think we need to bother about what they say to their spouses, or children, or neighbors, but what they say to voters — both the ones who put them in office and the ones that tried to keep them out — that should be sacrosanct; there, the truth only should apply, and the penalties for lying (which is often only too easily proven) should be the same as for perjury; it's at least as important as that.