A prominent Rock Island attorney once told me that “if a man lacks integrity, he is unfit to be a judge -- even if he possesses the wisdom of Solomon, all the legal ability in the world, a God-like temperament, and passion for work.”
If you are a woman, would you marry a man who you know to be an habitual liar? Who lies in matters large and small? Why? For wealth? Security?
Would you hire an attorney who lies as the means to achieve his ends? A compulsive liar? A man without integrity who lies to you?
Would you employ a doctor who lies? A doctor who you knew would recommend hip replacement surgery, even if he knew you didn’t need it? Simply to get rich?
In just over three months, we will elect a president of the United States. Are you willing to elect a liar?
The next president will have power to send your children to death. If you elect a known liar, how could you ever trust him when he or she tells the nation, “War is necessary?” When you know he will use lies to achieve his ends? Think it couldn’t happen? Just remember LBJ!
I can distinctly recall President Johnson and his secretary of defense telling us that our warships were attacked without provocation in “international waters” by North Vietnamese patrol boats. I can recall his secretary of defense telling Congress that our destroyers played no part in covert South Vietnamese commando operations against North Vietnamese military installations, when in fact our people had planned the commando operations and provided intelligence to the South Vietnamese.
As a result of these lies/half-truths, Congress gave LBJ a blank check to retaliate, and by the time our “retaliation” had ended, 50,000 American boys died in a god-forsaken jungle war, half way around the globe.
I want to know that when the president tells us, “We must go to war,” he is telling us the truth -- the whole truth -- and nothing but the truth.
This November, we have the option of electing the first female president -- a woman who rarely if ever tells the truth. A woman who believes the ends justify the means. A woman who lies when there’s no reason to lie: e.g., My daughter and I came under sniper fire on a tarmac in Bosnia. A woman who lies in bigger things: the attack on our consulate in Benghazi was precipitated by an Internet movie, while contemporaneously telling her daughter, Chelsea, that it was a terrorist attack. A woman who lies in big things, such as, there no classified emails on her personal server, when according to FBI Director Comey there were not only classified emails, but even top secret emails.
This fall a great many Americans will cast their presidential vote for a woman who lies whenever she perceives it to be in her best interest. And a hypocrite who accepts $250,000-plus per speech from the same Wall Street “fat-cats” she denounces on the hustings.
I can only explain this phenomenon by looking at the promises she has made to the American people -- to provide free goodies. She understands that no one votes against Santa. When she promises free college education, forgiveness of student loans and “universal quality affordable health care for everyone (which would include illegal aliens) in America,” she becomes a living, breathing Santa.
LBJ promised us a “War on Poverty.” Instead we got a different war. His lies got us into Vietnam and 50,000 American boys died. Whatever the goodies promised, voting for a known liar isn’t worth the risk.
P.S. Unfortunately, Hillary’s opponent is Trump. But he has, at least, promised to appoint Supreme Court judges who will construe the Constitution consistently with the intent of the “men who wrote it.” The Founding Fathers understood from experience that liberty could not coexist with an “all-powerful central government.”
Washington and Madison’s construction of the Constitution, or the “more-enlightened” construction of whichever judge happens to be sitting on the bench. That is your choice.
Posted: Wednesday, August 12, 2016 - QCOline.com
Copyright 2016, John Donald O'Shea
