Political Honesty: What We Actually Demand from Our Leaders

The single most universal truism in politics is that all politicians lie.

But the truth, no pun intended, is that the reality is far murkier than a profession that simply attracts the wrong type of people.

Don’t get me wrong—there are many politicians that flat out lie.  And not in the “we-all-do-it-white-lie” kind of way, but in the “lose-your-job-and-never-return” kind of way (see: Weiner, Anthony).

But this is not about those types of lying liars (credit: Al Franken). This is about the everyday needle-threading that occurs in politics, and how we as citizens see it through a singular lens.  And, hopefully, it is about how we can limit the cycle of dissembling that permeates all levels of government—if only in a small way.

In Defense of Decency: Political Correctness and the Treatment of Others

I’ve always been overweight. Looking back, certainly as a child and a teen I wasn’t nearly as overweight as I thought at the time, but it was enough.  In second grade, there was a spat of particularly hurtful things that were said to me—sometimes by some of the older students, sometimes by my peers.  At times it felt relentless.

That summer, I decided that I needed to do something about it; that I didn’t want to be fat any more and didn’t want anyone to make fun of me.  I figured out that if I just ate less, I would be able to lose weight. So I did.  A lot less.  Anytime my family offered me something, I would tell them I wasn’t hungry.  I would wait until I was absolutely starving, and only then would I try anything.  I vividly remember going to the New York State Fair at the end of summer and the day being consumed by my parents insisting every time we walked by a food stand that I have something to eat, that they were really worried about me.  It was a long struggle of a day for all of us

Bonus Post!

Though my plan has been to share my thoughts every two weeks, as I have looked ahead to some of the material I've pulled together for the coming weeks I feel the need to slightly expand on my introduction.  

I think one recurring criticism will be that I am and will be trying to have things both or all ways.  To some extent, this is true.  But it's not true in the slippery politician way, but because I truly believe that very few issues exist in black and white.  Where there is grey, there is a lot of room to find legitimacy in multiple viewpoints, even when you find one more convincing over another.  Leaning in one direction does not suddenly make the other direction illegitimate, evil, or some similar negative descriptor.

An Introduction

The election of Donald Trump to the presidency has brought upon the nation a wave of introspection, retrospection, elation, concern, fear, and hope. The diversity of feelings and opinions mirrors the diversity found along cultural, socioeconomic, and political lines—lines that often run very deep.

For me, this presents an inflection point, one that motivates me to shift from personal, internal thought to a more open forum and exchange of ideas. The problems facing our nation—ones that get to the very heart of who we are as a people and how we live together every day, are ones upon which I have spent a great deal of time reflecting.