conditional truth

 I have said it before, "everyone wants to be equal, until they are" and that has proven to be true. This morning I'm thinking everyone wants you to be honest with them, until you are. I'm growing more convinced of that every day. The thing is, that remains true even when they agree with the truth in question. That is to say, they agree with the fact, they just don't want to hear that fact. It's a condition I call conditional truth, it depends. I get it, I understand, there are days when we just don't want to hear it. There are days when the truth is uncomfortable. Doesn't change the facts, but you don't want to hear it. 

 It is similar to the equality thing. Everyone says they want equality; say they want everyone treated equally. But, the moment that happens the exceptions and exemptions enter the picture. Really, I should be just a little more equal than you because well, refer to the list of exemptions, exceptions and exclusions. It's a list that grows almost daily in todays' world. The latest example being men competing in Womens' sports. That's equality, right? Many say so. 

 The truth is not everyone is equal in every area of human development. Yup, some people are stupid! Harsh statement, right? It's the truth just like not all babies are super cute. You're not supposed to say that stuff. Honesty is the same way, sometimes you are not supposed to just tell the truth. Folks can, and will, get upset with you about that.

 So we are faced with conditional truth. The times when we shouldn't tell the truth because it isn't what others want to hear. The truth hasn't changed, it's just that others are tuned to a different channel so to speak. The truth comes as static. It's an annoyance, an unwelcomed interference. The real issue becomes the ability to just tune it out altogether. And that, in my opinion, is what is happening today. It is the, yes that is what it says but that isn't what it means mindset.  

 The Baltimore City States Attorney is a prime example of that. She has chosen to not prosecute certain "low level" crimes. She doesn't deny that they are crimes, she doesn't deny that those actions are against the law, she just chooses to ignore them. A conditional truth! It's illegal but we won't treat it as illegal. The reason? It takes too much time to enforce everything, to treat each crime as "criminal" so the condition of enforcement is altered. We can enforce that if we want to, ignore it if we choose to. Like the truth, spoken only when it suits!

 Thomas Sowell wrote this: "when you want to help others you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear." There is much wisdom in those words. It boils the whole thing down nicely. The help to yourself may be maintaining a friendship, gaining a friend, or, as many like to say, compassion, empathy and understanding. But even those actions are often self-serving in the long run. The reason is easy enough to understand. Survival. Survival is programmed into our DNA. The desire to live, to be a part of society, to be popular, accepted, to be validated is strong indeed. 

 A society cannot exist in conditional truth. The founding fathers wrote: "we hold these truths to be self-evident" meaning they are not conditional; they are the simple truth. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These rights are endowed by "their" creator. Note it doesn't say any particular creator, just "their" creator and that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are "among" these self-evident truths. That certainly implies there are other "inalienable" rights. What are those rights? Self defense, owning personal property, being able to move freely about the nation, worship a god or not, to be secure in your home and to think freely. Those inalienable truths are under attack. They are under attack by the very government that delineated those rights in the first place. Those truths are self-evident! Let's not make them conditional.