Socrates Now! - The President Who Cried Wolf
In her Ethics book The Moral of the Story Nina Rosenstand points out that one of the oldest—if not the oldest-- morality tale on the planet is the story of “the boy who cried wolf”. Nearly every culture, ancient or modern, recounts this unsettling story to its young ones, perhaps not in the same format as when our parents read the story to us, but with the same intent. And what is that intent? To pass on a deep, cultural lesson on morality. You see, when you lie to others, bad things happen to you…like being eaten alive!
Some ethicist’s consider the telling of the truth, and more specifically the bond of trust which truth-speaking engenders, the core of civilized society. Without this implicit trust between people, normal social interactions cannot take place. Well, they could, but many of our basic manners would have to change. If I am introduced to someone and he tells me his name and profession, I would hate bothering him for identification, transcripts, and certification, but it might be wise to do so. When I go to the fish market, I trust the scale hasn’t been tampered with, and that I’m paying a fair price for my dinner. When I catch the butcher with his thumb on that scale, I‘m upset. Even though we are all susceptible to being lied to and deceived, our first presumption is that we’ll get a fair shake from people. When this doesn’t happen we’re a little shocked, and we can feel our implicit trust in our fellow human beings ebbing away.
So when former President Clinton was caught having illicit sex in the oval office with an intern, it’s not surprising that people were upset. However, it wasn’t the tawdry sex that allowed the public mood to swing towards impeachment. It was the President’s blatant lying. People get sex. Every voting citizen was a teen-ager at one point in his or her life, so understanding how sexual impulses can overcome even the most ardent prayers to remain chaste is within everyone’s grasp. But lying, and on such a massive, public scale, is fundamentally unpardonable…unless you go the Tammy Faye and Jimmy Swaggart way and cry for people’s forgiveness.
President Clinton never did ask for forgiveness (although by reading his facial expressions it appeared he was close to dropping to his knees in supplication), and even though he ultimately escaped the hangman, not even his own party wants to socialize with him anymore. Why? Because the perception is that the sacred trust between him and his political constituency has been violated. He didn’t just lie…e was caught telling a whopper!
A similar morality tale is developing with our current President Bush. Even though sex is not presently an issue (presumably he only has sex with his wife), lying and loss of public trust are definitely becoming areas of concern within this Presidency. It began with his original denials of arrests and drug use some fifteen or so years ago (the current story has changed.) It moved on when he fabricated his patriotic role in the Viet Nam war (turns out he was AWOL for at least a year). But all of these little fibs reached a crescendo when the public debate centered around the deeply moral issue of invading Iraq.
The majority of the American people trusted that our President was telling us the truth about Saddam Hussein, his links with terrorism, and Iraq’s development of weapons of mass destruction. The public judgment that we were entering a “just war” was based predominately upon the information passed on to us by the President and his emissaries. As it turns out, a President has been lying to us once again.
He cried “Wolf!” but there wasn’t even a scroungy old dog to be found.
Documents that purportedly verified Saddam’s nuclear weapons program were known to be forgeries at least a year before they were offered both to American public and the United Nations as “proof” of Iraq’s evil ways. In his State of the Union Address President Bush stated that in a recent Atomic Energy Commission report Sadham’s effort to build nuclear bombs was nearing completion, and he could have a useable weapon ready within six months to a year. Within a week of that address the president of that very same Atomic Energy Commission came forth with his own statement, denying that any such report had ever been handed to the President. Simple logic insists that they can’t both be telling the truth.
The list goes on, but at this point the media and the public is calling all of these contradictions “exaggerations” or political manipulations. British Prime Minister Blair, our President’s ally in this war, was first being accused of “sexing up” government reports regarding Saddam’s objectionable activities. Now the British press has moved on to calling the Prime Ministers reports “deceptions” and even outright lies. Mr. Blair is currently fighting for his political life, and the only question that remains here in America is when we will stop characterizing our President’s lying and deception as a form of excusable “political spin”. When and if that day comes, President Bush will find himself in a similar situation. He’ll probably wonder why nobody is running to his aid as he cries “Wolf!” one last time. If he is finally eaten alive politically, it will be because he broken a fundamental moral law, and his characterization of himself as a leader “with character” will be shown for what it is.
Our government knew many details about Iraq’s biological and toxic weapons programs, since we had provided him with many of the necessary ingredients back when Iran and Iraq were at war and Saddam was still a bad man, but not so evil that we wouldn’t give him the “all clear” sign when he wanted to use toxic chemicals on the Kurdish uprising after the Gulf War.
Socrates Now! is a regular column authored by Mitch Frangadakis, local philosopher who is also found at www.socratesnow.com.
Some ethicist’s consider the telling of the truth, and more specifically the bond of trust which truth-speaking engenders, the core of civilized society. Without this implicit trust between people, normal social interactions cannot take place. Well, they could, but many of our basic manners would have to change. If I am introduced to someone and he tells me his name and profession, I would hate bothering him for identification, transcripts, and certification, but it might be wise to do so. When I go to the fish market, I trust the scale hasn’t been tampered with, and that I’m paying a fair price for my dinner. When I catch the butcher with his thumb on that scale, I‘m upset. Even though we are all susceptible to being lied to and deceived, our first presumption is that we’ll get a fair shake from people. When this doesn’t happen we’re a little shocked, and we can feel our implicit trust in our fellow human beings ebbing away.
So when former President Clinton was caught having illicit sex in the oval office with an intern, it’s not surprising that people were upset. However, it wasn’t the tawdry sex that allowed the public mood to swing towards impeachment. It was the President’s blatant lying. People get sex. Every voting citizen was a teen-ager at one point in his or her life, so understanding how sexual impulses can overcome even the most ardent prayers to remain chaste is within everyone’s grasp. But lying, and on such a massive, public scale, is fundamentally unpardonable…unless you go the Tammy Faye and Jimmy Swaggart way and cry for people’s forgiveness.
President Clinton never did ask for forgiveness (although by reading his facial expressions it appeared he was close to dropping to his knees in supplication), and even though he ultimately escaped the hangman, not even his own party wants to socialize with him anymore. Why? Because the perception is that the sacred trust between him and his political constituency has been violated. He didn’t just lie…e was caught telling a whopper!
A similar morality tale is developing with our current President Bush. Even though sex is not presently an issue (presumably he only has sex with his wife), lying and loss of public trust are definitely becoming areas of concern within this Presidency. It began with his original denials of arrests and drug use some fifteen or so years ago (the current story has changed.) It moved on when he fabricated his patriotic role in the Viet Nam war (turns out he was AWOL for at least a year). But all of these little fibs reached a crescendo when the public debate centered around the deeply moral issue of invading Iraq.
The majority of the American people trusted that our President was telling us the truth about Saddam Hussein, his links with terrorism, and Iraq’s development of weapons of mass destruction. The public judgment that we were entering a “just war” was based predominately upon the information passed on to us by the President and his emissaries. As it turns out, a President has been lying to us once again.
He cried “Wolf!” but there wasn’t even a scroungy old dog to be found.
Documents that purportedly verified Saddam’s nuclear weapons program were known to be forgeries at least a year before they were offered both to American public and the United Nations as “proof” of Iraq’s evil ways. In his State of the Union Address President Bush stated that in a recent Atomic Energy Commission report Sadham’s effort to build nuclear bombs was nearing completion, and he could have a useable weapon ready within six months to a year. Within a week of that address the president of that very same Atomic Energy Commission came forth with his own statement, denying that any such report had ever been handed to the President. Simple logic insists that they can’t both be telling the truth.
The list goes on, but at this point the media and the public is calling all of these contradictions “exaggerations” or political manipulations. British Prime Minister Blair, our President’s ally in this war, was first being accused of “sexing up” government reports regarding Saddam’s objectionable activities. Now the British press has moved on to calling the Prime Ministers reports “deceptions” and even outright lies. Mr. Blair is currently fighting for his political life, and the only question that remains here in America is when we will stop characterizing our President’s lying and deception as a form of excusable “political spin”. When and if that day comes, President Bush will find himself in a similar situation. He’ll probably wonder why nobody is running to his aid as he cries “Wolf!” one last time. If he is finally eaten alive politically, it will be because he broken a fundamental moral law, and his characterization of himself as a leader “with character” will be shown for what it is.
Our government knew many details about Iraq’s biological and toxic weapons programs, since we had provided him with many of the necessary ingredients back when Iran and Iraq were at war and Saddam was still a bad man, but not so evil that we wouldn’t give him the “all clear” sign when he wanted to use toxic chemicals on the Kurdish uprising after the Gulf War.
Socrates Now! is a regular column authored by Mitch Frangadakis, local philosopher who is also found at www.socratesnow.com.