Greetings Gentle Reader,
Honesty has become an endangered species in our country, assuming one can label honesty a species. How did this happen? It’s not just the usual level of dishonesty; it has reached a level I haven’t seen before.
Part of it is surely because of the election, but it seems to have become acceptable to make a statement that is diametrically opposed to a politician’s position taken a week ago. That’s bad enough, but I hear those in the news media doing the same thing.
This has always been true in countries where the government is definitely not "of the people, by the people, and for the people." That is to be expected, but in Americans, it is inexcusable.
Now, if it only were true in our politicians and in Hollywood, we could live with it, because those two sets of people have always been that way. What is worrying me is the everyday people who seem to be learning from the denizens of Hollywood and the inhabitants of the seats of political power.
More than any other group in the world, we LDS should never stoop this low. We are, and should be, held to a higher standard. We hold it as an article of our faith that we are honest in our dealings with our fellow man. So why do I hear LDS politicians and their fellow travelers, of both parties, telling out and out lies?
Our responsibility as citizens of the greatest country on the earth is to strive for honesty, for decency, for fairness, for virtue. We are to teach it to our children and grandchildren, but unless we practice it ourselves, we will discover our children repeating what we do, not what we say. Worse, they have every reason to do so.
The only way we will make the change toward honesty is by watching ourselves, watching what we say at home and abroad in the community. We must begin to examine everything we say, until we find ourselves returning to verbal honesty. It may seem useless, since "everybody is doing it." But just think how you will feel if you stand before your Maker, and you will, and have to explain to Him that you became a lowlife liar because, "everybody was doing it." The only thing worse than that will be to stand before Him and explain that your children are liars, because that is what you taught them to be.
Until next time,
Muriel Sluyter
Return to the Neighborhood.
Honesty has become an endangered species in our country, assuming one can label honesty a species. How did this happen? It’s not just the usual level of dishonesty; it has reached a level I haven’t seen before.
Part of it is surely because of the election, but it seems to have become acceptable to make a statement that is diametrically opposed to a politician’s position taken a week ago. That’s bad enough, but I hear those in the news media doing the same thing.
This has always been true in countries where the government is definitely not "of the people, by the people, and for the people." That is to be expected, but in Americans, it is inexcusable.
Now, if it only were true in our politicians and in Hollywood, we could live with it, because those two sets of people have always been that way. What is worrying me is the everyday people who seem to be learning from the denizens of Hollywood and the inhabitants of the seats of political power.
More than any other group in the world, we LDS should never stoop this low. We are, and should be, held to a higher standard. We hold it as an article of our faith that we are honest in our dealings with our fellow man. So why do I hear LDS politicians and their fellow travelers, of both parties, telling out and out lies?
Our responsibility as citizens of the greatest country on the earth is to strive for honesty, for decency, for fairness, for virtue. We are to teach it to our children and grandchildren, but unless we practice it ourselves, we will discover our children repeating what we do, not what we say. Worse, they have every reason to do so.
The only way we will make the change toward honesty is by watching ourselves, watching what we say at home and abroad in the community. We must begin to examine everything we say, until we find ourselves returning to verbal honesty. It may seem useless, since "everybody is doing it." But just think how you will feel if you stand before your Maker, and you will, and have to explain to Him that you became a lowlife liar because, "everybody was doing it." The only thing worse than that will be to stand before Him and explain that your children are liars, because that is what you taught them to be.
Until next time,
Muriel Sluyter
Return to the Neighborhood.
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