Is honesty the best policy

Most people give lip service to the value of honesty but don't practice what they preach. How many stories have you heard lately that turned out to be blatantly, one hundred percent false? You hear something at the coffee shop or the bar or at a group function that sounds right because it supports your built-in biases so you repeat it to as many people as possible as the absolutely truth because you want it to be true. And when someone else presents verifiable evidence to your face that your story is false, you continue to hold on to some aspect of it.

This is especially prevalent during an election year but is present in people at every stage of our lives because I used to be one of those people too. If it sounded right, I repeated it as truth without fact-checking anything, just like people do today. But somewhere along the line, I wised up and figured out that honesty and truth-telling wins you the respect of others with certain important reservations.

Jim Hager-Frease posted a quote on Facebook from the late John Carlin that went to the heart of one of the reservations. Carlin said 'Everyone appreciates your honesty until you're honest with them."

And they do. I see this on the golf course when some people play by the rules, don't improve their lies and count every stroke they made. They appreciate YOU doing this but when you point out that maybe they're not playing by the same rules you are, your words AREN'T appreciated. A friend of mine once told me that he liked me because I usually said what was on my mind and didn't sugar-coat many things but other people DISLIKE me for the same reasons.

I was grudgingly admired but not respected by the administration of the college I taught at for 22 years because I told them what I thought. Many other employees went along to get along but that's never been a trait of mine.

When I saw things I thought could be improved on, I pointed those things out and when no action was taken, I took them to task for it. Doing so didn't make me the most popular guy on campus, even among fellow faculty members, because they were concerned that the administration's disrespect for me would rub off on them too. I know that attitude is prevalent in personal and professional settings but I've never understood it nor practiced it.

Some people have told me I'm TOO upfront about my feelings which are based on observational truths and not unsubstantiated rumors and I don't know how I feel about that.

I realize some people are more sensitive than others but I never offer my observations as criticisms, just facts to be dealt with as the other person sees fit.

The last election cycle produced a brand-new phenomenon that was most likely the craziest thing that happened in the craziest election of my lifetime. Several websites emerged on the Internet reporting "false truths" about candidates and political parties that were out and out lies.

But once again, the people who already believed something like that internalized this false news because they believed it themselves and reported it to anyone else who would listen and there were obviously a lot of people who DID listen. False news not real news; lies and fabrications instead of facts that could be supported by the evidence but people bought into it and created a firestorm over something that should have been nothing more than a spark.

That's what happens when we don't seek out the truth and instead rely only on stories that support whatever biased perspectives we might hold.

It's a dangerous thing for a democracy to do.