Parents have to pay attention to their children in part because they sometimes get in trouble and lie about it. Citizens need to pay attention to politicians for the same reason.
They need tough love. Recognizing that your child sometimes lies to hide bad behavior is not an abandonment of your child; it’s paying attention to her so you can guide her better. You do this because you love her. It’s similar with a politician or political party. Calling out lies and misdeeds isn’t abandonment; it promotes success in the long run. As my mother used to say when correcting me, “I will always love you, but I want other people to love you, too.”
Imagine, then, that your child gets in a fight at school which she tells you was the other girl’s fault. The principal calls you in and accuses your child of being the instigator not only of this fight but of several others that have taken place on the playground during recess since your daughter started attending the school. You’re astonished and can’t imagine that this could be true. You love your child and believe that she always tells the truth and, except when her little brother pesters her, is always kind.
But other children who were on the playground at the time say that your daughter attacked the other girl without provocation. You reason that these other children are friends with the other girl and are biased against your daughter because she is relatively new to the school and they don’t yet know what a good kid she is. Probably the other girl instigated the fight out of jealousy, fearing that your daughter would soon be more popular than her. You can’t prove this, of course, but it makes sense to you because you believe your daughter’s account of the fight.
It turns out, however, that security cameras record what happens on the playground during recess. It’s clear from the recording that your daughter struck the first blow. But there’s no sound in the recording, and the visual shows the girls speaking to one another before that first blow. Maybe the other girl instigated the fight by what she said?
The children who were on the playground at the time say that it was actually your daughter who went up to the other girl and called her a horse-faced little whore, to which the other girl replied that she’s rubber and your daughter is glue, etc. That’s when your daughter struck her, according to the witnesses. Again, can these witnesses be trusted?
The principal believes the witnesses because this isn’t your daughter’s first altercation at the school. To see if fighting is an aberration from the girl’s normal conduct, the principal calls the head of your daughter’s previous school and tells you that this other principal had the same problem with your daughter fighting. He said that playground fights diminished when your daughter moved away. Is the current principal lying to you about what the other principal said?
You demand to speak directly to this other principal. You are granted this opportunity and the other principal confirms what the current principal said to you. The other principal offers his sympathy to you as the parent of a troubled child. Perhaps this other principal is lying. But why?
At this point, if you’re a good parent DOING HER JOB, you realize that your child is lying and needs help, which may include some tough love, so she won’t be an outcast when she grows up.
Now consider a politician who says he won an election but continually loses in court because he can’t provide any credible evidence. Some of the specific allegations of election fraud are retracted under oath by the accuser now being sued by the people whom he lied about. Multiple recounts of votes have been conducted in such states as Arizona and Georgia under the supervision of the politician’s own party, and he loses every time.
Claims about voting machine manipulation have been settled in court against the politician’s campaign. What’s more, claims of fraud makes no sense because the politician’s party won many close races in the contested election. They would have lost those races if had there been election fraud to the detriment of their party. Why would the fraud affect only one candidate? Why has the complaining politician declined to answer questions under oath?
At this point, citizens can still love the politician and his political party just as a parent loves her child and her family. But the case against believing the politician is overwhelming. If common sense and good parenting require recognizing your daughter’s lies, all the more so does good citizenship require recognizing the lies of the politician in question. Citizens, DO YOUR JOB!
I will respond to replies sent to wenz.peter@uis.edu.
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