Liars have been dominating the news. Only yesterday Casey Anthony managed to sway the jury in her favor, despite the many lies she seemed to have fabricated out of thin air, and so surprised the US and likely herself with a not-guilty verdict. Last week we got Dominque Strauss-Kahn's accuser, Nafissatou Diallo, wholly unrelated to her current accusation of attempted rape, told dramatic tales of supposed prior sexual abuse and genital mutilation revealed to exist only to secure herself a visa in to the US. While Weiner a supposedly mature, aggressive and ambitious politician with a currently pregnant, high powered wife, aid to Hillary Clinton, tried to blame hacking for his utterly embarrassing sexting of photos of whats some still seem to consider an enviable package. And then the not to be yet forgotten Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and revelations of his supposed love-child with the saucy housekeeper, conceived under the nose of his wife, Maria Shriver, both women impregnated close to the same time. I never understood why the media labeled this child as a love-child? Did the media attempt to make us believe that Arny was in love with the maid and wanted the child? In this context of course we are reminded of Clinton and his insistence "I did not have sex with that woman." that resulted in debates world wide of what was to be considered sex and what not.
Personally with a Catholic god looking from above over me, every minute of every day, and a mom that was the closest to god to my mind, lying just was not ever an option. I do not lie to peoples faces, not because of my higher moral standing, but simply because I am afraid we all are in the know, sometimes later then sooner, but we all are connected and ideas of separation are illusory.
With this said, I believe it is part of human nature to lie when it serves an advantage, this especially so as it concerns survival, money and power. We would be very naive not to expect the telling of lies to dominate immigration forms. In fact lies have been told where the truth would have served the immigration applicant better. It is known that successful stories that permitted legal stay to an asylum applicant were repeated even in cases where their true stories would have been a lot more compelling.
A man's sex life is his and his partner's business, not the public's. Now why do we have so many polticians behaving badly? Is it a sense of entitlement and invincible sense of power along the line of Clinton's "I did it, because I could"? Is it a man's natural tendency to resort to sex when he can, when others less empowered or charismatic might resort to drugs and alcohol or tuning out say with tv? Certainly the charismatic rich and famous have the options and plenty of opportunities to engage in extracurricular sexual activity. If monogamy was not a moral prerogative, those activities would be nothing to write home about, much less dominate the headlines.
Odd kinda, that a man in his sixties like a DSK is known to chase skirts of women half his age and less, while we do have a hard time imagining someone like Hilary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher even Nancy Pelosi doing similar. What is it about guys that lets them violate the trust their mates placed in them, such as Weiner's wife, that let her self impregnate by a man with a roving eye and wild appetite for a variety of women. Ready to start a new life and a new family, married only last year, she is now on leave of absence from her job and her hubby. We women can easily imagine the depth of her grief and the anguish she must be feeling. Will she go for divorce like Maria Shriever decided?
While many feminists took it hard that Hilary Clinton stayed by her man, I never had a desire to dictate to another woman the choice of divorce. In Maria Shriver's case I find myself glad to hear of her decision, hard no doubt to make for any devout Catholic. In Hilary Clinton's case it is not hard to see how her husband the former President of the US may still be the most interesting man to her to have a conversation with. That does speak volumes.
Bach to lies. Maybe we should not make such a federal case out of the discoveries of lies. Maybe we should expect lies more and stop holding especially those in the limelight to impossible moral standards. Maybe we should judge politicians by their political performance and values, not their personal transgressions, especially when they are not of a criminal nature. Which also means that maybe we ought to decriminalize such things as the personal use of Marijuana along with the use of adult prostitutes (but persecute to the fullest extent those that molest minors.) And as in the case of DSK afford even liars the right to fair trials.
Men seem to think that DSK was set up, something like out of a political thriller, maybe so. But the woman complainant sustained vaginal bruises and torn ligaments in her shoulder, not likely self-inflicted, injuries compatible with excess force. Attempted rape of course is not about sex, but power. Inflicting pain on a woman, even if she is liar is wrong. Rape victims throughout the ages have had to endure personal attacks usually won by those in power. Would we have a justice system that served above and beyond those with or without social means and standing. But as we have seen with O.J. Simpson that is not so, not then and not now. Those with means can buy those to gather sufficient cause to doubt to evade conviction.
As regards the cases of DSK and Casey Anthony we are reminded that we should not try such cases in the media. We are long passed the stone age. We are not to judge and especially we are not to condemn another with the little bit of public knowledge we may likely base our assumptions on. Those modern public stonings have to stop! Remember all the Dalai Lama's credo: My religon is kindness or Jesus who told those without sin to cast the first stone.
We should always wonder and try and fill another's shoe, but not jump to conclusions and not condemn. Instead mine the human field of psychology, the mysterious mechanics of the mind. We are all human, we are fallible and the higher we soar the deeper we may fall.
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