Liar, liar, pants on fire! Have you ever heard those biting words as a child? Maybe it was just a schoolyard taunt by someone you didn’t get along with. Perhaps it was a case of “The dog ate my homework.” And your teacher was one of those teachers who believe that a derogative comment like that may grab your attention and lead you to not stretch the truth again.
Of course, it doesn’t work that way. No one likes to be told they are liars, so you don’t lie about your homework or anything else for a few days. Then you find out that the teacher is smarter than you thought. He or she has heard all the excuses and the hope is that you will be so chagrined that you won’t take the easy way out.
With four rowdy boys to raise, telling a lie in my house and getting caught was a guarantee that you would feel the sting of a belt that you had to bring to dad. You notice I didn’t complain. Now that I have sons, I understand my Dad in a way I had never considered. My Pop was a great man, he raised his four sons in a pretty Spartan atmosphere. Because of his infirmary of having one leg two inches shorter than the other, we didn’t feel the full brunt of his anger. There weren’t a lot of rules, as he couldn’t chase us, and if we got in trouble we had to stand there and take our punishment.
There were times when we got caught, but we understood the rules. As far as role models, I’m pretty sure he didn’t have any thought of whether he was setting an example or not. He didn’t truly harm us, as he just wanted to be sure that when we said something we understood that if we weren’t truthful, it would hurt him more than us. There were never any red marks anywhere on our bodies nor did we repeat the sin, no matter what.
If God chose him and my mom to bring four boys into this world, he was going to try and make sure we deserved punishment if we were to get it. I cannot remember any terrible punishment by him. Yes, he used a belt that he made us bring to him. He would sit on the side of the bed and act as though he was going to put blisters on our derrière, but we just screamed and danced away from his reach. Most of the time the punishment we feared was for fighting each other, and our punishment was to sit on the porch and make faces at each other; not exactly hard labor.
I can see you reading this and asking why I am telling you all about my hardships as a child, the answer is pretty simple. My Pop was a simple man and he never gave us punishment that wasn’t deserved. If we lied to him or my mom, we were in for a real smack on our rear. That was his most hated sin.
My beautiful bride was not raised as I was. She had a hard time with me punishing our boys. I was pretty sure they needed discipline if I ever caught them lying. This is the most hated sin I could imagine. I hated to be on the receiving end of a smack when I was a child, so I’m pretty sure they hated it too. But I can’t remember any lies they told us.
When I was accepted to Officer Candidate School, I noticed one sign over the door as I was bringing my stuff into the barracks. “An officer or candidate never lies nor do they allow anyone around them.” I thought it was a pretty good credo since I had already been taught that as a child.
I think back to those days of wonder when Kennedy was our president; he probably told us lies. Most politicians may not know the difference between the truth or a lie. But Kennedy never let on that he was lying. This guy that lives in the White House is altogether another bird. He tells lies so often I think he forgets all the lies he told at any one time.
First it was Afghanistan. He lied about being locked in on a date to bring our soldiers back from that little boil on the face of earth. He was not locked into anything. Trump had set a date for the military to bring our troops home and Biden ignored that date and set his own schedule.
Of course, not understanding what it is like to command professional soldiers, Biden said it was a success. Did you get a chance to see all the folks that were sure to be hunted down by the Taliban as soon as we pulled out? What a debacle! That was just the first time we saw what a liar Biden is. From that mess till today, he continues to lie to us.
I’m not even going to try and point out all the lies he has told. However, one that particularly galls my hide is that he stood at the podium at a graduation of the Navel Officers in the U.S. Navy and told about being offered a scholarship to the U.S. Navel Academy as a young lawyer. Men and women work very hard to get in to the Navel Academy. They are usually recommended by some senior officer in government and their backgrounds are poured over by the admissions department of the Navel Academy. He said he graduated law school at the top of his class when he barely made it through in the bottom of his class.
I hope he has someone brief him on what his decisions are doing to our country. He is so out of touch he can’t be informed, or if he is, our country is even worse that I thought. The single most dangerous thing we can suffer from is a lack of confidence in our leaders. If you don’t remember or weren’t informed, the Vietnam War was guided by politicians that tell a lie if the truth is easy.
All I can say at this point is the words to the song, “The dad-gum government has its hands in every pocket I own.” God Bless.
