Lying on a mortgage application form was sanctioned by the behaviour of Lord Mandelson, who lied on his. Lying on job applications about qualifications and experience is reported to be at epidemic levels. Lying about residence, family composition, income , settlement status, intentions, past, is everywhere. New Labour has created a world where lying is universally practised to survive. Not to lie has become a privilege, almost a self indulgence by those with the means to take care of themselves. And the means to take care of ourselves has been circumscribed and withdrawn steadily by New Labour as a policy, disguised as helping hard-working families.
In childhood, lying was the worst of sins. Lying, we were taught, could be by commission or ommission, but the worst of all was 'lying knowing you were lying'. Smart answers on the lines of not knowing meant not lying were met with more severity as being 'the height of ignorance', and 'ignorance' carried a heavy burden of wilful bad manners and comportment, as well as lack of knowledge.
Speaker Martin is a roman Catholic. He knows about lying, and in just these straightforward terms. Which explains so completely why he stood before our country and our Parliament yesterday, as red-faced and ashamed, as small-voiced and as guilty, as a child. In his heart of hearts he knows what he has done. Perhaps he will find at least the courage to admit that he does not have the courage that it takes to hold the Speaker's office.
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11 comments:
"Speaker Martin is a roman Catholic. He knows about lying"
Best. Sentence. Ever.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. I just want to know why the Americans get to impeach their president for lying about his bedroom antics, when we can't touch our Prime Minister for lying impulsively about fundamental aspects of Government business.
Not so much 'impulsively' as 'compulsively' from his persistence in every form of misrepresenting the truth, Stu, wouldn't you say?
The latest is misrepresenting an ill thought through mortgage policy as rescuing the unemployed and about to be unemployed, in their entirety, from repossession in the next two years. In truth the number the policy can reach is tiny.
Agree entirely with your outrage, HG, but you know that the Ninth Commandment is extremely limited in scope.
Crocked as I am, TVless as we are, I still managed to watch BBC Parliament yesterday thanks to zattoo. Unbelievable, from start to finish, and it is no surprise that the NL line on this is falling to pieces before their very own eyes.
Best moment , Brown declaring he needed an enquiry before he was prepared to condemn the House being searched without a warrant. Uh?
He is truly nuts. Nearly lost his temper at one point. What is clear is that this all issued from him, the he added the issue of "national security" in an attempt to give the operation a veneer of credibility. Which it didn't. Savage look Speaker Martin gave Brown at one point during the proceedings, which said it all - "You've stitched me up".
As others have pointed out elsewhere, if we are heading towards a police state, it will be one of the Keystone Cops variety.
So true. I did enjoy the Daily Politics show when Andrew Neil made Geoff Hoon admit that Mandelson did not say that the banks had agreed to... (whatever). Normally I do not like AN but he quickly points out when a politician does not answer the question or simply lies!
If he truly is Catholic then he knows the need to atone for his sins...and not just in the privacy of the confessional box.
Speaker Martin and I would go for Eighth, S. I don't think he was coveting his neighbour's wife.
You'll have to explain 'limited in scope' as the catechism goes on for pages and pages of quite complex derivatives from false witness.
I suppose, as Executive Leader, Brown cannot accept that Parliament might bind him. We'll crush his head beneath our heel yet.
Get better soon Elby.
Ian G, Do you think they might just be beginning to understand the enormity of what they ordered; and its play out on everything they say or do from now on? I think the Huntsman's (see links) explanation was near the truth - some half-educated, ill-informed credit-seeker set it going, and none of them realised in time where it would end - terrorist police rampaging through the Parliament while the Speaker failed in courage and in conscience.
You accuse him of stealing, or covetousness generally?
I was not brought up RC, so have not been educated in the extensions of this law - which extensions I doubt would have been accepted by the ancient Israelites - but I think the meaning was made plain in Deuteronomy and is shown in the second para below:
"9th Commandment; Verse 16 "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour."
This forbids perjury while testifying in a courtroom. In ancient Israel, a person who lies in court receives the penalty that would be due a person guilty of the crime at question.
The common meaning of this commandment is unchanged today.
The Westminster Larger Catechism includes the sins of passing unjust sentence, tale bearing, whispering, boasting, etc."
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_10c9.htm
Bearing false witness is the commandment Speaker Martin is having difficulty with, not covetousness. The numbering seems to be different from different sources (but I doubt the original source numbered the commandments at all).
In summary, as moral beings we owe a duty to the truth, to live our lives in an exemplary expression of truthfulness, and that truthfulness exists in its full expression, not partial or selective such that truth itself is used to create a greater falsity.
Obviously there is much more. It's not just about perjury, though the effects of that and creating falsity in the deliverance of justice and in creating martyrs gets a few pages.
More generally than remarking the all-pervasive culture of lies and its justification in which our political world lives, I am shy of, and not attempting to write about truth and falsity - think of all those philosophers who have devoted their intellectual work to truth, and all their approaches. They are really scary.
Roman Catholics share a culture of belief and moral stances.( Other faiths do to, that's what they're about, of course), and Speaker Martin knows what he has done, and what New Labour is. Even the Telegraph is commenting on the lying of New Labour and its 'progressive' outriders today.
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