Timothy J. Kunselman: We can handle the truth
Share this post:
“You can’t handle the truth” is the famous line from the movie “A Few Good Men.” In real life, we can’t handle the lies anymore. We must have the truth to move forward.
It strikes me that many of our representatives and those who want to be representatives really do not like people. RINO, a term often used in lies, should mean “Representative in name only.” Why is it so important and necessary to attack certain members of the electorate? I don’t think that this is what the majority of us want.
We hear labels like “Freedom Caucus.” Whose freedom are they representing? Yours? Mine? What about the next time? What about the next issue? We hear about resistance to intrusive government from those who want very much to intrude. We hear the drumbeat against “woke,” but nobody seems to really know what it means. (Actually, it means alert to racial prejudice and discrimination.) A brand new definition is being constructed, one that includes whatever right-wing conservatives don’t like. I’m not even sure those speaking these things even know what they are saying or what they believe. They say it to get elected, somehow not realizing that those they pander to are not winning elections. These people are not true conservatives.
Liberals play the other side of the record, but it is a familiar tune to side one. Nobody seems to be committed to the truth. Some candidates cannot even answer a question. They rely on the lame excuse of not speaking to hypotheticals when the questions are ripe for answer and crying for solution.
Everyone knows both parties, through many decades, have contributed to the massive deficit problem we face every year and which cannot be solved without bipartisan support in the electorate for at least the next two generations. Liberals forget the many tax-and-spend years, and conservatives ignore the plain facts found in audits.
As the debt ceiling approached, our representatives did their best to scare the hell out of the electorate through what they call a negotiation. This becomes necessary because we only act in crisis, not in planning. This lack of foresight will be our undoing. After the agreement, it quickly became impossible to tell what it accomplished because of the torrent of spin and lies that followed.
Everyone would agree that criminal activity should be prosecuted. When it comes to politicians, the word changes to persecution, and weaponization of justice is the watchword. If you prosecute so and so, it will be divisive. What does that even mean? We live in divisiveness. So what that it’s divisive. The only way to stop criminal activity is through prosecution.
And now, for the change that can snap us out of this destructive cycle if we have the stomach for it. I propose we demand to be told the truth. It should not take years to get to it. Debates should require answers to the questions, without name-calling interruptions. These are people running to be CEO of our country, not for middle school popularity. Fact-checking media should be front and center, and media shading the truth should be called out for it.
If we pressed for open primaries, no Electoral College, victory by popular vote, ranked choice voting, no pardon power over federal offenses by federal office holders or bureaucrats, term limits and campaign finance reform (again), we would have a democracy and candidates who must appeal to the broad majority of people in order to be elected.
Politicians and parties only have power because we give it to them. What say we remind them who says how it goes?
Timothy J. Kunselman of Pittsburgh is a retired attorney.