Who makes the determination? On what basis? A viewpoint might well be the fundamental argument in support of what someone believes to be the truth but when another individual counters with an exact opposite opinion and claims it is the truth, whom are we to believe? One of them and perhaps both of them are wrong which leaves us where?

I cannot say with any authority whether humans have always lied through their teeth to acheive their goals but I can say with some authority that humankind of today has mastered the art of lying by spinning the views into a muddled mass of misinformation re-manufactured to downplay lies. And it appears to be getting worse with each passing day. So much so that lots of my countrymen have lost the faith that's kept America on an even keel for more than two centuries.

More than anything else we're doomed to munch on rhetoric more than fact or as the "link" game goes to dine on opinionated garbage. Are we to believe whatever someone substantiates their views with when offering links as proof?

What we need to know is "where's did the chicken in every pot and the car in every garage and a good 5 cent cigar" disappear to? When I attended a rural one-roomed school house we had a single teacher paid a minimum salary to serve as the janitor and nurse and playground supervisor and on top of her primary job. The school had about 25 students (this would change from time to time when someone dropped out to help dad on the farm or mom to do the canning) and the entire budget in the mid-thirties was just slightly over $3,000 annually. That's but a little over a hundred bucks a student. And before someone goes off half-cocked and belittles the education I received in such an institute they should take note that I managed to reap a pretty good education or I could not carry on these exchanges day after day. So, what went wrong?

Anyone can say whatever they please about then and now but we were taught to apply the Golden Rule in the classroom. Punishment was afforded to those who didn't comply with the rules so that students learned in a hurry what a dunce cap was, and the sharp edge of a ruler applied to the back of their fingers. Lying was not tolerated -- not in school, not at home.

Truth, or the lack of truth, might be our biggest problem and it's obvious that many of our elected officials have a problem telling the difference between truth and lies.

Just my take this quagmire of lies that's scuttled our futures -- unless we can find a way to correct the problem

Today marks the anniversary of a horrific battle where common, ordinary guys laid down their lives to bring peace back to their fellow men. Last evening I viewed "Private Ryan" again because I needed to view it again. My oldest brother and my sister's husband landed at Normandy. They have gone to their reward but I couldn't shake recollections of them from my thoughts. Yesterday Jack said whatever I did in WW2 no longer mattered. So I took that to mean what all of the combined forces did didn't matter either. I was no hero. Didn't try to be. I tried to do my job, went where I was sent, carried out my assignments and hoped I'd stay alive as long as I could (just like Tom Hanks told Private Ryan to do in his final breath) and was luckier than lots of other guys who didn't make it. It was years later I finally decided my generation also was lied to many times and some of those lies sent us on a mission that few of us really comprehended.

Truth? Hmmmmmm! An elusive dream I think.

Gramps

Don't despair, Gramps! That's what elections are all about. If people like TB and Jack and their party of NO lose a few more elections, maybe they'll get the message.

As for your experiences in WW II, gramps, Obama said it best today during his speech at the Normandy anniversary. "Ordinary people did extraordinary things." No one went into it expecting to be a hero. Listening to the speeches of Sarkozy, Gordon Brown, the Canadian head of state, their effusive thanks and praise for what America did (which was change the course of the war) was heartwarming to hear. There's a reason why it was called "The Greatest Generation". I wouldn't worry too much about TB and Jack. People who have no self respect can't very well give respect to others, can they?

Pity them for what they are and go on being gramps, the man we all admire.

Well Gramps, there's a lot of people that have never done enough in their lives to have anything to talk about, then, there are those who have done a helluva lot in their lives, but don't talk about it much.

Gramps, you, and me, and a few others, we don't need to tell lies, because we know, within ourselves that we are men, we've been there, and we've done it. That's just our military side. Outside the military we've done not so bad either. Fair enough, we aren't millionaires, or the sort to lead political campaigns, we just put in our penny worth. But, our penny worth has a helluva lot of real experience behind it.

We don't claim to be heroes, and would be astonished at anyone who tried to say that we were, we just did a hard job, and did it the best we could - the same as most of the rest of our comrades.

Then you get the petty little people, those who have never been anywhere, or done anything, and they need lies, maybe even just lies to themselves, to make them feel like they are something. I feel sorry for them. Then, again, there are many of them wouldn't be able to live it it wasn't for the lies that they might even believe in (while the have the power to shove those lies on others).

You get it in business, those who have to lie to show that they are "someone", a move and a shaker, that the business that they have an executive responsibility for, is so much greater than it actually is. Or a politician making out that they are the greatest thing since sliced bread, that they know what we all need, even if it is another unwarranted war. These are all small people.

Just as we learned to walk forward in battle, there are those in civilian live who refuse to take the bribe, or the influence, steps, who will work, and show that it is their work capability that deserves to be recognised - some will succeed, and some will fail. But many of those who fail will pick themselves up and try again - in their own way warriors.

We see it on this forum, those who are strong, and those who are weak, that can only bring up conceptions, disruptions, and down right lies, to support their positions. You can see them make posts, as if they were statements, and run away once their "statements" are shown to be lies. People that call themselves patriots, yet never risked shedding a part of their blood, and, they call, such as you, me, and others, who have taken that risk, traitors.

We know who, and what we are, they don't.

The question stumped Diogenes and Pilate, but...

There are verifiable facts:

The USA was bombed at Pearl Harbor. Waterboarding has been grounds for civil, criminal, and military prosecution in the USA for over a century. There was very little reason to believe that Saddam Hussein was significantly involved in 9/11. Israel has agreed to end settlemet in Judaea and Samaria in every negotiation round since 1967, but has little or nothing to constrain the settlers intent on claiming these parts of Palestine as Jewish lands.

There are speculations.

FDR may have manipulated the events leading up to WWII to ensure America entered the war on the allied side. American officials may have felt that waterboarding could yield breaks in alQueda security, even though the SERE training explicitly acknowledged that waterboarding was primarily useful to obtain cooperation in propaganda production. PNAC members may have used 9/11 as a pretext to attack Iraq, knowing ull well that Baathists would never have cooperated with alQueda. Israeli officials may have maintained settlement development sub rosa as part of longterm strategy, just as they maintained their successful but never acknowledged quest for nuclear weapons.

But there are truths behind these facts and speculations.

WWII was a just (albeit imperfect) war, which had to be fought and won. Waterboarding is certainly wrong, pretty clearly illegal, and of questionable efficacy. Iraq posed little direct threat to the USA, and it should never have been invaded as part of the reply to 9/11. Israel has no business building or tolerating the building of settlements... settlements that it promised repeatedly to dismantle.

It is necessary that imperfect humans dig beneath the speculations, using the facts, to rediscover the truths.. and that we act upon the truths as we see them. It is unfortunately that our actions will inevitably be flawed to some degree by our humanity.

I am glad you fought and still fight for what seemed right to you. I am sorry that the results are less than ideal. Thank you for your honesty, courage, and perseverance.

Shep

Yesterday Jack said whatever I did in WW2 no longer mattered. So I took that to mean what all of the combined forces did didn't matter either.

Well now this is rich, and you have made your own point. You write a thesis on truth and in that thesis you twist the very truth you seek to define.

What you did in WW II has absolutely no bearing on the discussions here. It gives you no more right to have your opinions go unchallenged than anyone else on the board. The sacrifices made by those who fought in our wars matter greatly to the country, and to all of us. I respect the part you played in preserving our freedom. My dad and some of my uncles were part of it too.

But when you spew Democrat talking points and and belittle and denigrate the efforts made by others to keep the country safe from terrorists, and express other opinions with which I disagree, your service in the war does not permit you to go unchallenged.

Jack

For those who may not be aware, I will post it right here for their viewing. Jack claims he never said it, but it is right here in black and white.

Doesn't matter what Gramps did in the war or in the past. Does't matter what anyone has done in the past. What matters is what you are and who you are now. Gramps is a block-head Liberal and therefore deserves to be ridiculed for his demented opinions and anti_American political positions.

Jack

So, lie your way out of that one too, Jack.

Uh, that's what I said, dumbass. Once again, what someone has done in the past does not exempt them from being challenged on their political opinions posted on this board.

I'm not belittling his service. I'm saying that if he posts something with which I disagree then I will challenge him on it. Now what is so hard to understand about that?

Jack

Lie is the same thing that it always has been.

What's changed is the means by which truth and lies are spread, and, in my opinion, the extent to which people accept them in those they otherwise support.

"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive and unrealistic".

John F. Kennedy

"Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing the matter with this, except that it ain't so".

Mark Twain

"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods".

Albert Einstein

"Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true".

Demosthenes

"Like all dreamers I confuse disenchantment with truth".

Jean-Paul Sartre

d;-)

Reality

Circle upon circle,
Intersections in time.
Lifetimes within Lifetimes
And one of them - Mine.

Time going on,
Never ceasing to be.
Souls intertwining
And one of them - Me.

Souls intertwining,
From an infinite source
Line upon line
And each with its course.

Cycle upon cycle,
No stopping nor start.
Each one the whole.
Yet each but a part.

Truth upon truth,
Yet none are the same.
Reality's myth,
An infinite game.

d;-)

We have fallen victim
To a fallacy of reality,
A misguided belief
That all that went before
Was faded and dead.
That Truth was on the perimeter
Of man's expanding knowledge.

..... But is it true?

Because the tree, in spring,
Buds and comes greenly into leaf,
Are those leaves the tree?
Is the newborn twig
All that exists?
Like a vague halo of green
Suspended in mid-air.

..... It is not so.

The leaves themselves,
Are but a fluttering decoration.
It is the truck and limbs
That give the tree its grandeur,
And the leaves their meaning.
What we find at the edges
Draws strength from the center.
There is no progress
Without reliance upon the past.

.....And any man
.....Who would know the truth
.....Must be firmly anchored,
.....To see the totality
.....Of man's existence.


d;-)

your on the wrong board for a question like that. And your getting puffed up replies on this thread from some posters with the biggest reasons to fear that question what a suprise. A coupla poems from Denny and you know you hit a tender spot!