Bad Medicine

So I've been watching the GOP convention...if watching is the appropriate term for it. It's all I can do to sit through speeches full of lies and CNN's coverage that is devoid of any fact checking. I look at the faces, almost all white, on the convention floor and I see the same glassy-eyed devotion to a lie that I see in churches. It got me really thinking about what it is that bothers me so much about "them".

It's the disingenuous facade of it all. It's people voting against their own financial interests just to oust the black guy from office. It's people cheering policies that make us less safe so they can feel more safe. It's the false choice offered every year between D and R. It's the same reason I dislike the "faithful" who are no different from me in their flaws, faults and follies and yet hold themselves up on a pedestal of smoke and mirrors.

Honesty is the most important quality I can seek in a person. Honesty to others and honesty to yourself. It's why I dislike almost all politicians. It's why I'm so disappointed in the religious. It's why those who can't even be honest with themselves garner my disdain.

I would have a much higher respect for the GOP if their convention were all about making corporations stronger, making it harder for minorities to vote, lowering Mitt's taxes, endless war and the inevitable black-lung we will all die from once pollution regulations are eliminated. I mean, I wouldn't vote for them, but I could respect them.

I also find my personal relationships strongly influenced by this. I can switch gears from adoration to aversion in a matter of minutes when I see that somebody is unable or unwilling to be honest. In the end, being true to yourself, knowing who you are and loving that person, is hard to swallow but it isn't going to change. Afterward though, comes a liberation that few will realize because they're not just afraid of the big bad world, but of themselves.