Truthiness

Truthiness, now there is a word for you. Stephen Colbert claims he coined it, or in his terms, “pulled it right out of my ass” just before going on the air in October of 2005. Great word, it was was called the word of the year by the American Dialect Society and for Merriam-Webster in 2006. Good grief you should look it up on Wikipedia, it goes on and on.

I love the way they rank it right up there with: Doublethink  Factoid Newspeak Noble lie Rathergate Rhetoric On Bullshit – (an essay by Harry Frankfurt, originally written in 1986 but published as a book on January 10, 2005, 9 months before Colbert coined Truthiness) Verisimilitude Wikiality 

Dick Meyer defines it as: Truthiness is a quality characterizing a "truth" that a person claims to know intuitively "from the gut" or because it "feels right" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.

It is a word we get to thank George W. Bush for indirectly as it was his nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court that caused Colbert to coin the word.

It certainly is a word for our times. It fits well with the article I put in ahead of this one, on the book It’s Even Worse than It Looks. Joseph McCarthy would have loved it and he used it. Modern PAC ads are rampant with it.

Free speech advocates (hey dmarks) must love it. But a side note; freedom of speech does not include libel, slander, obscenity and incitement to a crime. All of which seem to come into play in today’s political discussions. It was in England’s Bill of Rights before our own and look how it plays out in the book spoken about above. Our courts have supported these limitations: Does the First Amendment mean anyone can say anything at any time? No.
The Supreme Court has rejected an interpretation of speech without limits.

Because the First Amendment has such strong language, we begin with the presumption that speech is protected. Over the years, the courts have decided that a few other public interests — for example, national security, justice or personal safety — override freedom of speech. There are no simple rules for determining when speech should be limited, but there are some general tests that help. [from Education for Freedom: Lesson Plans for Teaching the First Admendment. And the article continues by listing these limitation similar to what I said above.]

Freedom of speech even spreads to the debate on contribution to political campaigns as Supreme Court struck down the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform that tried to limit corporate influence, reversing its 2003 decision.

The Ten Commandments say “Do not bear false witness” or “No lies about your neighbor.” All religions teach that we should not lie about each other, but in today’s cultural ethics of “whatever works for me” those teachings are easily forgotten.

The pastor in the church where we are attending is currently conducting a class on the book by James W. Moore, Yes, Lord, I Have Sinned: but I have many excellent excuses. Talk about a book relevant for our times (it was written over 20 years ago.) I want to know what excuses politicians, PAC groups, corporate interests (recently read that only 17% of the Walker ads come from in state) have as they proliferate the half truths, and downright lies.

Can’t you just see Buddha under a bodhi tree, or Mohammed at Mecca or Siddhartha saying “The truthiness of this is…” Or Jesus proclaiming "I am the way, the light and the truthiness for all humankind. Perhaps not.

We have reason be concerned about the “soul” of America.