Are you Intellectually Honest?
If you spent 20 years in the congregation of Rev. Wright, would you disavow the man and his ideals when politically convenient? If you stood with a man who claims to be an honest and Godly man, yet you discover he is a liar, would you still stand with him? More: You discover that he is a liar for self-aggrandizement and egotistical reasons.
Honesty is one of those core values that is not negotiable in my world. Of course there are a few caveats. Lying to protect an operation or an ally is justifiable. Fibbing to your wife about the skirt with the horizontal stripes and her butt is not only justifiable, but probably prudent. I'll lie in a hot second if it advances the survivability goals of my Tribe, especially if no injury is caused by the lie. But lying for selfish purposes is not acceptable.
I could stand with a man who is genuinely patriotic and a selfish liar, but I will not.
Lying for selfish reasons reveals a very ugly fact about the liar. Standing with such a man reveals much about you.
Intellectual Honesty demands that when you learn of a failing in a person that you find offensive, you live up to your own standards, even if it hurts. Step away. Or, at the very least, challenge the lie in the same venue it was offered. If the lie was public, challenge it publicly. If you denounce liars, and choose to stand with a liar, you are not being Intellectually Honest, and you assume the same taint as the liar and you are lying to every man who chooses to stand with you. When you fail to call out a lie, you are as guilty as the liar and equally responsible for the damages and injury inflicted.
Too many people are willing to "overlook" the failures of others when it suits their goals.
When you advocate 1A rights, when you pound upon the altar of patriotism that 1A is not only a Constitutional Right, but a Right of Natural Law, and then you call for a website that is critical of you to be shut down for obscenity (or any other reason), you demonstrate that you are a hypocrite of the highest order. Every 1A advocate who remains at your shoulder who knows the truth about you is being intellectually dishonest, and is equally guilty.
There are core values that should be used to measure the people with whom you will stand, and when deciding who you will permit to cover your back. When you trust a man to cover your back, you are also trusting that man with the fate of your family. If you get knifed in the back, is not your entire family placed in dire straits?
Could I be accused of living in a glass house and throwing stones? I have been accused of many things, but not lying for self-gain.
Choose your allies carefully, Patriots.
What is coming our way will be merciless and unforgiving. If you choose your allies imprudently, you will die.
Kerodin
III
