11:48 AM -:- Posted by Allen    

Small crimes are still crimes

My friend Doug Kenline posts his response to being taken to task by his brother for lying about his family.

Doug admits it all, but justifies it:

It seems that the berating and belittling tends to provoke people to writing a little more. Maybe that's why I do it.
-and-
...I was just trying to provoke a response...

Right.

It is true that people who normally have little to say about an issue will talk back when they are misrepresented. So if all Doug wants is noise back, their correction would suffice and that could be the end of it. Of course, it wouldn't be a comment on the issue, so really, nothing happened.

But Doug wants more. He wants people to comment on the issue. To participate. His way, in his game plan. So now that he has the person communicating, he pokes futher to make them do what he wants.

Maybe they do, maybe they don't. Maybe they feel they don't have a choice, in that if they refuse, they know that Doug will not respect their choice, will not leave them alone, and will probably lie about them some more.

Maybe we all need to be a little less respectful to ostriches, I don't know. I certainly have had my moments of frustration when I wanted to run down the street and shake the lapels of every person out there and scream into his face, "Don't you see what's going on? WAKE UP, MAN!!!"

But I don't do it. I don't because within the Grand Illusion, where it seems that everyone but me is paying attention only to the man behind the curtain, I am the apparent odd man out. All these unconscious psychos everywhere, and I'd be the one to end up in the loony bin. And what good could I do from there? So I do understand the impulse to provoke.

Doug's method won't get him locked up, true. But my problem with Doug's method is that he lies to achieve manipulation. He may think that the end justifies the means, but he's not looking at how badly his little abuses affect the objects of his manipulation.

Doug has lied about his family. Until today I had nothing to think of his family except what he'd said about them. Now, I don't automatically believe anybody who is speaking from crybaby mode. Still, the fact remains that the only image I had of Doug's family was built on what he'd said about them. And it wasn't a pretty picture.

Worse, it was a lie. These good people, who in fact do support him, and in fact are more involved in the movement, it turns out, than 99.8 percent of the population, are in pain because Doug makes rules for people without their consent and then does whatever it takes to bludgeon them into compliance. Including outright lying about them.

God help us all if Doug ruled the world.

Beyond betraying his family, Doug has also betrayed me, and thee, and himself.

He has betrayed me and thee in giving us false realities about one another. He has made our world seem worse than it already is. He has amplified our isolation and aloneness, and thus our approach to desperation.

And he has betrayed himself because he has been exposed as a liar. Who among us will not doubt the next thing he says about anybody?

That's the real cost, Doug. And it is too high. You can't win the truth by being a liar.

We all love you. But you've shaken our respect and trust. Give us a chance, and we'd probably line you up for the spanking of your life.

Then we'd hope that you got the message:

It isn't enough to work toward the right thing. You have to do the right thing, the right way. All along the way.

Now would be an excellent time to begin.