I hate being lied to.
Posted: August 4, 2012 Filed under: Don't. Just don't. | Tags: integrity, stand for something, wisdom 1 Comment
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So tell me what I see
When I look in your eyes –
Is that you, baby
Or just a brilliant disguise?
– Bruce SpringsteenI’m not upset that you lied to me; I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you. – Friedrich Nietzsche
A lie poisons a relationship. A lie says that someone did not believe you were worthy of the truth. A lie makes you wonder and doubt forever.
A lie steals time and trust from you. It is possible to get past the insult, but never the betrayal.
A writer named Jonathan Wallace wrote the following as part of a philosophical essay. Most of it is too esoteric, but here are the excerpts that matter:
I hate being lied to. Short of violence, it is the worst thing you can do to me. Not because of God, or the Ten Commandments, or any universal moral precepts. The reason that I hate lies is because I wish to navigate carefully through life. And to do so I must be able to calculate my true position. When you lie to me you know your position, but you have given me false data which obscures mine.
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Lying is theft. When you tell me something which I take to be true and as a result I invest my time, or my money, or my care, you have stolen these things from me because you obtained them with false information.
Lying creates inequality. Since you also do not like being lied to – I have never known anyone who wanted to be deceived – you have acted as if there were two classes of humans. You, with the right to lie; and everyone else, who must be truthful so that you too will not lose your way.
Lying treats people as means to the end you wish to accomplish, and not as ends in themselves.
Nothing hurts more than being lied to by someone you should have been able to trust.
God have mercy on the man
Who doubts what he’s sure of
– Bruce Springsteen
Name-Brand Ketchup. 
I hate lies, but I have had way too many liars in my life anyway. The guy who lives in my house has called me a moron because I told the truth rather than following up on his lead telling some lie or another to ease a neighbor kid out the door. I haven’t any trouble getting them to go home when I just tell them they need to go home, and i have no trouble telling them that he just isn’t in the mood for having kids over. I can’t even play poker worth a hoot because I am such a lousy liar. I think it is mostly because I am too lazy to try to keep track of things that aren’t true, also because I was raised in a family of guys who liked to tease girls and my bullshit detector has been worn out, so to piss them off I just act as if everything they tell me is true, works like a dream.