If Martin Heinrich told you a "little" lie, would that be ok?

I think that when Rep Martin Heinrich was asked about the constituent input on health care legislation, he should have simply answered the question; candidly, forthrightly, and honestly.

Anonymous wrote to tell me that mine was a ridiculous complaint. The implication being, it is too small a dishonesty to take note of.

Anonymous apparently believes that, there is no correlation, a person who tells small lies is not more likely tell larger lies. The premise flies in the face of reason, and of experience.

Moral courage is about resisting temptation.

When people note that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, they are acknowledging the fact that temptation (to abuse power without consequence) corrupts, and if the temptation is large enough, no one has the moral strength and courage to resist.

My mother told me a million times when I was growing up; If you're going to steal, don't steal small. It took me awhile to grasp the meaning; if you are going to surrender your integrity, don't sell it cheap. Her real hope was that I would not sell it at all.

If Martin Heinrich, or Jon Barela, or any other candidate for any other office, cannot summon the character and the courage to answer questions when the stakes are small, it is bone crushingly naive to suppose that they will answer questions when the stakes are high.

Take for example, the town hall meeting that Martin Heinrich arranged in Belen, NM on July 25th. I wasn't there. I read about it in a letter to the editor, link.

If the writer is to be believed, Heinrich promised a town hall meeting and then had the questions filtered in order that he not have to answer high stakes questions.

I would offer that as proof of my thesis that he will not become more honest as the stakes increase.

Anonymous will argue that a bait and switch on a town hall meeting, is also too small of a dishonesty to take note of. And again, anonymous will be wrong.

The power and resources that public servants spend, are ours. We have a right to know the truth about how they are being spent, and about the public service of those public servants.

Every bit of corruption and incompetence that exists in government, exists because the public does not know the truth about it. For the most part, when they are discovered, they end. None of this can go on in the light of day.

Every candidate for public office should be able to look voters in the eye and promise to tell them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about their public service and about the spending of our power and resources.

And then we must hold them accountable to their promise; no secrets about constituent input, and no stonewalling of legitimate questions.

If they refuse to tell the truth,
that is reason enough to remove them from office.

And if they refuse to tell the truth during their campaign,
that is reason enough to deny them our vote.

... more than reason enough. Especially if they cannot summon
the character and courage to tell the truth, even about the
"small stuff".

Anonymous wrote;

"... this is just a pathetic attempt to fault him for anything
you can think up."

Trust me, being a conservative, there are a lot of things that I can fault a liberal for. It's just that they make so little difference when compared to simple honesty. Further, I have never suggested that Martin Heinrich is the only politician who thinks that stakeholders have no right to the truth. Nor have I ever suggested that there is any difference between democrats and republicans. I am not out to get Martin Heinrich. If he promises to tell us the truth, and Jon Barela does not, I will vote for Martin Heinrich.

I have paid every bit as much attention to Jon Barela's unwillingness to promise to tell the truth, link, as I have to Martin Heinrich's.

The immediate problem is that neither will promise to tell us the truth. In which case, voters might just as well flip a coin, either way they're going to get screwed.




photos Mark Bralley