Pride, honesty, integrity, loyalty, neatness, kindness, and bravery, were characteristics exhibited by my family and extolled upon in our community when I was a young boy growing up lower middle class in the 50s and 60s. Of these characteristics, honesty was at the top of the list.

I learned over and over again, “If you lie, no one will trust you.”

“If you lie, no one will like you.”

“If you lie, you will have to lie some more to cover up your first lie and so on.”

“If you lie, you can’t be successful.”

“Lying is a venial sin.”(This belief I got from my years in the catholic school that was held on the second floor of our church.)

So, I thank my parents for their honesty and integrity; their example showed me the way to becoming an individual whose much respected father-in-law let it be known prior to my wedding day (44 years ago) that any man could marry one of his daughters as long as he is honest, a characteristic I happily possessed.

Honesty is the basis of a happy marriage, a successful business partnership, a business agreement, and a contract, any of life’s interactions among people. Honesty doesn’t guarantee success but it can’t be achieved without it, not really. For most people, honesty is the building block of all life’s endeavors.

But there is so much distrust, so much dishonesty floating around in the world today. Businesses go out of their way to portray their products in the best light, but perhaps not the most honest light.

Have you noticed the big packages with less content? Dishonest? Not really but on the edge.

What about sales items first marked up then with a deep price cut? Dishonest? Perhaps, we call it misleading not dishonest.

Buying a new car? Get ready for the hocus-pocus of dealer warrantees, dealer discounts, dealer rebates, dealer shipping, dealer specials, and dealer this and that. Yes, all are special alright, a special bowl of illusions and gimmicks stirred up so the buyer comes away thinking he/she has a decent deal and the dealer comes away with “whatever he can get.”

Business negotiations are necessary and not in and of themselves a negative. They all to often become a negative if one or both parties are dishonest. There is nothing more satisfying in business than a “win-win” outcome. Both parties giving and getting what they agreed upon, both parties happy, content. Both satisfied.

Nothing is more troubling and upsetting than a business agreement gone array because of deceit, deception, misrepresentation, or out and out dishonesty. Surely there will be honest oversights and misunderstanding, and they can be remedied when dealing with two honest sides.

Yet, in America today, this deception, misrepresentation, and dishonesty seem to be “business as usual.” Deception is expected. Buyer beware! You had better get everything in writing. Retain a lawyer because you will need one. And make sure she is a good one, one that can twist the truth to get you what you want.

Nowhere in our society is corruption more obvious than in our government. Politicians, for the most part, are considered to be just below a used car salesman on the honesty chart. Unfortunately, the placing is mostly warranted. Their mantra seems to be: lie, cheat, mislead, do anything, say anything to get elected and then do as your backers want. By backers I don’t mean those that voted for this politician, his/her constituents, I mean those that supported him/her financially, gave him/her money for campaigns with the unspoken but ever present understood attachment that the politician will do their bidding when in office whether or not it is for the common good. I digress!

As an example, the Presidential campaigns are in full swing. Our politicians have taken advantage of the voters for so long they don’t even give an appearance of truthfulness. They out-and-out lie so much that we have “fact checking” organizations to try to make the public aware of who is telling the truth.

Donald Trump, it is reported, lies on average every 21 seconds, and considering all the free press and TV time he is getting THAT’S A LOT OF BULL PUCKY!

Hillary Clinton has a reputation, warranted or not, of being a liar. After watching the dishonestly in the DNC and her campaign organization all to get her elected, it becomes harder not to believe she is personally involved and at the root of the dishonesty.

Then there is Bernie Sanders. Regardless of whether you support him or not, you must agree that he is honest. Hell, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Lindsey Graham, and bunch more on the right say he is honest. Of all the comments you hear about Bernie Sanders, you never hear it said that he is not honest. His opposers say he is too old, he is a socialist, he is not a true democrat, he is not blah blah blah, but you never hear he is not truthful.

Bernie’s campaign is taking support only from those that he will represent for the common good, not just the rich and big business. His rallies are filled with supporters who come to see and hear the truth about his policies, his ideas and his view of America and the world. I believe his tremendous success so far is because he is not “business as usual,” he is not lying in his speeches and discourse with the American people. He is the truth, like it or not.

I have often said that Jimmy Carter was the last completely honest president we have had. He told us of our dependence on oil and carbon emissions, he told us of the problems in the Middle East, he informed us of things that we didn’t want to hear like climate change. Human nature dictates that we ignore or discount that which we don’t like. Be it good or bad for us, we tend to ignore it.

From those lower middle class beginnings and the upbringing that instilled those worthy characteristics in me, I find this year’s presidential candidates, for the most part, wanting. Those characteristics that were so important in a citizen don’t seem to hold for the citizen’s elected officials.

So here we are almost at the end of the primary season with Donald Trump as the GOP nominee and the DNC trying to anoint the first woman president, Hillary Clinton, both riding the media wave morning, noon and night. The TV news and talk shows just can’t get enough and newspapers are full of their shenanigans and untruths. One is a dishonest liar and the other is even more so. I will let you decide which is which.

And we have an honest politician, Bernie, scratching and clawing his way through the primaries drawing huge crowds and reaching out to the masses with honest messaging and very little media coverage.

Doesn’t it make sense that the honest politician should be who we Americans would want to lead us and represent us in our nation and the world? Doesn’t it make sense that we as Americans would want to be led by the politician that speaks the truth so that we can believe and trust what he/she says? Wouldn’t we want the politician that you can trust to be fair and square with the American people and the rest of the world, the politician you can be proud to call your leader, your President?

Yet look at the poles. Do you see who is most likely to represent the two major parties? One of those liars will ultimately lead our country!

What does this choice say about America?

What does this say about you and me?

What does it say about the news media and who controls what we see and hear?

Are we as free as we think we are?

Do we really get to choose from among us our elected officials or are we just given the candidates ‘the powers that be’ have decided we get?

Queasy stomach, feeling ill? Take two aspirins and call me in the morning!