True, Kind, Necessary

Is it true?
Is it kind?
Is it necessary?

Three questions I'm told I should ask myself before I speak, and certainly before I post anything online.

And so I ask them.

Is it true? Well, there it is. A tweet. One of thousands, put out there for public consumption by the President of the United States. It is true. He wrote it, or at least allowed his name and likeness to be associated with the words. To the extent that anything is true these days, this is true.

Is it kind? Obviously, the sentiments expressed are not kind. They are the equivalent of the fourth-grade bully you perhaps encountered on the playground. Who's a butthead? YOU'RE a butthead. Is it kind for me to bring this up? I don't know. I struggle with this. I'm told I should just ignore it, get on with my life, just accept the constant drip, drip, drip of inane, lobotomized incivility and not stop to wonder what this is doing to our society, to me. Who's a butthead? Feel free to think of me as one if it will help you sleep at night.

Is it necessary? No, it's not necessary. None of this is necessary. The tweet isn't necessary. My response to it isn't necessary. But I can't turn it off and pretend that it's not there, that it isn't happening. I can't turn off the notion that the President's job offer to George Conway is a matter of public record, as is George Conway's very public decline of that job offer. You can, as they say, look them up. They're easy to find.

This is still known in some circles as lying. I can't help it. I remember the notions of human decency and objective truth, hearkening back fondly to times when they used to matter, and I still lament the roaring silence of much of what passes for the Christian Church in America, the great cosmic shushing of conscience. Mine has a hard time staying quiet. Shhhh!

But it's hard to remain silent. I struggle with this all the time, almost every hour. Forgive my lack of kindness, the unnecessary intrusion into your pleasant day. Ironic, isn't it?