Lying Has Become an Art Form for the Rich

NPR carried a fascinating report this morning about lying and liars.  America has become a place where dishonesty pays and that’s a crying shame.

Lying in politics is hardly a new game, but do people these days lie more than in the past? Author James B. Stewart asks this question in his new book, Tangled Webs, which describes what Stewart calls a surge of concerted, deliberate lying by people at the top of their fields, like Martha Stewart, Bernie Madoff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and Barry Bonds.

Stewart admits in his book that he can’t prove with statistics how much lying and perjury happens, but instead gathers anecdotal evidence from people like prosecutors who view it as an epidemic to the point where they come into work expecting to be lied to day after day. But whether or not it’s a quantifiable rise, Stewart says the trend of high-profile cases where the defendant ends up charged not for the original crime but for perjury sends a negative message to the U.S. justice system and the rest of the world.

Liars are all around us.  From lying children to lying employers to lying employees.  Politicians, doctors, lawyers, they’ve all become nothing more than used car salesmen shilling their useless cars off on an unsuspecting and gullible public.  Thievery and deception go hand in hand, which is why America has lost it’s way and is basically and essentially doomed.

Related Articles

• America’s Top Liars Revealed (thedailybeast.com)
• America’s Top Liars (newsweek.com)