The Right to Lie

So I'm driving to work just the other morning and I hear on the news the story about Xavier Alvarez. He's the guy who was running for a public office who made the claim that he had won the Congressional Medal of Honor ... which he hadn't. He was convicted under the Stolen Valor Act, the law that made it a crime to claim a military medal you didn't deserve. He appealed ... and the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has come through again. The law is clearly unconstitutional. Yes, unconstitutional! What constitutional component does it violate? The right to free speech. Yes, folks, Mr. Alvarez got his conviction overturned on the basis of his right to lie. Remember my post on Do No Harm? That was exactly the reasoning. "Lying does no one any harm."

Now I'm stuck. Here I am, trying hard to work at maintaining the truth. I think truth is important. I think lies are not merely a bad choice, but harmful and dangerous. I don't even like to classify them as "white lies" or otherwise. The intent to deceive is harmful on every level. These days it is expected. And now it is a constitutional right!

I suppose they'll be repealing all those stupid "truth in advertising" laws and such, right? I mean, political ads are already exempt. Why should a company lose its freedom of speech just because you people feel you have the right to know the truth about their product? I mean, haven't we already got that whole "buyer beware" thing going? Is it really fair to devalue genuine valor on the basis of free speech and then say that companies can't have that same free speech? Politicians get the right to lie at will. Why shouldn't everyone else? And how about this whole stupid perjury thing? Isn't it a breech of that right to require someone to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth"? Come on! Be reasonable!

Look, things like heroism, integrity, even confidence are all on their way out. We should just stop all this nonsense and give it up. Postmodernism tells us that the user makes up his own meaning anyway, so let's relax, give everyone their constitutional freedom of speech, and stop all this nonsense of trying to have morals ... at all.

Sorry, end of sarcastic rant. I just can't imagine what goes through the minds of the people we have as judges these days.