By DAVID EPPS
Pastor

Does anybody tell the truth anymore?

It's hard to tell at times. The past few years have seen a number of high-profile instances of people and institutions hit hard by other people's inability to practice simple honesty.

The latest truth crisis is the recent rash of financial meltdowns among some of the country's largest companies. The names Enron, Arthur Andersen, Worldcom, and ImClone, among others, have become almost synonymous with deceit and corruption.

Hundreds of thousands of innocent people have lost billions of dollars in the past year over what really boils down to a bunch of lies.

Where does it start? Does a guy walk into his office one day and say to himself, "I'm going to bring this corporation down and bilk all of its shareholders"? Probably not. But once a cycle of lies begins, it's often impossible to stop it.

The problem with lying is that the first one, which often is told to cover up some other transgression, must usually itself be backed up by another lie, or a series of lies. Pretty soon, an entire house of cards teeters precariously in the wind, just waiting for a strong gust to blow it into oblivion.

So a financial officer at some company decides to hide some potentially bad news from others by doing some creative accounting. In no time, the company has been wiped out, but not before a select group of connected people use their knowledge to escape the sinking ship with a few million dollars, none of which the rest of the company had a chance to get because they believed the lies.

The fact that we've heard about so many such cases in the past year is not coincidence. It's a symptom of an epidemic in today's society.

It's the same malady that allows a president to lie under oath in a court of law and get away with it, largely because much of the American public gave him a free pass. "It's just sex," they said "It's his private life." If a man cannot be faithful to his wife, who else can trust him?

Liberals use the Enron scandals and subsequent episodes to bash the rich. The problem is not rich people. The problem is crooked people. They need to be dealt with as criminals.

There are laws in place to address these situations, if only they are enforced. Let some of the guilty parties trade in their pinstripes for prison stripes, and we'll be off to a good start.

But we have to realize that so many of the people committing massive fraud on the American economic system are simply operating on the same wishy-washy, whatever-feels-good moral and ethical playing field that many of our leaders have been encouraging for so long.

It's the same perverted version of right and wrong that our government schools are indoctrinating our children with every day. If it doesn't stop soon, the country will continue sliding into an amoral abyss.

Even those who are quick to condemn dishonest activities among corporate types often seem to ignore the same behavior from government leaders. A typical taxpayer will not even notice what is happening to his or her own money in the Social Security system, but let a mechanic lie about repairs on that same taxpayer's automobile and there will be hell to pay. Dishonesty should be treated seriously by everyone, on every level.

It's not really that hard to connect the dots and tie America's long-time moral crisis to its most recent financial crisis. Left to their own devices, men and women of poor character will allow simple greed to overwhelm them until they take down thousands of other people's financial dreams with them.

People who trust in God more than the market for their economic well-being will need to continue to do so, and they must encourage others to do the same. Because until we go back to teaching the coming generations that lies and cover-ups are not the answer to their problems, there's no telling what will happen next.

[Monroe Roark can be reached at mroark@TheCitizenNews.com.]

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