Value of self

While the engraving machine was chewing up a piece of brass, I was traipsing around the blogosphere and hit this Protein Wisdom link to a bit of investigation done by Doug Ross.  Gist of the story:  Ross dug around in web archives, looking for changes in Obama's "literary bio" - the junk that goes inside or on the back of a book jacket...

Turns out those bios were edited several times, marking such things as barry's ascension through State Senator, US Senator, etc...    The "born in Kenya..." parts remained after each edit, right up until 2 weeks before barry declared his intentions to run for the presidency - at which time it just went away and became "born in Hawaii..."

Alright, I'm a Birther Agnostic.  Evidence for/against Hawaii/Kenya is unconvincing to me.  I'm pretty much past caring about it.  Just seems like that dog won't hunt, and I don't think there will ever be a satisfying explanation.  And even if there were, I doubt it could become something actionable, or something that would sway much of the electorate.  So I don't sweat it.

But the dishonesty at work here really chafes me.  I, being human, am far from perfect.  I have lied.  I remember a time in 2nd grade (about 1977) when I was misbehaving on the playground and started a bit of a ruckus.  When confronted by the teacher on duty, I blamed it all on this bully kid I didn't like.  For once in his bullying life, the bully wasn't involved.  But because of his rep, (and mine) the teacher had no problem believing me.  He got in trouble and I skated.  Guess what?  That still bugs me.  I can't claim that's the only lie of told.  If only.  But I really, really, avoid lying.

(Parenthetic:  Aaron Schrempf, if you somehow happen upon this blog post, I'm sorry for making you look like a d-bag back in 1977.)

The LAST thing I can see myself lying about is just that: my self.  There are all manner of things that each of us holds dear.  Self is important to me.  Not in the "I gotta be at the front of the line!!1!" sense, but more in a "who I am and what I'm going to someday become is important to me" sense.  I generally don't give half a bleep about people think of me.  I care what I think about me - which influences dictates my treatment of others, particularly those I love.  Hence I can't even begin to understand how a person like barry could so cavalierly misrepresent the self.  To assert a false self implies that the genuine self is lacking.  I would consider that the ultimate betrayal, made worse because it was done by me, against me.  It would be a thousand times more preferable to shape and adjust my life until I WAS what I wanted to be, than to shrug off that effort and just claim it, while knowing otherwise.

It is further boggling that such a man could end up in the nation's highest office.  It would eat at me continually if I attained so much only by BSing people about who I really am.  If barry has so little respect for something as important as the self, how can he be expected to respect anything external?  Like Rights.  Institutions.  Laws.  This flaw of his is much more important than what patch of dirt Stanley birthed him on.