XPost: alt.politics.conservative, alt.politics.democrats, dc.politics   
   XPost: soc.culture.african.american   
   From: rkoch@banmlkday.com   
      
   Truth to unprincipled people is like salt to a slug. It destroys   
   them, but to honorable people it is their foundation for life.   
   Truth is essential for developing a vibrant nation, especially   
   necessary for politicians, preachers, professors, and performers   
   who give direction to a nation.   
      
   A lie doesn’t become truth with time, talk, or twisting.   
   Likewise, wrong does not become right; and evil doesn’t become   
   good because it is accepted by the majority. I would rather   
   experience hateful truth than loving error. Truth is often   
   unpleasant, but unpleasant truth is not always hate speech. The   
   more society drifts away from the truth, the more it will hate   
   those who speak it.   
      
   The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once noted, “All Truth   
   progress through the same three stages: First with ridicule,   
   then with violent opposition, and finally acceptance as self-   
   evident.” I have observed that throughout history and throughout   
   my life.   
      
   People prompted by principle will stand for truth when they are   
   first exposed to it even if they know it will annoy and destroy   
   them. Truth will inform you and reform you. Unused truth becomes   
   useless as an unused muscle. Roman statesman and historian   
   Cicero declared: “The first law for the historian is that he   
   shall never dare write an untruth. The second is that he shall   
   suppress nothing that is true.” I will follow that maxim today.   
      
   Tolstoy declared, “I know that most men … can seldom accept even   
   the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would   
   oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have   
   delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly   
   taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread,   
   into the fabrics of their lives.” That will be a problem with   
   the reading of this column. However, when a man of principle   
   gets new truth that conflicts with what he has always taught, he   
   either changes his mind or loses his principles.   
      
   The 18th-century scientist/philosopher Georg Lichtenberg said,   
   “It is almost impossible to carry the torch of truth through a   
   crowd without singeing somebody’s beard.” I am sure I will singe   
   some beards today because I will deal with truth as it relates   
   to an American icon.   
      
   In March of 1993 I sent a note to the editor of USA Today and   
   told him not to waste money sending me my annual contract. I   
   quit. Some of my closest friends thought I had lost my mind   
   since the largest paper in the world gave me an opportunity to   
   express my very Christian and Conservative views — and paid me   
   for doing it! I quit because of truth. I got my gig at the   
   national paper because I came to the defense of my friend Jerry   
   Falwell who was castigated by the media and academia for saying   
   Bishop Tutu was a phony. Of course, he was a phony; but because   
   Tutu was a religious leader and a leading South African Black,   
   the truth was rejected. I sent a column to the paper in Jerry’s   
   defense, and they sent me a check and a contract! They were   
   looking for a “token fundamentalist.”   
      
   The editor knew I traveled across America, Europe, and the   
   Middle East and told me to inform him what was “hot” at the time   
   and we would deal with it on the daily “Opinion Page.” One day   
   it was guns, another day AIDS, next abortion, next street   
   people, etc. However, when I told him I wanted to do an article   
   (four other authors including the editor would also deal with   
   the subject) on Senator Ted Kennedy romping on the floor of a   
   major Washington restaurant with a waitress, he refused to deal   
   with the subject. The story never was published. I thought truth   
   was important.   
      
   When I returned from a brief stay in London after a Middle East   
   trip, I told the editor that Martin Luther King’s plagiarism of   
   his Ph.D. dissertation was hot news in England and I wanted to   
   do an article on the subject. The editor refused to permit it.   
   It seems truth was not important to the paper. On Nov. 9, 1990,   
   The Wall Street Journal broke the story that USA Today could   
   have published.   
      
   That was not too surprising since every January 10 or 11 I sent   
   him an article dealing with Martin Luther King, Jr. I believed   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)