I Watched Dr. Phil
Yeah… I watch Dr. Phil sometimes. The other day, I watched the second half (didn’t see the first) of a show about a high school french teacher that was accused of having sexual contact with 3 of her students. I don’t know the whole story, but apparently one of the three recanted his story during testimony. The other one failed a lie-detector for Dr. Phil and the third one was on Dr. Phil to confront her. The lie-detector given on Dr. Phil for the third one showed “clear deception” to some of the questions. But, he said he had passed a previous lie-detector test.
Two things really struck me during that show. The first was that the polygraph examiner seemed really, really angry….. even hostile…. toward the third young man. He asked him, after the results were revealed, something about his answering “no” to some questions like, “Have you ever lied to keep out of trouble,” and “Have you ever lied to protect someone’s feelings?”
The second thing is that Dr. Phil said, “Well, you’re the only person — including myself — that I have ever heard could answer those questions that way.”
Well…. Doc…. I can. So…. if you think that makes me a liar… you’re as judgmental as you are dishonest.
I have always believed that if you can’t speak the truth, say nothing.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Seriously, Mark? You can’t think of a single time in your life when you’ve told a lie? You’ve never lied to avoid hurting someone’s feelings or to get out of trouble? You’ve never told a little fib to get out of doing something? Has a woman ever asked you if she looked fat in her jeans and you lied so you wouldn’t make her feel bad? Hehehehe By the way, I saw that show too. Who do you think was telling the truth?
Yep, seriously. I told one lie in my life when I was in High School and it haunted me for a long time. I felt like I lost a very important part of myself. I take honesty very seriously.
While I don’t think that lying would necessarily always be a bad thing, I don’t take it lightly. It would have to be something more earth-shattering than “do these jeans make me look fat” for me to tell a lie. If a Nazi was asking me, “Are you hiding a Jew, ” I might say, “No,” if it meant saving a life. I might say, “Yes, and I’m not telling you where.”
In that show, I think they were both lying. But, I believed her more than I believed him. I think SOMETHING went on between them, but I don’t necessarily believe that they had sexual contact. I think she was being inappropriate with them. At the very least, I think she was trying to be the teenage friend of them rather than their teacher.