There are some (and some very smart, very 'aware') people, some with some very long tracks, who are of the opinion that Lee Harvey Oswald -- while involved -- was either a dupe or programmed; and that there was actually another shooter on the "grassy knoll" who murdered John Kennedy. And, this may be so. I don't know. All I know is that when God brought home Lee Harvey Oswald, God didn't care that someone else may have had something to do with it. Responsibility is not something that you can divide into pie pieces -- regardless of what certain legal doctrines of 'comparative' fault may say.
To the extent that, at your 'Judgment Day', you try to deflect YOUR responsibility by pointing out (however truthfully) that it was not "all" your fault, that someone else 'did it too', and that, if it hadn't of been 'for him' (or 'her'), you would not have 'done it' ... if you don't just stand up straight as a board and say:
"Yep, I did it. I decided to do it. It was my idea. I wish I hadn't of done it."
If that is true ... never lie about what is within your heart, because every time you do, you die just a little until at some point light-years into eternity you become a solid 'rock' (for lack of a better term); you can no longer move; you can barely think; lies seems to be true; you are, for are essentially a mass of darkness -- darkness you yourself created because you turned away from the light just a few times too many.
We have all heard about the 'laudable omission' or the 'white lie', and there are those times when avoid the bald unflattering truth is the best policy, not to mention the mortally safest route -- if a gang banger has your nuts in a vice and a gun to your head, that would not be the time to observe that he needs a Tic-Tac. And, if your wife, or husband, ever ask you "Does this make me look fat?", the only answer you should EVER give -- and with no delay -- is "No!" ... [astonished expression] ... "Absolutely NOT!".
But, laudable white lies -- so-called 'social lies' -- are few and far between and about as rare as hens teeth (ok, ok, ok, Mr. King would disapprove of my vernacular, especially as I don't employ it all that good, and often mix my methaphors -- so sue me). You've all heard the example bandied about in "situation ethics" courses all over creation of the fellow in World War II Nazi Germany who answers the door, to find the Gestapo asking him whether he's hiding any Jews? It's always wrong to lie, right? So, he has to tell the truth, in order to be a moral man, that, yes, he's got ten of them hidden behind that fake partition? Right? If the does not, he's SOOOOO respectable, the Gestapo will never question him and he'll never get caught, and the Jews will be safely out of Germany the next day. If he does, the Gestapo will thank him for his honesty, and will immediately execute the family of 10 Jews ... right down in the street out in front so that everyone will know the evils of hiding Jews. So, his choice is to either lie, with no chance of ever getting caught, and save the life of 10 innocent people from the criminal insane known then as the Nazi's, or to be a 'moral' man, tell the truth, have a 'clean conscience' and be causally responsible for the murder of 10 of his friends.
THIS is one of those few and far between 'laudable' or 'white' lies. Obviously. And, all the 'discussion groups' that have considered some version of this apparent conundrum in college campuses across the United States, haven't got the slighest chance of 'proving' that the fellow ought to tell the truth. Of course he shouldn't. He'd be an asshole, with no chance of redemption, if he allowed his friends to be slaughtered by the Nazis.
But, in talking about personal responsibility -- the kind that gets you into Heaven (if that is where you prefer to go, instead of to the third galaxy at a vector of 28.7 degrees South of the pinnacle of Eiffel tower, for example) -- and not lying to yourself, or to others, about your crimes, transgressions and stupidities, we're talking about seeing clearly what there is to see, without agenda, without alternation, without goal. Just seeing. And, about not lying to yourself about what you see. Because I'll tell you a secret, which is really not secret when it comes down to it. You can see everything. Just like I can. I'm just a little better at seeing trends than you are, right now. If fact, you cannnot not see everything. Seeing everything is built into what you are; it's the self-deceit that is not you. So, every time you pretend that you didn't fart on your sister's birthday cake; or every time you pretend that your husband is stronger than you are, when he isn't; or every time you pretend that you didn't know that you'd hurt your wife's feelings by dismissing her worries about how fast you are driving after she asked you to slow down, you're lying to yourself and your throwing your personal responsibility down a little farther down the toilet.
The happiest, most fulfilled, most joyous and most hungry for life among us are those who do not lie, who take responsibility for everything they perceive and who admit it when they have fucked up. No matter how badly. No matter how embarrassingly. These fine folk are happy because they are not lugging around in their spiritual suitcase all of that CRAP that THEY created. They recognized how stupidly they acted, admitted it, and it then does not hang around to bother them. But, if they had 'overlooked' it, and 'swept it under the rug', or tried to blame in on their mothers, their husbands, their kids, their bosses, the police, Donald Trump (!!!), then, by God, until time immemorial, that lie would follow them around.
Where are we (me at least) going with this? Basically, no where except to note that -- if he had lived -- Lee Harvey Oswald's only salvation would have been in admitting his role in murdering John Kennedy. And, if he happens upon God while he's floating out there somewhere in the ether, waiting to find another body, he damn well better admit his transgressions or he'll be saddled with them for some time to come.
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