My exception is sarcasm, and you'll find none of that here: Genuinely, I think the root of the debate is honesty, and not the act of lying, but that is really a semantic debate. I have a long a deeply personal story about why I'm so passionate about dishonesty, aka lying, but the crux of the issue for me is that 1. I do not have an open door policy with trust--that is to say it is earned and not given. 2. I am uncomfortable with telling lies because it makes me feel dishonorable to do so. When I was 16, I went to a funeral where I heard something that stuck with me. I met a woman that told me a story about the man who's wake we were attending. She said that she had known the man for more years than I have been alive today, and that in those years she had never known him to tell a lie. I don't take her account at face value, however, I do hope that someday when it all ends, someone might be at my funeral to tell my grandson that I was an honest man. If I have no other legacy than that, I'll be ok.