The kind of lying you mention is not something I take very well so I can definitely empathize.

But I am a bit conflicted since being merciful is one of my ideals. Not that I've ever been especially good at it.

What helps me a bit [and just a bit] is my belief that most people tend to operate on "autopilot" most of the time. What I mean by this is that I don't think that people generally do things at the end of a long reflective and deliberative process.

People develop ways of doing things in their childhood, I think. Those things can become habitual so that in adulthood the actions just follow the habit that was initially formed.

Sometime people have some counterforce that provokes interiority and self-reflection and a desire to improve themselves.

Some people seem motivated to lean against their "bad" habits and even develop good habits so that when they are on "autopilot" they tend to make better decisions.

Sometimes people run on "autopilot" without even realizing it and can go a long time just assuming that if a thought pops into their head it doesn't need to be questioned and is just self-validating.

Prisons, I think are full of people who just "obeyed" the thoughts that popped into their heads.

I think the whole habit thing idea came from Aristotle. People just don't always do random good and bad deeds.

People find themselves in adulthood with a range of habits that relieve them of the chore of long deliberative processes that slow snap decision-making.

Some of these habits are good [virtues] and some are bad [vices] was Aristotle's view.

Of course Aristotle, following Plato believed that human beings should look at themselves and try to better themselves.

This isn't very fashionable today. But it wasn't fashionable in antiquity either.

Aristotle, I think believed that in adulthood people would be wise to take stock of themselves and try to discover what kinds of habits they acquired when young and try to change those habits that were not so good.

Aristotle thought that since humans were social beings, dependent on communication, that truthfulness was a necessary virtue.

Truthfulness greases the machinery on which social life depends. Without it social life would burn up like an overheated engine.

Later philosophers believed that humans had a higher duty to charity than to truthfulness when those values came into conflict, hence . . . white lies. You mentioned those in your post.

And there was the value of personal privacy where one was not seen to be bound to truthfulness if that enabled a person to invade one's personal private space.

We wouldn't need truthfulness if we as a species were mind-readers.

And a person all alone on a desert island wouldn't need to cultivate truthfulness in the social sense, only truthfulness to him or herself.

Perhaps 95% of morality is there because we don't live all alone on a desert island.

Often those who are not being truthful expect others to be truthful to them. This involves a person being a living contradiction.

It is like a bunch of bank robbers in a getaway car expecting all the other drivers on the road to obey the stop lights and such...'Lawfulness for thee but not for me' contradiction.

I have been both victim and perpetrator of lies, white and otherwise. I have been both victim and perpetrator of running on autopilot and falling into recurring hurtful and/or harmless mistakes.

Getting older sometimes helps since sometimes the longer one lives, the more apt one is to get into a situation which finally shocks one into insight.

I have insights now that I didn't have ten, twenty years ago. Sadly insight has its own timetable. It is not like education or experience which can grow incrementally.

A bunch of things have to all come together at the same time for an insight to occur in an "ah ha" moment. Of course education and experience help a lot.

It is easier for me today to forgive someone for untruthfulness but even now I am not very good at it. I tend to hold grudges and want to go the way of revenge rather than mercy. I think I am a little bit better at mercy than I used to be but I am not sure.

I was once talking to a dog obedience teacher and the subject was dogs doing their business in the house instead of outside. The dog owner usually responds by punishing the dog in some way.

Something the dog obedience teacher said caught my attention. He said: "the goal of punishment is not to have to continually punish the dog. The goal is to teach the dog to self-punish even when no one is around."

Perhaps none of this makes any sense. I am often wrong about things and am still learning.