Are politicians liars or worse?

Great Debates
1

Edited slightly from my locked post in general questions.

The recount in Florida is a perfect example of an issue where your political party should not influence your opinion. Yet the vast majority of Democrats think a hand recount is the correct thing to do and the majority of Republicans think a hand count is less accurate and illegal.

So obviously a good number of politicians are lying? Or do they convince themselves that whatever will help their party is the truth? Isn’t that worse than just a plain liar?

IIRC a Pathological liar repeats a lie until he believes it. Does that apply to politicians in this case? It seems to be different because they are forming an opinion that is best for them politically but claiming it is correct for other reasons.

Is their a clinical term for this behavior? Or is this just human nature to form an opinion that will benefit you but claim it’s for other reasons.

2

Yes, they are lying (well, most of them, anyway). They are politicians, after all.

3

All of the above.

4

Careful what you say here. Some of us are politicians; are politicians, moreover, precisely because of our ethical beliefs and honest commitment to the citizenry.

5

ROFL!

That’s a good one!

Tell us another knee-slapper!

6

Oh, for goddess’ sake, this is really fucking unpleasant to have to deal with, do you know that?

Look, running for the NDP in Quebec isn’t something I (or the other 70 NDP Quebec candidates, or the 600 or so fourth-party candidates) would be doing if I were a mendacious power-hungry technocrat.

I’m really getting tired of people casually insulting everybody involved in politics as if it were some lower-caste occupation only engaged in by the bloated and stupid.

7

you go, Matt!

thanks for taking the time and effort to stand for election.

I’ve worked with politicians, and my general impression is that most of them are hard-working, honest, concerned citizens who “desire a better country.”

Thanks for helping to make our democracy work, and for ensuring that there is a range of candidates with different ideas for the voters in your riding to choose from.

8

I’ve had a good deal of layman’s experience with politicians, so let’s see, liars or worse?

Does a cow dump in the field? Does a bear shit in the woods?

Agreed, like 1% might be honest and aboveboard, determined to do What Is Right. The rest all have personal agendas, can distort bad facts enough to make people thank them for screwing them over and actually appreciate it, can lie their asses off while hooked up to a lie detector which says they’re telling the truth and one should never, ever let one near any stray cash. Most of the ones I’ve met are power mad and just love to wield it at every opportunity. Plus they love the perks, like hopping in an Airforce jet to fly to the islands for a quick vacation at $100,000 one way, using the government paid for limo to take the kids to Disney Land and grabbing up about $3000 in free tickets, then writing it all off as a business expense.

Plus, I suspect that they just love to confuse the public because not one can write a simple presentation without using words I have trouble pronouncing and many I never met before laid out in such a way that after interpreting 10 pages of legalese, I find out that he/she is requesting $50 a month be added to the city budget to clean out the cement duck filled fountain in the park.

Usually, that $50 winds up becoming $500 dollars by the time everyone else gets done, of which $40 goes to the pond and the rest vanishes in 'necessary studies and appropriations concerning the ongoing cleaning and maintenance of duck fountain and the environmental impact therein.

Sheesh! All that just to flush duck crap out of a fountain once a month!

9

[Sam Kinnesson]
YES!!!*
[/Sam Kinnesson]

~~Baloo

*[sub]The existence of politicians who are not liars or worse does not invalidate the conclusion shown above. It merely illustrates that the political system is not 100% effective at keeping idealists out of the system.[/sub]

10

Well, Matt, maybe Canada is a bit different than the U.S. in terms of politicians.

But that’s as far as I’ll go in granting what you’ve said about politicians in general.

11

matt, this bullshit criticism against politicians is the same as lawyer jokes. Of course the brush is too broad. You will feel better if you find a way to not let it get to you, cause it ain’t going away.

(In making the following remarks I must admit pretty complete ignorance of the Canadian system.)

There are several factors that can combine to make politicians appear, in any individual’s mind with respect to any particular issue, shall we say relatively unprincipled or inconstant.

First, there is an inherent tension between whether an elected official is to simply vote the way a majority in his district would want him to, or if he is supposed to exercise some discretion given his presumed greater information and expertise. These pressures can differ on an issue-by-issue basis. I find it interesting that people criticize elected officials for relying excessively upon polling data to form their positions, yet reserve the right to howl if they believe their rep is not acting as his constituency would wish.

There are some issues where siding with your party takes precedence over just about all else. On this election issue (and most controversial issues), non-insane arguments can be advanced to support both sides. Further, to the extent reasonable people can differ on an issue means that, whatever action the official takes, up to 49% of his constituency (or more if elected in a 3-way race) might disagree. And if a politician tries to appease EVERYONE, NO ONE is happy. Then, factor in that very few voters agree with their candidates on EVERY issue. So even your favorites have plenty of opportunity to disappoint you.

Then, there is the ever constant pressure to be re-elected. There can often be a vast difference between the actual effect of a particular vote, and how that action will appear as election fodder for you or the opponent. Note also that there is a distinction between legislative action that “appears” desirable, as opposed to action that will actually be “effective” in addressing its object. Much “legislating” is done through administrative “rule-making” by non-elected bureacrats who interpret legislative dictates.

Related to the election issue, elections are very costly. Especially for reps who are elected every 2 years, they often must spend so much time fund raising andd campaigning that it may appear, rightly or wrongly, they are expenmding more effort on that than on the substance of their jobs.

You also must consider the number and complexity of issues our elected officials deal with, especially at the national level. As a result, officials must rely heavily upon the input of non-elected aides.

Finally, I’ll suggest what I call the “cop locker room” factor. Where one cop gets shot, and after the other cops all talk about it in the locker room, they all feel as though they were endangered. You hear one politician did something questionable, and generalize it to all politicians, at all levels. On the other side, it can lead to a defensive posture on the part of the politicians. They may lean towards inaction, to avoid giving anyone any ammo to use against them.

Also related is the tendency for the media, watchdog groups, opponents, etc., to publicize the negative. Saying “Senator Joe is a good guy” doesn’t sell too many papers. We have an incredible level of scrutiny. I doubt it is too hard to dig something up on just about anyone. The question of character, however, is relevant to how the individual responds to such revelations.

I’m a little surprised you would partake in what I consider unsupported overgeneralizations, David B. I would expect you to acknowledge that the truth is a little less “black and white”. Also, politics ain’t an easily observable phenomena with agreed upon objective criteria.

12

You think it’s an “unsupported overgeneralization”?! Have you been paying any attention over the past few weeks (hell, the past few months)? Some of these guys lie as easily as they breathe.

Note that I never said all. Some or even most, yes. There are a few others, but here in the U.S. they are all too often pushed aside by the others.

13

I guess it depends on what your meaning of “lie” is.

Yes, I disagree with your use of the word “most.” Certainly, at some times just about every politician (and just about every human being) will act out of expediency. Also, I think it is fairly common for folks to present information in a selective or biased manner for a number of reasons. If you wish to consider that “lying”, well, I am guilty as well. You aren’t? And I don’t consider it necessarily “lying” for an individual to act inconstantly given disparate instances, or to change his mind.

Also, at what level? I would not even agree that “most” Congressmen are “liars.” Maybe I’ll agree that “most” of the folks who have been U.S. President for the past 8 years have been, er, honesty impaired.

All of your posts here lack the specificity I expect and enjoy from you. Taking a vacation?

14

Have you ever seen a close play in a sporting event where the observers’ judgement of what happened was not determined by which team they are rooting for?

I don’t think politicians are more dishonest than anyone else. It’s just that they have more of a vested interest in these matters than other people do.

15

I firmly (for hope in our Democracy if for no other reason) believe that most newly elected politicians told the truth when running for office. Four to Eight years later they have learned to lie from their new political friends. They also, unfortunately, learn that their constituents want them to lie.

16

I don’t see how any politician can honestly say that s/he is working toward the common good. Politicians make laws. Laws make criminals. Hence, politicians make criminals. I don’t see how this is for the common good.
By creating more and more legislation, politicians around the world (and their supporters) are stating:
“Mankind, in general, is untrustworthy. Mankind cannot handle its own affairs without someone else telling them how to do it and to whom. Therefore, we find it in the common interest to control everything.”
The breach of common sense here, of course, is two-fold. One, in a representative democracy, people who can’t be trusted to run their own lives are electing other people to do it for them. Secondly, who says that a politician knows better in the first place? I think I am somewhat intelligent, and I do rather well on my own, but I could never honestly run for public office because, guess what?-I don’t know anything about half the crap the government legislates(or feels it should, anyway). And neither do they. So they call in experts, have other people give testimony, and now we really have a government of the people.
The same people who couldn’t rule themselves, remember?
Politicians main goal may very well be to help everyone out. I just find that their actions contradict their words, and this, by definition, is a lie. QED.

17

aynrandlover, I don’t follow your argument. Are you saying that by hiring experts and having other people give testimony, lawmakers are actually implementing the will of the people? So it’s the will of the people that creates criminals?

18

Sorta. I am saying that the reason there is government, as far as I’ve ever understood, is because people can’t be trusted to govern themselves (anarchy cannot work). Thus, when we have popularly electred officials regulating things they don’t understand, they need other people from that field to tell them how it all works and make suggestions or recommendations. Thus, what we have is:

  1. people cannot live without law so
  2. we create a government of laws
  3. to be fair, the same people who needed laws in the first place are the ones who determine should make them (if that makes any sense)
  4. these elected people don’t know any more than the people who elected them.
  5. So when the people cry “we need more laws” the government abides, and then we find we have more criminals (huh, how suprising is that)
  6. Because of the increasing number of criminals, more people call for more laws
  7. ad infinitum.

This cannot be what I call the common good. This cannot be creating a better place for everyone. Thus, in creating more laws, a politician is not working for the common good.

Think I don’t have a solution? Of course I do, but I’ll only present the beginning of my solution. This will remove (what I consider to be) the fundamental contradiction from government.

Aynrandlover’s New Deal™:
No person who had ever paid or had a waived fine, or had served or had a suspended prison sentence, shall work for the government.

Yep, to have all politicians be honest individuals, they cannot have commited a crime in any way. I don’t think that is too much to ask, do you?–that our legislators be law-abiding citizens? Then they really would be honest. I would vote for someone who could actually uphold all the laws s/he supports…the rest are simply masqueraders.

19

It strikes me that Dimsdale and Izzy (on biais of observers) have provided the most objective comments in this thread. Dimsdale’s analysis, I think, is quite correct and I’d like to add the following:

(1) Politicians exist in a bubble, most every utterance recorded and noted. Imagine your every judgement recorded and examined for consistency over five year period. Can any of us honestly claim we would not come up short in terms of consistency and yes, even honesty?

(2) Compromise. Purists hate it, but it is the nature of democratic politics and indeed of negotiations in general (I see it in my departmental meetings): frequently ideologues characterize compromise as betrayal and lying. Well, fine and dandy. Impose a nice dictotorship (of the people, of the objective ubermensch capitalists or whatever) and of course you can have some degree of purity. Cost? Ah. Another matter, eh?

(3) Cognitive dissonance. It’s a very human trait to hold mutually contradictory desires. Trying to get elected, a politician naturally claims he or she will try to deliver. It’s what we all want, no? Well, until one is faced with actually putting things into practive, one doesn’t necessarily have to face the fact that two or more dearly held desires are in fact mutually contradictory. None of us is above this I am quite certain.

So, are politicians liars or worse, well to the extent that this reflects us all, yes. We lie to ourselves constantly. Helps one get through the day I would say. The question is are they worse than the reality of how we, the non-politicians, actually are? (As opposed to how we think we our selves are? Of course the other guy is always a stinker.) I don’t think so.

(As for the idea that laws create criminals… Well I won’t even touch that tar baby. Is this seriously what you get out of that quack Rand?)

20

WOW. We should accept that politicians are liars because we are liars? This is by far the most interesting defense of Congress I have ever heard. While I can agree that at least some politicians truly want to do what they feel is good, then they come to power and find it to be an impossibility, I don’t agree that we should accept flaws in people just because we have them.

That’s the pot calling the kettle black? Well, the kettle is black, isn’t it? I don’t feel that it is an unreasonable request that our politicians act on their word. That word was why they were elected.

Politicians should be better than the average Joe, you see, because they are controlling major portions of his life. If they were just the same, there would be no need of them because, as you pointed out, we can lie to ourselves good enough without them. Your argument lends itself better to why people wouldn’t need a government than in support of it. Yes, they are only human. I can accept flaws in humans just as I accept them in myself. However, I feel that those flaws should not be of a political nature; i.e-foot fetishists or poor farmers, people who never passed calculus or can’t draw a reliable human figure after art courses. These topics can be considered as flaws, limitations on perfection, and yet in no way impede the political process. I am not a car mechanic because I am not good with my hands in a mechanical sense; I am rather clumsy. But my logical mind (some would argue that, too) lends itself well to troubleshooting, and so I went into electronics.

To ask the people who control America to be honest…man, I would never picture that to be an item of debate. and yet, here we are.