[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
Of course, there are examples of people who promise not to raise taxes, and then end up having to raise taxes. There are examples of people who express strong sympathy with the religious right and then don’t really follow up on them. There are people who express commitment to reforming health care and then cannot get it done.
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Thank you for proving my point. However you choose to justify a politician’s lie is based on your own bias, but they are still lies. A politician’s potential policy is the summary of his intentions upon reaching office. So how is it different if they make a claim and “can’t” adhere to it, or “won’t?” Or they promise no new taxes and “have to / choose to” enact new taxes. How can you say, for sure, that that politician ever actually intended to follow through with their promises? You can’t, any more than I can prove that they never intended to in the first place.
This is nothing more than a really dirty trick. You can’t prove intent any more than I can. And yet, the burden of proof is on me, isn’t it? How about this…
“Of course, there are examples of people who promise not to raise taxes, and then end up choosing to raise taxes. There are examples of people who express strong sympathy with the religious right and then abandon said sympathies upon reaching office. There are people who express commitment to reforming health care and then won’t get it done, now that they’re getting paid.”
Sounds different now, yeah? Perspective is a bitch. Excise the bias and all we have left is the promise, and the lie. Oh, and, thousands of years of evidence that politicians lie. Surely that counts for something, right? What’s next? Are you going to tell us about “a magical fantasy land where lawyers aren’t honest and compassionate,” or “a magical fantasy land where the insurance companies don’t treat you with respect and go that extra mile for your protection?”
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
Do you have examples where people have actually lied about what their policies are during a campaign, such that my statement is the “most insane thing ever posted on the Dope”? I do so want to hear them.
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Do you? Do you so want to hear them? Or are you hoping that if you put the burden of proof on me that I’ll have too much of a life to waste time contradicting a loon on the internet? The problem is, again, I can’t prove intent. I name an example, you say they “had to” lie. I name another, “they never meant to lie.”
Just for the hell of it, though. I’m pretty sure I remember reading that Lyndon Johnson promised to keep us out of Vietnam. Didn’t happen. And do you remember in 2000 when George W Bush warned America against unilateralism? “If we’re an arrogant nation they’ll resent us. If we’re a humble nation but strong, they’ll welcome us.” Not so much. Woodrow Wilson campaigned on keeping the U.S. neutral in WWI, twice. Maybe they had to say those things. Maybe they never cared for acting on them in the first place. Either way, all we have as far as concrete evidence is what they said, and what they did. All politicians lie to get elected.