Politicians have always had a pretty flexible relationship with the truth, needless to say. But there WAS always a line between bending the truth or equivocating, and flat out lying, and there were political consequences for crossing it.
It seems that line is gone. We have a POTUS who blatantly and constantly flat out lies, in ways that are trivially easy to debunk. And there are no consequences for it.
That is a bad thing for our democracy.
Are you responding to me? Because that isn’t at all what I asked about.
I would still like to know where he admitted it.
But like Trump, the issue isn’t whether voters support a liar. Trump ran against Clinton, and a minority of overall voters who just happened to be in the right states thought that a liar was better than a Clinton.
In Reid’s case, if I remember the timing right, he ran against Sharron “I Propose a Health Care System Based on Trading Chickens to Chemotherapy” Angle. She was an off the charts bad candidate, and voters apparently were more okay with Reid than a loon.
The right to free speech is already not absolute. We cannot yell “fire” in a crowded theater when there is none. We cannot lie under oath in a courtroom. Is it really a stretch to believe some standard against lying during political campaigning cannot be created?
I’d settle for a restriction against omissions that lead to implications that are false. Crap like this : politician X votes against a bill that contains items A, B, C, and D because as good as A is, B, C and D are so odious that you cannot justify accepting the whole package. I maintain you should not be able to claim “X is against item A”, unless X specifically states that fact.
No, they shouldn’t be allowed to lie with impunity, but we shouldn’t need any special laws to govern that. Intelligent, responsible voters who monitor candidates and elected officials can control that kind of thing at the polls if they make the effort to do so.
When Reid was confronted with the lie (and it was, as I think we agree, a direct lie) and was accused of being McCarthyite, he responded that he didn’t care what it was called, because Romney lost. So if you want to quibble, Reid didn’t proudly admit to the lie - he responded that the truth of the statement was not the point. The point was to defeat Romney.
“The truth doesn’t matter, as long as you win.” Keeping in mind that this was 2012 - I don’t think you can retroactively blame the attitude on Trump.
Regards,
Shodan
For such a law to work fairly, I don’t think it could be used to penalize most statements pertaining to the future - i.e., a candidate saying, “My tax cuts will spur the economy!” when expert studies show that it won’t - because it technically hasn’t happened *yet *and can’t be truly proven as a false statement.
How is it a quibble to correct a factually incorrect statement? A poster just had a freak-out about another incorrect statement.
He also did not say anything like “that the truth of the statement was not the point.” That’s just you putting words in his mouth. So much for accuracy, eh?
There is a lot of escalation in politics. But with this statement, it appears that you are trying to say that Trump is just taking his cues from what happened before him. Nobody is asserting that politicians were honest before Trump; people are asserting that Trump has taken lying to such extreme ends that are basically unprecedented if you discount cranks like Lyndon LaRouche. And yet, Trump’s supporters basically don’t care.
It’s a quibble because it doesn’t change anything. Reid clearly lied, he did so clearly to defeat Romney, and when confronted about it, made it clear that defeating Romney was more important than the truth.
I accurately paraphrased what Reid said. YMMV, but if it does, you are wrong.
Reid clearly lied, clearly did so for political advantage, and when his action was compared to Joseph McCarthy (another politician who lied for political gain) said that he didn’t care what they called it, because Romney lost.
Nope, never said anything of the sort.
And when Reid did exactly that in 2012, you basically don’t care, nor did the voters in Nevada.
AFAIK Trump has never proudly admitted to any of his lies, and I believe most of them were told for political advantage. Is that relevant? You seem to think it was for Reid.
Regards,
Shodan
Bullshit. Reid did not lie and he did not admit that he lied.
You have pretty much demonstrated why the OPs plan wouldn’t work.
A law prohibiting packaged legislation WOULD be a great idea. That every bill must stick to a single topic.
The real point here is: you and another poster have made assertions that were not grounded in verifiable fact. They are some sort of hybrid of a splash of fact, a heaping of spin, and a truckload if bias.
Per the question posed in the OP, I assert that both of you and the other would fall afoul of the law that prohibits certain statements from politicians that can’t be verified. Should you be barred from office or otherwise sanctioned if you said such things while running for office?
In my opinion, no. We can deal with your incorrect claims on a message board; society can deal with politicians’ incorrect claims in real life.
I can only show it to you; I can’t understand it for you.
Regards,
Shodan
Except when you say A happened, but actually B happened, you maintain that B is actually A.
That isn’t “understanding” in any term of the word.