Political Lies (1 Viewer)

[MT15]

Maybe we should keep track of particularly egregious lies about policy and government. I know I see Daniel Dale still doing good work fact checking what politicians say.

Note: I don’t see this as a thread for nit-picking. So and so said there were 13 violations and there were only 11, for example. Rather the lies that completely misrepresent some policy, or law.

I‘ll start with this one I just saw:

 

[SaintForLife]

The vast majority fall under



Almost all of them were nitpicking a quoted figure, several of them weren't even political statements and a couple more were outright opinions that can't be deemed true or false.

If you weren't sure this was "what [we're] after" then you didn't read the OP or you're being disingenuous.



We accept a certain amount of lying from politicians because we accept a certain amount of lying from people in general. People lie all the time. It's one of the first things children learn to do. The difference between that and what Trump did the last four years (and his entire life) is that he wouldn't even tell then truth when it was in his best interest to do so. He was a textbook pathological liar.

Is it up to y'all to determine the type of lies that qualify for this thread? It seems silly to say some do or don't qualify. A political lie is a lie.

 

[SaintForLife]

Okay, points taken. LOL

So, here is an example of something I don’t consider to be an egregious lie, even though it turned out to not be true. Obama promised those using the ACA could keep their own doctors. I believe he meant for that to be the way the ACA worked, and he believed it to be true when he said it. I think (IIRC) changes made by Congress and the states made it end up not true. So I wouldn‘t count that as an egregious lie.

Now, all of the claims of enough voter fraud that it would have changed the outcome during the 2020 presidential election are egregious lies, but we have been basically covering that in another thread(s).

I saw this by Tom Cotton today, and it just struck me that it was a complete misrepresentation of the facts and there may be others from either party that possibly don’t deserve their own thread, but could be discussed in passing. Just to sort of keep track of the truth.

It won’t hurt my feelings in the slightest though, if you all don’t like the topic.

You can't be serious about the Obama lie about keeping your own doctors. That should qualify despite you claiming it doesn't. If not I don't see a reason for this thread.

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]

Is it up to y'all to determine the type of lies that qualify for this thread? It seems silly to say some do or don't qualify. A political lie is a lie.

Anything is fair game for a thread on the internet. However, in practice I would say elevating lies of the empty political promises variety to those that undermine the integrity of federal elections and the underpinnings of democracy is ill-advised. Otherwise, don't be surprised when America crumbles out from under your feet.

 

[SaintForLife]

Anything is fair game for a thread on the internet. However, in practice I would say elevating lies of the empty political promises variety to those that undermine the integrity of federal elections and the underpinnings of democracy is ill-advised. Otherwise, don't be surprised when America crumbles out from under your feet.

We already have a thread about Trump undermining the election. Are you saying that's the only political lie that we should be discussing in this thread?

 

[MT15]

SFL, did Hannity claim that Biden never had a stutter and has some sort of brain issue that they are making up his stutter to hide? Yes or no?

The rest of that is irrelevant to this thread. And hilarious that you had to go to 2005, btw.

Edit to add: it just dawned on me that you think I follow the person who tweeted about Hannity. I don’t even know who this is, just saw someone retweet him, and realized he is not some anonymous account. Is what he says true or not? If it’s not true, then let me know. If he is totally untrustworthy, then let me know.

 

[MT15]

We already have a thread about Trump undermining the election. Are you saying that's the only political lie that we should be discussing in this thread?

No, I didn’t get that. I took him to mean that people should be able to tell the difference between severe lies that have the potential to cripple this country and relatively innocuous lies that don’t.

Can you not tell the difference?

 

[SaintForLife]

SFL, did Hannity claim that Biden never had a stutter and has some sort of brain issue that they are making up his stutter to hide? Yes or no?

The rest of that is irrelevant to this thread. And hilarious that you had to go to 2005, btw.

Edit to add: it just dawned on me that you think I follow the person who tweeted about Hannity. I don’t even know who this is, just saw someone retweet him, and realized he is not some anonymous account. Is what he says true or not? If it’s not true, then let me know. If he is totally untrustworthy, then let me know.

Since you always act like the source police it's on you to know about the sources you post. If you are okay with posting things from a racist then you probably should stop complaining about the sources other people post.

 

[SaintForLife]

No, I didn’t get that. I took him to mean that people should be able to tell the difference between severe lies that have the potential to cripple this country and relatively innocuous lies that don’t.

Can you not tell the difference?

Does this count as a political lie?

 

[MT15]

Not a significant one. No.

Did Hannity lie about Biden’s stutter and put forth a completely false idea that Biden is hiding some sort of brain issue? It’s a yes or no answer.

 

[Optimus Prime]

This is something I posted in another thread

Still feel this way, don't know how it would be done or who decides but we can't go on like we have the past few years
===============================

There is also a difference between “normal” political rhetoric, exaggeration, hyperbole and puffery all politicians engage in and the things Trump says - find and define those differences and make laws surrounding them

 

[Saintman2884]

The vast majority fall under



Almost all of them were nitpicking a quoted figure, several of them weren't even political statements and a couple more were outright opinions that can't be deemed true or false.

If you weren't sure this was "what [we're] after" then you didn't read the OP or you're being disingenuous.



We accept a certain amount of lying from politicians because we accept a certain amount of lying from people in general. People lie all the time. It's one of the first things children learn to do. The difference between that and what Trump did the last four years (and his entire life) is that he wouldn't even tell then truth when it was in his best interest to do so. He was a textbook pathological liar.

You and me, then have different interpretations of how much certain amounts of lying we expect or tolerate from politicians or even CEO's of multi-national corporations, and how certain politicians have wildly different, contracting ratios of how much or how often they lie or make good, well-meaning promises they believe they can deliver on but soon discover the grinding, perilous pitfalls of power politics make them harder and elusive to achieve like President Obama discovered in the first year or so in his 1st term.

Trump, along with being a pathological liar, was also a malignant narcissist with sociopathic tendencies combined with the glaring fact he was a political novice who relied on ever-changing impulses, mood swings, or watch Fox and Friends as ways to determine domestic/foreign policy decisions. I honestly don't even think he really believed he would win back in 2016 and I strongly suspect he was laced with painkillers, methaphetimes increasingly at a dangerous level his last year, 2020, in office.

People may lie all the time but only a very small percentage can do it very effectively and usually the best, most convincing liars stay as close to the truth as possible. Nixon and maybe even to a lesser extent, LBJ fall into this category even though LBJ's downfall was his bloated, oversized ego and delusional sense of self-confidence in that he believed he could force NVA and their Viet Cong auxillaries into surrendering or forcing a more amenable diplomatic agreement more aligned to American terms. Even though his own Joints Chiefs of Staff told him repeatedly beginning in summer of 1964 that any large American military commitment would take at least 350,000 men as well as possible deployment and staying of American troops for up to at least 5 years. He believed he knew better then the US generals on the ground in Saigon or the Pentagon and ignored numerous pleas from George Ball, to not accelerate or become further involved in what was by mid-60's a unwinnable war.

 

[Saintman2884]

This is something I posted in another thread

Still feel this way, don't know how it would be done or who decides but we can't go on like we have the past few years
===============================

There is also a difference between “normal” political rhetoric, exaggeration, hyperbole and puffery all politicians engage in and the things Trump says - find and define those differences and make laws surrounding them

But usually most laws are designed to be written or interpreted in a very large, general political sense. You can't start playing games or giving the appearance of selectively "determining" what constitutes appropriate political speech or free speech in general in terms of what you perceive to be toxic, negative specifics. You would be unnecessarily opening up a Pandora's Box where more unprincipled opportunistic politicians will manipulate and distort these same provisions by interpreting it differently for their own dubious means as a way to stifle opposition. Just because Trump may have been a completely inept, bumbling wannabe autocrat doesn't mean the next one won't be more clever, politically saavy, manipulative in first subtly then more forcibly suppressing dissent. Another Vladimir Putin gradual authoritian type, perhaps?

 

[SaintForLife]

Not a significant one. No.

Did Hannity lie about Biden’s stutter and put forth a completely false idea that Biden is hiding some sort of brain issue? It’s a yes or no answer.

Lol. Even that example doesn't qualify as a significant one, but whatever Hannity said does? A member of Congress, who knows exactly what bills have been voted on, lying about what another house member said in reference what Biden did is a significant political lie. Why didn't you just name the thread conservative political lies?

 

[SaintForLife]

SFL, did Hannity claim that Biden never had a stutter and has some sort of brain issue that they are making up his stutter to hide? Yes or no?

The rest of that is irrelevant to this thread. And hilarious that you had to go to 2005, btw.

Edit to add: it just dawned on me that you think I follow the person who tweeted about Hannity. I don’t even know who this is, just saw someone retweet him, and realized he is not some anonymous account. Is what he says true or not? If it’s not true, then let me know. If he is totally untrustworthy, then let me know.

2005? Did you mean 2015 in reference to the Obama keep your doctors quote? You brought that up first and I responded to it.

 

[MT15]

I thought you were asking about the congresswoman’s claim. I don’t consider it a significant lie either way, and I’m willing to overlook “normal” squabbles about who supported what and when. It very well may be a misunderstanding about what bill the Congresswoman is referring to.

If you cannot (or refuse) to see the difference between two political opponents disagreeing or one being confused about what the other one is referring to and what Hannity is said to have done, then there’s really no point in you and I trying to communicate about this subject. They are just that different.

Full disclosure, I don’t watch Hannity, and haven’t bothered to look up the recent clip. But I have seen him do this exact type of lie before during the 2016 election. He did an entire segment saying that Clinton had some sort of serious brain injury or illness pretty close to the election. I watched it. That was a pernicious, democracy-damaging lie. He had zero proof, and time has proven it was a bunch of lies.

He apparently is now doing the same thing to Biden. Without any proof whatsoever, he is claiming a serious impairment that would preclude his service to the country. It’s the type of lie found in fascist countries to try to disqualify political opponents.

To claim there isn’t any difference is just totally ridiculous.

 

[Yggdrasill]

Wow I'm impressed. All this time I thought Hannity was uneducated but turns out he's got a degree in speech pathology.

 

[SystemShock]

I win

.

 

[SaintForLife]

I thought you were asking about the congresswoman’s claim. I don’t consider it a significant lie either way, and I’m willing to overlook “normal” squabbles about who supported what and when. It very well may be a misunderstanding about what bill the Congresswoman is referring to.

If you cannot (or refuse) to see the difference between two political opponents disagreeing or one being confused about what the other one is referring to and what Hannity is said to have done, then there’s really no point in you and I trying to communicate about this subject. They are just that different.

Full disclosure, I don’t watch Hannity, and haven’t bothered to look up the recent clip. But I have seen him do this exact type of lie before during the 2016 election. He did an entire segment saying that Clinton had some sort of serious brain injury or illness pretty close to the election. I watched it. That was a pernicious, democracy-damaging lie. He had zero proof, and time has proven it was a bunch of lies.

He apparently is now doing the same thing to Biden. Without any proof whatsoever, he is claiming a serious impairment that would preclude his service to the country. It’s the type of lie found in fascist countries to try to disqualify political opponents.

To claim there isn’t any difference is just totally ridiculous.

Lieu wasn't confused. He knew exactly what she was referring to. Lieu was gaslighting.

Now that Trump is gone it's not okay to question the President's health? You didn't seem to mind people questioning Trump's health the last 4 years.