Lies in politics

[Moontanman]

Why are lies generally accepted as OK in politics? No where else in our society, other than possibly religion, are lies the accepted means to an end. In politics sometimes it actually seems like the bigger the lie the better the result even when the people know it's a lie. Why does hearing what you want to believe seem to be more important than the truth?

[Phi for All]

Part of it is the stupid, kneejerk reaction that all politicians lie, like it's part of the job and to be expected. Just like it's expected that politicians have to do special favors for those who contribute the most money to their campaigns.

[iNow]

Another part is that the subject matter is fuzzy, often ambiguous, and ill-defined. Truth is not always quite as clear in politics as it is in math or chemistry, so interpretation rules the day. It's not agreement on facts that's the problem. It's the way information is being stitched together and spun, being converted into propaganda that's spoon-fed to the masses.

[Bill Angel]

I think it is fair to say that politics by its very nature relies on the promotion of partial truths. There is actually an entire branch of mathematics devoted to the study of partial truths.

It's called "fuzzy logic ".

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_logic

[CaptainPanic]

Why are lies generally accepted as OK in politics? No where else in our society, other than possibly religion, are lies the accepted means to an end.

Nonsense, lies are rampart in business too. Companies lie about who they do business with. They lie about how clean their processes are. They lie about how good they are to their employees. They generally want to paint a picture of themselves, and their products, which is better than reality.

 

Have you never seen an advertisement? An advertisement is 90% lies, if not more!! It's even a lie about what the product looks like (pizzas never look like in the advertisement). And it totally works.

 

And that's why politicians use lies too: they are just advertising themselves so that we vote for them.

 

In politics sometimes it actually seems like the bigger the lie the better the result even when the people know it's a lie. Why does hearing what you want to believe seem to be more important than the truth?

 

I think iNow nailed it. In many cases, there is no single truth. You can run an economy in several different ways and it's possible that they're all equally good.

 

That said, there are many levels of lies. And sometimes it is very obvious that it's a lie, but they still get away with it. I think that in such a case a number of factors keep those liars in power:

- The political opposition, through mistakes and lies of their own are powerless

- People are not organized enough to form a strong enough opposition, or they just don't care

- People choose the certainty of this particular liar to the uncertainty of another politician (yet unknown)

- People don't mind that someone is lying, as long as the liar is good to them

 

Could be anything really.

 

I just completely disagree that politics is the only place in society where people lie. Lies are everywhere.

[swansont]

Having your worldview confirmed is very comforting, just as having it challenged is uncomfortable.

 

I just started reading Chris Mooney's The Republican Brain, and it looks like he's tying this to some very basic behaviors, like our fight-or-flight response. Making us afraid with words triggers the same kind of reaction as an unknown rustling in the bushes, and starts up the better-safe-than-sorry reaction that we have — what if that sound is a predator? You risk dying, so you run away. So the mind has been trained that you're better off believing something if there's a risk involved, than disbelieving it and having something bad happen. And once you believe something, you reinforce that belief. Facts tend not to dislodge the belief if it is strongly held. (Which is readily observed in both politics and religion discussions)

 

So politicians are leveraging these reactions. Give a comforting view of him/herself and make you afraid of the opposition. Getting elected is all that matters, and lying works. The ends justify the means. Too many voters put up with it, so it's a successful strategy.

Edited September 5, 2012 by swansont
fix typo

[Brandenburg]

For politicians to lie is acceptable because there are no consequences and because it doesn't change the available choices. In the late stages of a political race with both sides lying it's not like a third choice becomes available. Not to mention not everyone will learn every truth behind the lie so a good percent of the lies go unchallenged. The ones that don't not everyone sees the challenge. Politics is a game of percentages and we have focus grouping down to a science. A lie designed to sway the opinion of an interest group that isn't likely to look up the truth is very effective whether or not it's challenged. Tell enough targeted lies and you win.

[ydoaPs]

It's not agreement on facts that's the problem.

 

So, you're not familiar with the American Right Wing and the FOX propaganda machine?

[CaptainPanic]

So, you're not familiar with the American Right Wing and the FOX propaganda machine?

We're talking about politics. You are talking about a for-profit commercial propaganda machine. You are really stretching the definition of "politics".

[iNow]

For politicians to lie is acceptable because there are no consequences and because it doesn't change the available choices. In the late stages of a political race with both sides lying it's not like a third choice becomes available. Not to mention not everyone will learn every truth behind the lie so a good percent of the lies go unchallenged. The ones that don't not everyone sees the challenge. Politics is a game of percentages and we have focus grouping down to a science. A lie designed to sway the opinion of an interest group that isn't likely to look up the truth is very effective whether or not it's challenged. Tell enough targeted lies and you win.

I think this is a very fair point. Part of the intent is to muddy the waters enough that confusion rules the day. It's the obfuscation that generates the desired outcome, since most people are only paying minimal attention to begin with, and so don't spend the time researching every claim. Since they hear opposing points, it's easier just to choose to believe the ones that "feel" right.

 

So, you're not familiar with the American Right Wing and the FOX propaganda machine?

No. What are these organizations about whom you speak?

I should have said something more like, "It's not generally disagreement on the facts that's a problem." The idea is that true "facts" are never in dispute. The issue is with spin and selective interpretations or stitching together of information. The best lies all contain a grain of truth... that sort of thing.

[Phi for All]

Our journalists generally seem not to dig very deeply anymore, perhaps since they often work for a subsidiary of a company that supports a particular politician. They ask a tough question so they seem like real investigators, but then accept the first answer given by the politicians and drop that line of questioning. Few politicians really get their feet held to the fire anymore.

[Moontanman]

I am sure that someplace there is a politician that wouldn't consider lying to gain political capital and of course everyone lies...

 

We all lie every day, actually telling the truth every time you speak is close to impossible in our society, lies are like a social lubricant that allows us to go on getting along reasonably well. If my wife asks me if this dress makes her butt look big I know the correct answer is not a completely truthful answer.

 

But when someone asserts something like Rape victims rarely get pregnant because real rape victims can shut down the process of impregnation.... I think we are talking about something completely different, a level of lie that is not part of the social covenant to avoid undue stress by not telling your wife her butt does indeed look big in that skirt...

 

When politicians tell "stuff" they either want to be true or spin that "stuff" so it sounds true but they know it's horse feathers and only say it so they can get elected then the system has failed. We accept the little lies so much in our daily lives the big lies either become ok because it's for a good cause or we fail to see the lie because it is so big that it's difficult to believe that anyone would lie about something so important.

 

We are bombarded by the big lie so much that it has become ok to follow a political party that quite literally lives by the big lie. We want the world to be what we want it to be that we would rather believe the big lie than catch a glimpse of the truth. One of the basic tenets of one of our political parties is to teach Genesis as science and to teach that science is just a hunch someone had last night over pickled eggs and cheap beer.

 

Maybe the original post title is too ambiguous and maybe I have blown this lie thing out of proportion, maybe praying that the hurricane passed the republican convention by worked, they really are the party of God, how could they possibly loose when God diverts hurricanes away so it doesn't interfere with the convention! God really is on their side and all those godless Scientists really need to pray those storms away instead of studying them....

[proximity1]

Why are lies generally accepted as OK in politics? No where else in our society, other than possibly religion, are lies the accepted means to an end. In politics sometimes it actually seems like the bigger the lie the better the result even when the people know it's a lie. Why does hearing what you want to believe seem to be more important than the truth?

 

 

RE: "Why does hearing what you want to believe seem to be more important than the truth?"

 

 

Daniel Kahneman and Robert Trivers have each written very interesting books about just that, and some other, related, things.

 

I am sure that someplace there is a politician that wouldn't consider lying to gain political capital and of course everyone lies...

 

We all lie every day, actually telling the truth every time you speak is close to impossible in our society, lies are like a social lubricant that allows us to go on getting along reasonably well. If my wife asks me if this dress makes her butt look big I know the correct answer is not a completely truthful answer.

 

But when someone asserts something like Rape victims rarely get pregnant because real rape victims can shut down the process of impregnation.... I think we are talking about something completely different, a level of lie that is not part of the social covenant to avoid undue stress by not telling your wife her butt does indeed look big in that skirt...

 

When politicians tell "stuff" they either want to be true or spin that "stuff" so it sounds true but they know it's horse feathers and only say it so they can get elected then the system has failed. We accept the little lies so much in our daily lives the big lies either become ok because it's for a good cause or we fail to see the lie because it is so big that it's difficult to believe that anyone would lie about something so important.

 

We are bombarded by the big lie so much that it has become ok to follow a political party that quite literally lives by the big lie. We want the world to be what we want it to be that we would rather believe the big lie than catch a glimpse of the truth. One of the basic tenets of one of our political parties is to teach Genesis as science and to teach that science is just a hunch someone had last night over pickled eggs and cheap beer.

 

Maybe the original post title is too ambiguous and maybe I have blown this lie thing out of proportion, maybe praying that the hurricane passed the republican convention by worked, they really are the party of God, how could they possibly loose when God diverts hurricanes away so it doesn't interfere with the convention! God really is on their side and all those godless Scientists really need to pray those storms away instead of studying them....

 

 

I tend to agree with all those points, but there is still some variability in the scope for "being able to, allowed to", tell the truth, isn't there?

 

I have thought of it this way: there's a general and quite a variable kind of "current moral acceptability" which takes in many moral topics and issues and certainly includes when it is or isn't generally considered "acceptable" to lie. This movable feast or famine for the truth is something that seems to rise or fall with what are arguably some rather large proportion of "average people's" tolerances for social practices in honesty and dishonesty. Things seem to swing between periods of high or low tolerance for lying, or, indeed, for telling the truth.

 

I'm generally always fascinated by what's typically so taboo that it is not allowed in most open discussion---whether that is in the "positive" : i.e. it's not just "okay" to talk about, or to think, thusly", it's practically required--or negative: "woe to him or her who dares voice such-and-such a view!"

 

We seem to me to be living in very "stinky" times for honesty; so I agree with others who've mentioned that the tendencies toward dishonesty are hardly confined to politicians' misbehavior. When enough ordinary people become sufficiently fed up with the status quo, that will seep into the popular mass media's widely projected visions of "what's okay" and "what's not okay" and the margins will shift----for a while, right?

[iNow]

I am sure that someplace there is a politician that wouldn't consider lying to gain political capital

Of course there are. They are the ones that keep losing elections, though.

[Moontanman]

In the quest for real honesty I will admit to being more than a bit obsessed with the truth, it was one of those things beaten into me as a child

[iNow]

Politicians lie because the electorate reward them for doing so. It's really that simple.

[Joatmon]

One detail doesn't seem to have been stated. Any politician who stood up and told the truth would never be voted into office.

[Moontanman]

One detail doesn't seem to have been stated. Any politician who stood up and told the truth would never be voted into office.

 

 

Huntsman showed this to be true when he had the audacity to say he believed in evolution... the fix was in...

[iNow]

One detail doesn't seem to have been stated. Any politician who stood up and told the truth would never be voted into office.

:blink: Post #14?

[Phi for All]

There are degrees of lying, of course. It's one thing to pass along a lie you heard but thought was truth, and a whole other thing to make up something (like statistical support) out of thin air. When former Rep. Dick Armey said that Sen. Sharron Angle simply misspoke herself when she claimed that 2nd amendment remedies might be necessary (aka armed revolution by the citizenry), that is a blatant lie, since she said it multiple times on multiple occasions (though it is possible Armey didn't know about her repetitions).

 

When Romney claims he knows what it's like to worry about being fired, that's an exaggerated opinion, not quite an outright lie, like when he claims he didn't say something and yet we can pull up footage that shows he did indeed say EXACTLY that. Even worse is when Romney lies about Obama apologizing for America, is told that's not true, shown it's not true, yet he doesn't remove it from his stump speech and goes on to repeat the lie in other cities.

 

One detail doesn't seem to have been stated. Any politician who stood up and told the truth would never be voted into office.

 

I am sure that someplace there is a politician that wouldn't consider lying to gain political capital and of course everyone lies...

Of course there are. They are the ones that keep losing elections, though.

[Joatmon]

:blink: Post #14?

My apologies - missed it somehow.

[Bill Angel]

Even worse is when Romney lies about Obama apologizing for America, is told that's not true, shown it's not true, yet he doesn't remove it from his stump speech and goes on to repeat the lie in other cities.

Much of what politicos assert in these speeches is to motivate listeners to contribute money to their political campaigns. Why should they change their speech, if it serves to help keep the campaign contributions rolling in?

[Phi for All]

Much of what politicos assert in these speeches is to motivate listeners to contribute money to their political campaigns. Why should they change their speech, if it serves to help keep the campaign contributions rolling in?

Integrity. Honesty. Trust.

 

Because if you'll lie to get elected, you might lie about why you want to invade a sovereign nation, or about domestic surveillance or domestic use of the military.

 

That sort of thing.

[Bill Angel]

Integrity. Honesty. Trust.

 

Because if you'll lie to get elected, you might lie about why you want to invade a sovereign nation, or about domestic surveillance or domestic use of the military.

 

That sort of thing.

 

Our Constitutional system of government (USA) relies on a system of checks and balances, to ensure integrity and honesty in Governmental activities. When governmental officials display lapses in integrity and honesty, isn't it because of a breakdown in the system of checks and balances?

[Phi for All]

Our Constitutional system of government (USA) relies on a system of checks and balances, to ensure integrity and honesty in Governmental activities. When governmental officials display lapses in integrity and honesty, isn't it because of a breakdown in the system of checks and balances?

Which checks exactly do you think have broken down to cause an imbalance in the integrity of our elected officials?