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Lies II
So, Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) says that he's not gay and has never been gay. However, this is the reality and he pled guilty to disorderly conduct.
Is this a lie? What if he really believes he's not gay?
What about Representative Bob Allen? Is it a lie if he says he's not gay? Is it a lie if he pleads not guilty?
Why are all the Republican sex scandals so gay?
Should we believe GWB when he asks us to worry about Iran gaining nuclear capabilities, as he did in his speech yesterday? Didn't he lie when he said the same thing about Iraq?
Did GWB lie when he said two years ago that New Orleans would be rebuilt? Did he lie when he said in his speech this January that the Iraqi government would be held accountable? Didn't he say something a little different in his speech yesterday?
Is this a lie? What if he really believes he's not gay?
What about Representative Bob Allen? Is it a lie if he says he's not gay? Is it a lie if he pleads not guilty?
Why are all the Republican sex scandals so gay?
Should we believe GWB when he asks us to worry about Iran gaining nuclear capabilities, as he did in his speech yesterday? Didn't he lie when he said the same thing about Iraq?
Did GWB lie when he said two years ago that New Orleans would be rebuilt? Did he lie when he said in his speech this January that the Iraqi government would be held accountable? Didn't he say something a little different in his speech yesterday?
Comments
Hypocrisy is what busts my nuts.
These bastards, who preach intolerance of all kinds, are so often caught doing the very thing they claim to despise. Preachers and conservatives who rail against gay marriage caught "on the job" with another man, morals crusaders caught snorting coke off a hooker's ass, that kind of garbage makes me want to puke. Truly, it's one of the few things in life that makes me angry.
It saddens me to say it, but I think hypocrisy is why the world hates America (the government, anyway) right now.
Maybe we can agree on a modification. I propose that a statement is not a lie if the declarant has a reasonable belief that the statement is true. The reasonable belief should be measured by what a reasonable person would believe under the same facts and circumstances. This would exclude honest mistakes from the realm of lies, but would not exclude stubborn denials of reality of the "I'm not gay" or "There are WMDs in Iraq" variety.
More hyposcrisy from the Republicans - Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), a socially conservative stick in the mud, was caught on the D.C. Madam's phone list.
Hey - Can we say that Larry Craig's career is "stalled"? Maybe he's in his own private Idaho.
Was Vitter caught on the hetero list or the homo list? Either way he is just trying to help out a local female owned business. Isn't that a good thing?
You can no more lie without intent to deceive than you can murder without intent.
You're a lawyer, Joe. You know that the insanity plea exists because a defendant can kill a person while existing in a dissociative state. A crucial element in murder is intent, and without it, a person is not guilty. Insane, maybe, but not guilty.
In the same way, Bush promising to rebuild New Orleans within two years wasn't lying if he believed it could have been done. He might have been wrong; he might have been insane; he might have been misled.
He might have been lying, but I don't know if he had intent to deceive.
And that's the crucial component of lying. Just like I argued in the other thread, the very definition of a lie is giving inaccurate information or representation thereof with the intent to deceive. There can be no intent without knowledge; ergo, stupidity is a defense.
A better statement is that stupidity lying.
I'm not sure making a distinction between stupidity or lying really matters when you're talking about the people that run our country. Both are bad, neither are desirable. Either way the actions in question are inexcusable.
How do you find intent? One way is by a person's actions. If a person says they're going to do something and then fails to take any affirmative step to accomplish what they said they're going to do, is it fair to infer that the person intended to deceive?
Why are you so forgiving of lying?
A reporter asks Barrack Obama if there are aliens at Area 54.
Obama laughs at the guy and says, "No, of course there aren't."
Obama becomes president, and finds out there ARE aliens at Area 54.
Was he lying? Of course not.
Your scenario is not equal to saying, "We'll rebuild your city", and then doing nothing. It's also not equal to saying "Iraq has been trying to buy yellow cake uranium from Niger" when a reasonable person should have known from many different sources that this was simply not true.
What if you had to give a report, you knew that the results weren't going to be what you wanted them to be, so you gave the report a little touch-up? Would that be a lie?
Am I lying?
I think there are some statements we can all agree were lies. How about "I did not have sex with that woman"? Many people would love for that to be considered a lie. There are others who, under your definition will say, "He really believed he didn't have sex with her, so it's not a lie".
Do you propose to add something to clarify your definition, give some guidance for how to determine intent, or should we just be satisfied with always having people say such-and-such statement is not a lie because we can't know if the person who said it really believed it?
Merriam-Webster: lie: a: An assertion of something known or believed by the speaker to be untrue with intent to deceive b: an untrue or inaccurate statement that may or may not be believed true by the speaker.
YourDictionary.com: lie: 1. A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood.
2. Something meant to deceive or give a wrong impression.
Cambridge Dictionary: lie: To say or write something which is not true in order to deceive someone.
MSN-Encarta: lie: To deliberately say something untrue: to say something that is not true in a conscious effort to deceive somebody.
The Free Dictionary: lie: To present false information with the intention of deceiving.
Sorry, Joe, but the verdict is in. You have to have intent to deceive, and therefore knowledge, in order to lie. Being wrong isn't lying. You're just going to have to live with the uncertainty factor. That's part of life.
The best you can hope to do is argue subsection b of the Merriam-Webster definition. Well, the court agreed with me. President Clinton was never convicted of perjury for that statement, or other statements made in connection with his impeachment.
If you're willing to sit back and say, "I don't need to think about it any longer. I looked it up in a number of dictionaries and the dictionaries all said that one has to have an intent to deceive for a statement to count as a lie. No further clarification is needed and I'm willing to live with the uncertainty.", then forgive me if I never allow you to say anything is a lie. The instant you say any statement is a lie, I'll remind you that we need to look into the heart of the declarant to determine his intent. Since we can't do that, we can never determine whether any particular statement is a lie. In fact, the term "lie" itself becomes meaningless. Perhaps you're more comfortable with "tuthiness".
Learn your fallacies. Don't mis-cite them.
Citing a source is not an ad verecundiam fallacy. Don't try to out-rhetoric me, mister. Then you need to provide some material evidence to prove it is a lie. We have an adversarial legal system in which guilt is not assumed; without evidence, then you can't assume a lie, either.
Until you find some evidence -- a memo directly contradicting X person's statements under oath, testimony about conversations that unveil a lie, a hard-drive filled with damning evidence -- then you're SOL. "Everybody knows he's lying" isn't a viable statement by the prosecution.
Your requirement of material evidence might sound rational to you, but people determine whether statements are lies without the use of material evidence every day. If you want to talk about court, the fact finder can decide whether testimony is a lie based on it's mere whim. There's no need for material evidence. If you're going to require material evidence for life in general, then you'll probably never encounter a lie in personal relations, for how are you ever going to be able to produce the material evidence? Do you keep memos of all your personal conversations? Do you document everything you do? Even if all these documents existed, a potential liar could protect himself in your scheme by simply destroying all his documents. Are you really that forgiving of liars?
Take the example of the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Some people believe LBJ and McNamara lied. Some are more charitable and consider it a mistake.
Here are some of the conversations between LBJ and McNamara. Here is what LBJ said to the American people. Notice any differences? Even McNamara said "We failed to draw Congress and the American people into a full and frank discussion and debate of the pros and cons of a large-scale military involvement … before we initiated the action." Did LBJ lie? Did he mislead? Did he at least prevaricate? Under your definition, no one will ever be able to say he lied because anyone can respond that, "Maybe he believed it when he said it." That robs the word "lie" of its meaning and usefulness.
Here is a good article comparing Bush's mendacity to LBJ's mendacity. Read it. It has a great link to a site full of Presidential tapes.
I guess not. If he really believes his story, he can't be lying, can he?
As long as he didn't lie about his views when campaigning (thus deceiving voters), where is the harm?
I no longer identify myself as a Republican.