Liar Liar

It dates to the sleazy world of fascist and totalitarian propaganda in the 1930s. It was part of the milieu of stooges, show trials and dupes. These were people willing to say anything to defeat their opposition. Denouncing people as liars was at the center of it. The idea was never to elevate political debate but to debauch it.

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LowDown said:

In this election cycle Democrats are making a habit out of calling their opponents liars all the time. Most of the time the charge is false or makes no sense. People are called liars just for expressing their own opinions.

It used to be that politicians very rarely accused their opponents of lying, probably because they realized that it's like using a flame thrower -- there's a serious danger that the wielder of such a weapon will himself be fatally burned. To say that people are liars is to say that they are deliberately out to deceive, that they are acting in bad faith. There is no dealing with such people.

One wonders why Democrats think that they will benefit from these frequent attempts to paint their opposition as liars. It's not like they are above bending and breaking the truth, especially when it comes to the President. They are as full of false facts and ideas, easily exposed, as any group. It just prompts their opponents to point that out.

Most of the time people are not lying. They are just wrong. To accuse them of lying leaves no room for the possibility that they might be persuaded by the truth; and it's very inflammatory, prompting people to become angry, dig their heels in, and find a way to respond in kind.

What effect to they think this will have on trust in government in general? Do they think that people are going to trust the government if they think it's run by a bunch of liars? Don't liberals more or less depend on trust in government? Seems to me that this tack these big government leftists are taking undermines their whole raison d'être.

Worse that that, it's not even liberal.



Which is to say that people who on some flimsy or nonexistent pretext constantly accuse their opponents of lying are themselves acting in bad faith.

Truth or Consequences - WSJ.com

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LowDown said:

In this election cycle Democrats are making a habit out of calling their opponents liars all the time. Most of the time the charge is false or makes no sense. People are called liars just for expressing their own opinions.

It used to be that politicians very rarely accused their opponents of lying, probably because they realized that it's like using a flame thrower -- there's a serious danger that the wielder of such a weapon will himself be fatally burned. To say that people are liars is to say that they are deliberately out to deceive, that they are acting in bad faith. There is no dealing with such people.

One wonders why Democrats think that they will benefit from these frequent attempts to paint their opposition as liars. It's not like they are above bending and breaking the truth, especially when it comes to the President. They are as full of false facts and ideas, easily exposed, as any group. It just prompts their opponents to point that out.

Most of the time people are not lying. They are just wrong. To accuse them of lying leaves no room for the possibility that they might be persuaded by the truth; and it's very inflammatory, prompting people to become angry, dig their heels in, and find a way to respond in kind.

What effect to they think this will have on trust in government in general? Do they think that people are going to trust the government if they think it's run by a bunch of liars? Don't liberals more or less depend on trust in government? Seems to me that this tack these big government leftists are taking undermines their whole raison d'être.

Worse that that, it's not even liberal.



Which is to say that people who on some flimsy or nonexistent pretext constantly accuse their opponents of lying are themselves acting in bad faith.

Truth or Consequences - WSJ.com

Click to expand...

Jack Fabulous said:

Great post.

I think the problem is that everything is so much "louder" now. Twitter, Facebook... spontaneous thoughts get posted and 20 minutes later it's gone viral. Next thing you know the whole country is buzzing about something that originated from some loser making blog posts on an I-phone.

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tessaesque said:

I think what they're counting as lies is part of the problem.

I don't particularly think that hypothetical policy proposals can be a black and white issue of "he's lying!" as often as they're made out to be. Trying to decide whether or not Obama/Biden is "lying" about what will happen to Medicare, or whether Romney/Ryan is "lying" about the effect of their tax plan seems a bit of a stretch to me. Almost any analysis performed by a 3rd is done based on the idea that nothing else will change EXCEPT the policy being analyzed. It is merely an educated GUESS of what will happen, not a factual admission of the inevitable outcome. So to call either side liars over disagreements on how those policies will work is short sided and poorly supported.

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