Lying liars and the lies they tell

#26
#26
Don't have a favorite polotician.
No
Very
No

When I heard GB1 utter "New World Order", I cringed, a lot. This is the point in my life I became both politically aware and a skeptic of all politicians. The Big Picture became clearer.
I heard Representative Zach Wamp on the radio back in 2008. HHH asked him a question about, iirc, TARP. He stated that out of the 2000 calls received by his office, only 8 were in support of TARP. He went on to say, he voted for TARP cause he felt he had to do what was best for the American people.
His statement totally pissed me off. To go against your constituency! Anyway, he was voted out during the next election. Wamp didn't lie about that, but the truth cost him his job.

Sorry for the slight rant, McDad.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.
 
#27
#27
n_huffhines said:
.....but I don't need total honesty.
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This is very interesting to me. And, it is where i happen to be a well. There are things that im happy to be blissfully unaware about. But there are things that deserve brutal honesty.

Huff, how do uou decide which is which?
 
#28
#28
McDad said:
This is very interesting to me. And, it is where i happen to be a well. There are things that im happy to be blissfully unaware about. But there are things that deserve brutal honesty.

Huff, how do uou decide which is which?
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Where a politician losses me is when they sugar coat major issues or their proposed fixes are sold as painless for everyone but the rich.

I would rather have a politician be brutally honest about how bad the situation/issue is and what size wiener we're all going to have to eat to fix it. One that is not afraid of hurting feelings and takes the heat when he Fs up.

Sadly my politician doesn't exist.
 
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#29
#29
McDad said:
This is very interesting to me. And, it is where i happen to be a well. There are things that im happy to be blissfully unaware about. But there are things that deserve brutal honesty.

Huff, how do uou decide which is which?
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The danger lies when a politician says "I did this because of reasons you don't need to know about and it's for your protection"... when it's a domestic matter and 100% within your area of concern.

They saw, in a post-9/11 landscape, they could easily pass authorizations using the "this is for your protection! scary terrorists!" and people just... willfully abided by whatever they did.

But then again is it reasonable to expect the most powerful government, and one that is supposed to represent 330,000,000 people and interact directly with the entire world's governments to be transparent?

It's a complicated issue, to be sure. I think the most reasonable thing to expect is for:

- Transparency on domestic issues, no compromise

- Opaqueness on foreign issue details but transparency on motive and outcomes

Coming from a point of direct involvement... there are decidedly a lot of issues that (the US isn't even involved with) that are far better off for humanity if they're just swept under the rug. It's an ugly world and the US is expected to play impartial arbiter in it... if we like it or not.
 
#30
#30
For me, it's about what the impact of the lie is. If you lie about spying on Americans, that's a big deal to me. If you lie about deleting emails, that's a big deal to me. If you lie about having sex with your secretary, IDC. If you lie about your true position on an issue and your vote is consistent with the lie, IDC.
 
#31
#31
hog88 said:
Where a politician losses me is when they sugar coat major issues or their proposed fixes are sold as painless for everyone but the rich.

I would rather have a politician be brutally honest about how bad the situation/issue is and what size wiener we're all going to have to eat to fix it. One that is not afraid of hurting feelings and takes the heat when he Fs up.

Sadly my politician doesn't exist.
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That's because you are looking for a statesman. Not a politician.
 
#32
#32
McDad said:
Seriously, Velo? We need to parse what is/isn't a lie?
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There's different scenarios:

--Candidate says something he 100% knows is not true.

--Candidate says something he knows is probably not true, but could be.

--Candidate says something he thinks is true, but is wrong.

--Candidate says something, but then circumstances change.

In all cases the end result is the same--candidate "lied." But do we judge them all the same?

Example: GW Bush promised a more modest foreign policy. Then 9/11 happened and he started wars. Was he a liar?
 
#33
#33
agent|orange said:
The danger lies when a politician says "I did this because of reasons you don't need to know about and it's for your protection"... when it's a domestic matter and 100% within your area of concern.

They saw, in a post-9/11 landscape, they could easily pass authorizations using the "this is for your protection! scary terrorists!" and people just... willfully abided by whatever they did.

But then again is it reasonable to expect the most powerful government, and one that is supposed to represent 330,000,000 people and interact directly with the entire world's governments to be transparent?

It's a complicated issue, to be sure. I think the most reasonable thing to expect is for:

- Transparency on domestic issues, no compromise

- Opaqueness on foreign issue details but transparency on motive and outcomes

Coming from a point of direct involvement... there are decidedly a lot of issues that (the US isn't even involved with) that are far better off for humanity if they're just swept under the rug. It's an ugly world and the US is expected to play impartial arbiter in it... if we like it or not.
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I agree with this. I don't want to know the strategic battle plans against our enemy while we are at war. But, I don't want them to use fear to enact policy and then hide behind "I can't tell you the reason why due to national security". it feels like if we give the politician an inch, they will always take a mile.
 
#34
#34
Velo Vol said:
There's different scenarios:

--Candidate says something he 100% knows is not true.

--Candidate says something he knows is probably not true, but could be.

--Candidate says something he thinks is true, but is wrong.

--Candidate says something, but then circumstances change.

In all cases the end result is the same--candidate "lied." But do we judge them all the same?

Example: GW Bush promised a more modest foreign policy. Then 9/11 happened and he started wars. Was he a liar?
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I understand what you're saying. and, if you only want to stick with the first scenario in responding to the questions / discussion, I'm okay with that.
 
#36
#36
I dont have a favorite politician. I can't even name one who I could actually support 100%. Everytime one of them starts talking about saving us some money they ruin it with their nutjob religious/social stances.

Give me someone who will NOT send US troops into harms way unless we are attacked first and I could let everything else slide.
 
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#37
#37
volinbham said:
They all lie in a pandering way.

To Velo's point, I don't see Obama failing to close GITMO as a lie. I think he wanted to do it and found out he couldn't.
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I remember him saying that during his campaign and realizing this guy literally has NO idea what is going on.
 
#38
#38
FLVOL_79 said:
I dont have a favorite politician. I can't even name one who I could actually support 100%. Everytime one of them starts talking about saving us some money they ruin it with their nutjob religious/social stances.

Give me someone who will NOT send US troops into harms way unless we are attacked first and I could let everything else slide.
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Lol. Are you in the right thread?
 
#39
#39
volinbham said:
They all lie in a pandering way.

To Velo's point, I don't see Obama failing to close GITMO as a lie. I think he wanted to do it and found out he couldn't.
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I can agree with that. I am sure there are promises made with the best intentions to follow through and once they're in office they realize they cannot do it. however, when they campaign I think they would be wise( instead of promising to do something that they are ignorant about) to say they have the best intention to do a certain thing. small difference. Semantics, maybe.
 
#40
#40
FLVOL_79 said:
I remember him saying that during his campaign and realizing this guy literally has NO idea what is going on.
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He should have said:

- I am going to endeavor to shut down illegal circumventions of the way the US has said it would wage war and shut down black site extraction/detention/torture facilities.

GITMO has high value as a military asset, but it needed to be shut down as it was nothing more than a circumvention of the ROW the US has placed on itself.
 
#41
#41
agent|orange said:
He should have said:

- I am going to endeavor to shut down illegal circumventions of the way the US has said it would wage war and shut down black site extraction/detention/torture facilities.

GITMO has high value as a military asset, but it needed to be shut down as it was nothing more than a circumvention of the ROW the US has placed on itself.
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Much better than what i stated in the post above yours.
 
#43
#43
The one guy telling the truth more than others is Bernie Sanders. But I think that's because he doesn't believe he can win. It's almost like there's nothing to lose. And I also think it helps that he's older and the money he could get by lying and pandering to billionaires isn't as important to him. Maybe I'm just a blind sheep - I don't know but I'm sure some of you will make that argument.

But I think you guys have made really good points about lying vs. not knowing. As soon as they step foot in the oval office they're privy to 100x the information they were before.
 
#44
#44
Kingston Vol said:
The one guy telling the truth more than others is Bernie Sanders. But I think that's because he doesn't believe he can win. It's almost like there's nothing to lose. And I also think it helps that he's older and the money he could get by lying and pandering to billionaires isn't as important to him. Maybe I'm just a blind sheep - I don't know but I'm sure some of you will make that argument.

But I think you guys have made really good points about lying vs. not knowing. As soon as they step foot in the oval office they're privy to 100x the information they were before.
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I agree with some of what Sanders says and disagree with other parts. He's a career politician, however, and that bothers me.

Sanders addresses income inequality as well as Rand Paul. The approach is what is different and Sanders' "rob peter to pay paul" approach would not work.

Sanders has great snippets and has nailed the rhetoric. However, he's a bit too socialist for my taste.
 
#45
#45
red butler said:
Great post. I'll also add that we tend to only elect charismatic personality types. Candidates are eliminated for the most superficial reasons. That's why we get salesmen, when we should probably be looking for accounting/engineering personality types.
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I agree with this theory. But the problem with this is that the job of a politician is to sell. If they have no charisma and can't sell, they won't be able to pass anything.
 
#46
#46
agent|orange said:
I agree with some of what Sanders says and disagree with other parts. He's a career politician, however, and that bothers me.

Sanders addresses income inequality as well as Rand Paul. The approach is what is different and Sanders' "rob peter to pay paul" approach would not work.

Sanders has great snippets and has nailed the rhetoric. However, he's a bit too socialist for my taste.
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He's been in the House and Senate for what 25+ years? That by definition makes him a liar, he's lying his azz off almost every time he speaks.

My problem with Paul is he is a Senator and next to lawyers they are another useless parasite.
 
#47
#47
hog88 said:
He's been in the House and Senate for what 25+ years? That by definition makes him a liar, he's lying his azz off almost every time he speaks.

My problem with Paul is he is a Senator and next to lawyers they are another useless parasite.
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Since 1991. Would be interesting to hear what he says if/when he's confronted with that proposal.

And the only thing worse than a politician and a lawyer is a lawyer turned politician.
 
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#50
#50
McDad said:
And the only thing worse than that is the lawyer turned politician turned lobbyist.
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Welcome to how politics are done in the US.

That is one thing that Obama said that I adamantly agreed with. Lobbying needs to be killed. Corporations funding these extravagant campaigns need to end.

The bitter irony in these campaigns are the attempt to "reach the common person" by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars making a speech you could have made from your living room and televised on CSPAN.

Suffice to say, I have a lot of problems with how the entire political system exists in the US. It's almost completely unapproachable to someone that isn't already heavily connected by name, wealth or willingness to be nothing more than a parrot. Which is decidedly not what it is supposed to be.
 
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