Why is this legal?

[Malintent]

Politicians get away with far too much, considering they are public employees. Things that are illegal in some, or all, industries are not illegal when it comes to politics.... since politicians make the laws, this may not be so surprising... but makes it even more of an outrage.

Ground rules for discussion:

There are three topics that do not belong in this thread (plenty of other threads have numerous posts on these topics. Visit those, if you wish to post about the following).

1) no discussion of Gun Ownership laws... visit another thread for that.. its been talked to death, but feel free to run in circles elsewhere.
2) no discussion of Abortion Rights.... see above.
3) no discussion of Religious Freedom... see above.

If you are still interested, let's begin....

What is not illegal, related to the running and maintenance of government, that should be illegal?

I see nothing but hypocrisy in politics.. Institutionalized dishonesty. There are two things I think should be illegal, for the betterment of society...

1) It should be a crime to knowingly spread false information in pursuit of political gain.

The common negative response to this is "being wrong should not be a crime". My response is that "being wrong" is not the issue... being INTENTIONALLY wrong is... The most blatant of lies about points of fact. As Obama said recently to Letterman, "If you watch Fox news then you are living on a different planet than someone that watches NPR".
The US cannot have a healthy government and political system if we are living on different planets.
Politicians should be legally accountable for every word that comes out of their mouths. Lying during a campaign should carry mandatory jail time and blacklisting from any government job anywhere.
If it is reasonable that a politician misspoke and did not intentionally lie, then the correction must be ASSURED to reach as many people as the original misstatement... i.e. putting a little note at the bottom of an article saying it was retracted is insufficient.. If a politician addresses the nation on a news program, then they must revisit that program at the same timeslot for the same duration making it clear what was said that was wrong, why it was wrong, why they did not know it was wrong, present their evidence that they could not have known better, present the correct information clearly and accurately, and offer an apology for their failure.

2) It should be a crime for any politician or political candidate to accept money or gifts from ANYONE.
Offering money to a politician should be illegal and treated as bribery. Using personal funds to support a campaign should also be illegal... the point being to level the playing field to a set amount of taxpayer-supported funds for each candidate, and remove the special interest groups that are manipulating the process today.

What do you think of these two thoughts?

What are some of your own examples of things that should be illegal that aren't, in the world of politics and government?

 

[dismal]

Ignoring for the moment the Supreme Court has found that false speech is protected speech, what exactly are you proposing?

You want Trump to appoint a Truth Commission to prosecute the purveyors of fake news?

 

[Malintent]

No need to ignore the Supreme Court. We should instead listen. They ruled that false speech is NOT protected when harm can come. The famous "yelling fire in a crowded movie theater when there is no fire", is precedence there.

No need to appoint any commission for any specific law.. . we already have a legal system that supports the execution of the law. If such a law existed, then the only need for any special commission would be for the investigation of evidenced claims.

An example of evidence in this area would be an email message between campaign folks saying something like, "these statistics are troubling, lets just say X, the base will love it and no one will bother fact checking us". Or, during a speech, something is stated that establishes knowledge of a particular fact. Then, in another speech, something is said that contradicts that fact that was already evidenced as known.

I also do not accept "there are edge cases that may be problematic, therefore do nothing". The law can at least be written so narrowly that it can only apply to the most egregious cases... like Birther, Pizzagate, and Yellow shower level garbage.

 

[barbos]

Not gonna fly. Lying is integral part of politics and really any other endeavor like business, etc.
Trump lied 70% of the time during last election. But Hillary lied 30% too.
When you have two parties disagreeing on something then you know that at least one party is lying.
And lobby laws were introduced because they could not fight it, so they legalize&regulate it.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Strongly agree with your second point. Public funding of elections and make it illegal to take money from anywhere else including the politician themself. Get money out of politics. It would make a huge difference. Nobody should be able to buy an election.

 

[barbos]

Strongly agree with your second point. Public funding of elections and make it illegal to take money from anywhere else including the politician themself. Get money out of politics. It would make a huge difference. Nobody should be able to buy an election.

Nobody offers politicians money directly anymore. They offer board of directors positions, partnership in lobbying firms after they suddenly retire. If they don't want to retire then they can give positions to close relatives, spouses, children, grandchildren. Illegal but hard to prove - stock tips.

If we talk about legal campaign contributions then limiting to public funding only is a good idea but I am not sure politician class will allow it without fight.

 

[braces_for_impact]

I think it's the difficulty in proving someone intentionally lied that's part of the problem. I definitely agree that the laws on corruption and bribery, etc. should be broadened and reinforced. Those laws have taken some serious hits in the last decade or two, and combined with dark money, things have gotten really ugly.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Ignoring for the moment the Supreme Court has found that false speech is protected speech, what exactly are you proposing?

You want Trump to appoint a Truth Commission to prosecute the purveyors of fake news?

Non-commercial false speech is protected speech.

Commercial false speech is generally considered fraud.

All we need to do is consider political speech a form of commercial speech.

 

[SimpleDon]

Ignoring for the moment the Supreme Court has found that false speech is protected speech, what exactly are you proposing?

You want Trump to appoint a Truth Commission to prosecute the purveyors of fake news?

Non-commercial false speech is protected speech.

Commercial false speech is generally considered fraud.

All we need to do is consider political speech a form of commercial speech.

Good idea.

 

[dismal]

Ignoring for the moment the Supreme Court has found that false speech is protected speech, what exactly are you proposing?

You want Trump to appoint a Truth Commission to prosecute the purveyors of fake news?

Non-commercial false speech is protected speech.

Commercial false speech is generally considered fraud.

All we need to do is consider political speech a form of commercial speech.

OK, so let's ignore the fact that it isn't commercial speech and indeed political speech has historically been the most protected form of speech and plow ahead.

How much power do you want Trump's truth squad to have?

Can they prosecute Obama for saying he had been to 57 states?

How about Nancy Pelosi for saying not passing some bill would cost 500 million jobs per month?

 

[Trausti]

Ignoring for the moment the Supreme Court has found that false speech is protected speech, what exactly are you proposing?

You want Trump to appoint a Truth Commission to prosecute the purveyors of fake news?

Non-commercial false speech is protected speech.

Commercial false speech is generally considered fraud.

All we need to do is consider political speech a form of commercial speech.

OK, so let's ignore the fact that it isn't commercial speech and indeed political speech has historically been the most protected form of speech and plow ahead.

How much power do you want Trump's truth squad to have?

Can they prosecute Obama for saying he had been to 57 states?

How about Nancy Pelosi for saying not passing some bill would cost 500 million jobs per month?

Considering how often politicians lie, there'd be endless investigations. Good money for the lawyers, I guess.

 

[laughing dog]

The real issue that lying by politicians is accepted by the voting public. If voters rebelled against it and liars lost elections, the lying would quickly recede.

 

[dismal]

OK, so let's ignore the fact that it isn't commercial speech and indeed political speech has historically been the most protected form of speech and plow ahead.

How much power do you want Trump's truth squad to have?

Can they prosecute Obama for saying he had been to 57 states?

How about Nancy Pelosi for saying not passing some bill would cost 500 million jobs per month?

Considering how often politicians lie, there'd be endless investigations. Good money for the lawyers, I guess.

Well, Trump would have prosecutorial discretion, so I'm sure he'd focus only on the worst abuses.

Like the Pelosi and Obama examples I mentioned.

 

[Bronzeage]

Freedom of speech protects the right to be wrong, and to lie.

One of the cornerstones of any legal system is a prohibition of laws which are overly broad or vague. There is not language which would clearly define a falsehood in such a way it could be prosecuted, without using the subjective opinion of the prosecutor.

Every criminal offense must be defined in a way that a reasonable person can know when they have crossed the line. There must also be a mechanism for enforcement for any law. How would a "Liars in Public Office" law be enforced? Who files the complaint and who then examines the complaint for validity? None of this structure currently exists, so it has to be created by law. Imagine being a TFT moderator for the entire nation. Nice work, if you can get it.

However, the Constitution only covers the criminal aspects of free speech. It does not address fraud or theft through misrepresentation. If a person lies for financial gain, the aggrieved party has full recourse to the justice system, where they are welcome to sue for damages and recover their losses.

 

[dismal]

There is not language which would clearly define a falsehood in such a way it could be prosecuted, without using the subjective opinion of the prosecutor.

Well, in some cases, sure, but there's no effin way Obama visited 57 states, right? Or that not passing some bill was costing 500 million jobs per month?

My fear is that politicians would learn to phrase everything as questions. Like that Guam's going to tip over guy.

Instead of saying "This is going to cause Guam to tip over", you ask "Isn't this going to cause Guam to tip over?"

Or, they'd have their minions tweet out "this is going to cause Guam to tip over" and then they can factually say "There are those who say this will cause Guam to tip over!"

 

[dismal]

nm

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Well, in some cases, sure, but there's no effin way Obama visited 57 states, right?

To be fair, it would be extremely difficult to show beyond a reasonable doubt that Obama lied about that, and in fact he did not.
Even when it comes to commercial speech, false claims that result from mistakes are generally not criminal, and are definitely not fraud (though in some cases, they might involve criminal negligence, but that could happen in some cases even when the speech is not commercial).

Anyway, I think that criminalizing political lies is a generally bad idea because of its potential for abuse, but in any case, I think it's better to make a clear distinction between false claims (very common) and lies (also very common, but much more difficult to establish beyond a reasonable doubt).

 

[SimpleDon]

We need to teach our citizens some skeptical thinking and reasoning skills and we need to eliminate gerrymandering. I am willing to bet that I could write a pretty through redistricting program based on single precinct as the center of each district and work out from it to define districts that contain roughly the same number of people that are geographically compact without regard for politics or race or socioeconomic status. Gerrymandering is one of the main reasons that we don't have moderates elected to Congress anymore.

This is more important than getting money out of politics. Is there anyone here who will admit to a television ad having influenced your choice of whom to vote for?

Or that a commercial didn't convince you to support a person the first time you saw it but did after you had seen the commercial twenty times?

 

[dismal]

Well, in some cases, sure, but there's no effin way Obama visited 57 states, right?

To be fair, it would be extremely difficult to show beyond a reasonable doubt that Obama lied about that, and in fact he did not.
Even when it comes to commercial speech, false claims that result from mistakes are generally not criminal, and are definitely not fraud (though in some cases, they might involve criminal negligence, but that could happen in some cases even when the speech is not commercial).

Anyway, I think that criminalizing political lies is a generally bad idea because of its potential for abuse, but in any case, I think it's better to make a clear distinction between false claims (very common) and lies (also very common, but much more difficult to establish beyond a reasonable doubt).

OK, fair enough, let's have Trump's Truth Squad get him on the stand and if he can list the 57 states he went to and present enough evidence to create a reasonable doubt he actually did he can go free.

 

[Alcoholic Actuary]

Ignoring for the moment the Supreme Court has found that false speech is protected speech, what exactly are you proposing?

You want Trump to appoint a Truth Commission to prosecute the purveyors of fake news?

Non-commercial false speech is protected speech.

Commercial false speech is generally considered fraud.

All we need to do is consider political speech a form of commercial speech.

I know I don’t say this frequently, particularly to you, but that is an excellent point! There is little difference between someone wanting me to buy a product and someone wanting to represent my interests in running the country. If they lie about either, it’s fraudulent.

aa


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