"Error" implies it's a mistake, not deliberate. As such, it's not fraud.
Now, letting it stand when you have realized the mistake is another matter, that could stray into fraud territory.
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Why is this legal?
- Thread starter Malintent
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"Error" implies it's a mistake, not deliberate. As such, it's not fraud.
Now, letting it stand when you have realized the mistake is another matter, that could stray into fraud territory.
Malintent
Veteran Member
What (I thought) was proposed clearly was that what would be illegal is FAILING TO CORRECT THE ERROR IN STATEMENT.... NOT MAKING THE ERROR (lie) in the first place..
Malintent
Veteran Member
An error is not fraud.
My proposal is to make failure to fully correct an error, and all impact it had, fraud.
Malintent
Veteran Member
yes. indeed... unless, of course, as per my proposal, he follows this new law and corrects anything he stated that was not true at the time he made the statement.
Trausi and Dismal only seem to care about what this proposed future law would have had in the past if it was violated by an Obama that was not aware of the law (or didn't care). For the sake of this discussion, lets just say Obama would be rotting in jail for the rest of his life in a contempt of congress charge because the law magically appeared in the past without his knowledge and he refused to make public retractions sufficient to meet the goal of the law.... OK, now what... are you for or against, and why?
Malintent
Veteran Member
Yes. Let's just say that Trump made an "honest mistake" about crowd size at his inauguration... maybe he was lied to... maybe he just misspoke when he said biggest, he meant shittiest... slip of the tongue.. those keys are like right next to each other on the keyboard... easy mistake.. whatever.
So, it is OBJECTIVELY TRUE that he said something that is OBJECTIVELY FALSE.
Fine. No crime there. Yet. According to my proposal, he has a small amount of time to make a correction that meets or exceeds the distribution, magnitude, and effect of the original falsehood. No intent needed... lie, mistake, whatever - correction required by law.
Further, perhaps a repeat of the same falsehood, after making correction, would hold a penalty of sorts, beyond the requirement for another correction, clarification, retraction, or whatever... maybe something like that would represent "illegal speech"... repeating something already determined to be a lie that was compelled to be retracted... not sure about this part... opinions sought...
Malintent
Veteran Member
The harm to America about that wall is in the neighborhood of 18 billion dollars! Anyway, it sounds like you may agree that we need this law in place... you have many examples of things you feel were lies that the speaker should have been held accountable for.
So, you agree then?
As I mentioned earlier, there is a word for how liberal democracies hold politicians accountable for not delivering on campaign promises and such: elections.
Only totalitarian goons advocate truth squads to punish their political opponents.
How would you define "fully correct"?
An idea I have had for libel/slander, perhaps it could be extended to cover this problem also:
To defend against libel/slander charges a correction must be to the extent that it is possible to do so distributed and promoted just as widely as that which it was correcting.
If they run "Breaking news--Donald Trump arrested for child pornography" and it turns out that it was a nobody who was also named Donald Trump then they had better run "Breaking news--we mistakenly said Donald Trump was arrested for child pornography when in reality it was someone else with the same name." or they have left themselves open to a major lawsuit. If they did 20 teasers for a report on it then they need to do 20 teasers for their retraction. If it was above the fold on page and in 32 point font then the retraction is above the fold on page 1 in at least a 32 point font. (Unless that is impossible--say, you can't print the needed words in the needed font and fit the page. Then you use the largest font you can.)
Malintent
Veteran Member
once again you express your lack of understanding of the basis of this conversation. You used the word "punish".. .as in to punish someone for their actions.... why? where do you get that from? You are still dancing around with your strawman. I'd love to debate the idea with you, but you are still talking about god-knows-what.
Are you saying that being compelled to correct a point of factual error is "punishment"? I believe you may still be grasping at your preferred argument, rather than the actual argument at hand.
You also invoke the "thought police"... why? what does a person's thoughts that are not verbally expressed have to do with the discussion?
Malintent
Veteran Member
I would define "fully correct" as "addressing all points of objective facts challenged by the entity raising the claim, that have been confirmed by the body reviewing the facts". Perhaps that body would mandate specific verbiage..
Can we put Bush and Obama in prison for saying that Islam is a "religion of peace"? -- they either deliberately lied, or are negligent on a matter of national security. You could always try the line, "They have to lie about this so as not to alienate the Muslim world", "They have to lie because we can't trust people not to lynch their Muslim neighbours" or whatever else.
But basically, saying Islam is a religion of peace is like saying Nazism is pro-Jewish.
Of course you can always qualify statements and say, "Although Islam judged historically wasn't a religion of peace, many Muslims can be peaceful people, or genuinely interpret the religion in a peaceful way".
But basically, saying Islam is a religion of peace is like saying Nazism is pro-Jewish.
Of course you can always qualify statements and say, "Although Islam judged historically wasn't a religion of peace, many Muslims can be peaceful people, or genuinely interpret the religion in a peaceful way".
Mainstream Islam isn't a problem. Fanatic Islam is a big problem.
That's a change of subject, but if you want to change the subject in that way: I would strongly disagree with you. Mainstream Islam is a major problem in the world. You can't say that Saudi Islam isn't mainstream. You can't say that Iranian Islam isn't mainstream. They may not be the only representatives of "mainstream Islam", but they are certainly, at least, a *big part* of the mainstream. And they are lunatics by Western standards.
Even a group like the "Islamic State", which is a fringe and extreme group in the sense of being ultra-hardline and willing to use sickening violence, is (I would claim) still basically driven by an entirely mainstream understanding of Islam.
Even a group like the "Islamic State", which is a fringe and extreme group in the sense of being ultra-hardline and willing to use sickening violence, is (I would claim) still basically driven by an entirely mainstream understanding of Islam.
I disagree on this. While there are certainly similarities between mainstream Islam and fundamentalist Islam there also are substantial differences.
Is mainstream Christianity likewise to blame for the actions of the fundies like the abortion clinic shooters?
What is your view of Saudi Islam? Do you accept that it's mainstream? If you say that it isn't, well it's a major Muslim nation with a lot of influence in the Muslim world yes? I can't see how you can deny that they are (at least) part of the mainstream. And of course they are also fundamentalists that have apparently spent a lot of money trying to spread that kind of Islam.
If you want to speak of "mainstream" Islam, you can't just go find the most moderate Western groups. You need to look at what the Muslim world is like, and what commonly passes for religion in the Muslim world.
As for bombing abortion clinics, from what I am aware of:
Conservative Christianity often has an anti-abortion culture. But it would be very largely against violence over it.
The attacks are actually justified on more or less secular grounds of defending innocent life. So although in practice it's Christians carrying out these attacks, there is actually no reason that they couldn't be joined by atheists in doing such bombings, with the atheists giving the same justification for it. Although I don't support such violence, you have to admit that it does make reasonable sense for opponents of abortion to do it, and you don't need to be a Christian, or theist, to think that abortion is the taking of innocent human life. I have actually seen someone try to argue that anti-abortionists can't be very sincere in their beliefs, or a lot more of them would be using violence! (As we do tend to think it's moral to use violence to protect innocent life.)
But as it happens... I'm pretty sure atheists would blame mainstream Christianity for various alleged sins like homophobia. They wouldn't just say "It's only an extreme fringe", "We don't blame Christians, just a few dangerous extremists". No, they would put the blame on Christianity in a wider sense, if not a universal sense.
If you want to speak of "mainstream" Islam, you can't just go find the most moderate Western groups. You need to look at what the Muslim world is like, and what commonly passes for religion in the Muslim world.
As for bombing abortion clinics, from what I am aware of:
Conservative Christianity often has an anti-abortion culture. But it would be very largely against violence over it.
The attacks are actually justified on more or less secular grounds of defending innocent life. So although in practice it's Christians carrying out these attacks, there is actually no reason that they couldn't be joined by atheists in doing such bombings, with the atheists giving the same justification for it. Although I don't support such violence, you have to admit that it does make reasonable sense for opponents of abortion to do it, and you don't need to be a Christian, or theist, to think that abortion is the taking of innocent human life. I have actually seen someone try to argue that anti-abortionists can't be very sincere in their beliefs, or a lot more of them would be using violence! (As we do tend to think it's moral to use violence to protect innocent life.)
But as it happens... I'm pretty sure atheists would blame mainstream Christianity for various alleged sins like homophobia. They wouldn't just say "It's only an extreme fringe", "We don't blame Christians, just a few dangerous extremists". No, they would put the blame on Christianity in a wider sense, if not a universal sense.
Bomb#20
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Are you prepared to follow your own rule, or are you proposing to send your men on a mission you're unwilling to go on yourself? You post stuff pretty often here that isn't true.
J842P
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Yes.