Every single politician who has ever held public office has lied at one time or another, but now lying, it seems, is a given. Laws against false campaign advertising raise other issues. “What sort of mechanism do you set up?” asked Brooks Jackson, director of Factcheck.org, a website that monitors the accuracy of politicians’ claims. “I don’t know how you pass a law making it a crime to utter a falsehood in a political debate without giving some government official the power to decide what’s false and what’s not.”
To the rest of us peons, when we tell a lie, there are usually severe consequences. For instance, if we tell a lie to our spouse, we can expect a problem with our relationship, or even the end of it. If we lie under oath in a court of law, we can expect to be charged, fined, or also imprisoned.
But what about politicians who look right in our eyes and lie to us? Why in God’s name do we not punish them? Why are they allowed to get away with it?
For instance – “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, if you like your current insurance plan you can keep it”; that whopper came from the lips of our current president, not once, not twice, but several times. We have irrefutable evidence to that fact. What about Harry Reid? He lies almost every time he opens his mouth. And yet, NOTHING is done to punish him. Have we as a society and a people fallen so far that this is acceptable? If my son were to lie to me, there would be consequences and some form of punishment, as I’m sure most parents would agree with me when I make that statement.
We are taught from an early age not to lie. Political candidates are not held to the same standard, and the reason is simple: their statements and advertisements are considered “political speech,” which falls under the protection of the First Amendment. The noble idea undergirding what otherwise seems like a political loophole is the belief that voters have a right to uncensored information on which to base their decisions. Too often, however, the result is a system in which the most distorted information comes from the campaigns themselves.
Read more: freedomoutpost.com
