Should UK politicians be more honest and accountable for their actions?
Hi everyone,
I found out recently that there isn't a law to prosecute politicians who knowingly deceive the public. In my mind this amounts to a fundamental gap in our constitution (UK). My concerns were further exacerbated by the Elizabeth Filkin affair, in which she was hounded out of her position as Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards after she rubbed up a few important parliamentary figures the wrong way with her investigations. Thoughts?
Good point.
But how do you know its a lie as opposed to a mere mistake? The US, along with the UK, France, Germany and Russia all were mistaken about WMD in Iraq, but GWB is branded by many of those incapable of critical thinking, as a liar. Hmmm? Perhaps we should also prosecute mistakes.
How about another law against those who lie about our politicians? Why should free speech include lies to advance an opposition political agenda? Do you really want to ski this slippery slope?
Doesn't take much thinking to find out the facts Chris. Since you want to avoid straining your intellect too much, I'll do the thinking for you.
Bush said then, “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .” Some of his critics called that a lie, but the new evidence shows Bush had reason to say what he did.
None of the new information suggests Iraq ever nailed down a deal to buy uranium, and the Senate report makes clear that US intelligence analysts have come to doubt whether Iraq was even trying to buy the stuff. In fact, both the White House and the CIA long ago conceded that the 16 words shouldn’t have been part of Bush’s speech.
But what he said – that Iraq sought uranium – is just what both British and US intelligence were telling him at the time. So Bush may indeed have been misinformed, but that's not the same as lying.
http://www.factcheck.org/bushs_16_words_on_iraq_uranium.html
But, then again...you are exactly the reason why such laws would never work. You don't know the difference between lies and mistakes. You've never been in a position of authority when lives where at stake and you had to take the best available information and decide a course of action. You might be more forgiving in your assessments of people's actions and motives.
Upon further consideration, I came to the conclusion that since your allegation about GWB lying was so easily disproven, you clearly knew it was a lie when you offered it. You Sir are a liar and should be prosecuted as such! Go ahead prove you were NOT lying, that you were merely mistaken. Hmmm...But then again, I can't prove what you REALLY knew at the time of the statement...can I? There's a dilemma. For the same reason you cannot prove GWB lied.Mikey,
Is that the best you have? Weak, really weak, but as I said, there is thinking involved so I wasn't expecting much from you in the first place.
Now, am I a liar, I suppose you could say I've lied from time to time, probably more often than I'm willing to admit if I'm being honest, but then again my lies are what you would probably classify as little white lies, you know - 'yes dear, that dress looks lovely' and stuff along those lines.
Mr. Bush, however, he blatantely lies to his own people in order to minipulate them into laying waste to another country and its people - now that lie is on a completely different level, wouldn't you say? Oh yea, you wouldn't, would you? I almost forgot your the local Od Bush apoligist, right?
There are several places on the web where you can find information on factive verbs, in fact if you do a search on Google you will find many referencing your hero Bush, and those sixteen words. I, however, have chosen to reference Steven Pinker and his book The Stuff of Thought
"'Learn is what linguists call a factive verb: it entails that the belief attributed to the subject is true."“factive verbs entail something a speaker assumes to be indisputably true, not just something in which he or she has high confidence in”
“When Bush said that the British government had learned’ that Saddam had sought uranium, he was committing himself to the proposition that the uranium seeking actually took place, not that the British government believed it did.”
Now Mikey, we know for a fact that Bush was informed by his people that the British information was weak, and yet he still chose to use a word which conveyed certainty in his statement.
That is what you call lying, plain and simple.
L.W.,
I'm not sure if you are right, but if you are, those are damning statements about the American populace.
Attacking and destroying a sovereign nation based on lying, manipulating, and deceiving one peoples is one thing. Attacking and destroying a sovereign nation based on a misplaced thirst for revenge by those same people, is quite another.
Chris, I am not talking only about the politicians in the USA. It's about all of them around the globe.
Politics are not about truth and ideals. They are about people versus people, and in fact people create the politics. People choose what to believe, they chose what is just and what is not. A lie for one is the truth for another depending on which factors people chose to take in consideration and depending on the society where that decision making takes place.
A handful of politicians do not create our environment. We create it our selves with our religion, ideals, or ambitions. The politicians just take that environment and exploit it's potential and they often say lies and do so in order to further the agenda of one group over the agenda of another.
Lets take the hot one. WMD.
Some will say you didn't find them so you lied about them. Others will say just because you didn't find them doesn't mean they weren't there. Others will say we were misled by false intelligence. If you look at it all three are reasonable possibilities. So people chose what to believe based on what they want. So yes I am most certain that a large group of people enables a lie to become the truth or a truth to become a lie, not only in the States, but every place, every country.
The real politicians are people whose names you never hear about...Post new comment