Comments on: Your Mom is a slimy, turd covered pedophile communist who literally wants to eat your children while watching snuff films

By: IXLNXS

IXLNXS — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 04:14:47 +0000

Two things politicians will never be able to do.

Pass laws against lying.
They all do it. They all will. They always will. It’s in the job description.

Call their opponents liars.
Because where would it stop? If one outed the other and the cycle continued gubberment as we know it might fall.

By: FreedomByChoice

FreedomByChoice — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 19:26:23 +0000

It seems to me that the law is silly and unenforceable. Bob makes some valid points above. As much as I hate the “laws already on the books” argument, in this case, I think they apply. If Rickert had made an accusation in her flier that a) was false, and b) began to erode Sheldon’s poll lead, then Sheldon’s campaign itself would have corrected the record. On the other hand, the potential abuse of a law like this would be that, had for instance the campaign become vitriolic, Sheldon could have used the law simply out of spite to convict Rickert of lying during the campaign, and giving government the ability to punish the losers (ie, dissenting voices) is exactly what we should be fighting to prevent.

By: Bob Davis

Bob Davis — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 04:17:28 +0000

They didn’t decide the merits of this particular case because the law is broader than this one case and so they chose to take the opportunity to look at the whole law, and the whole law is wrong.

If the government has the right to penalize false political statements, then first the gov’t has to determine if a statement is false. The gov’t – i.e. those already in power. So while it may be easy to determine if a politician voted a certain way on a bill, what about more difficult cases. What if an ad claims a politician didn’t support a particular issue. How do you define support, absent a vote? Or even with a vote – like the creation of the Dep’t of Homeland Security which the Dems proposed and then many voted against. So let’s say a repub claimed a dem didn’t support the DHS? Even though maybe they sponsored the legislation, but didn’t vote for the final version.

Now lets let the courts decide the truth or falsity of that statement. Oy. Free speech is messy.

Intelligent Design on the other hand is just wrong and shouldn’t be taught.

By: PotatoStew

PotatoStew — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 18:01:29 +0000

Someone should set up some sort of independent fact-checking agency (sort of like factcheck.org) that could give ads a seal of approval if they are truthful. In an ideal world, people would then look for that seal, and give more weight to claims in an ad that was approved by them.

The problem there is that something can be factually true while at the same time be presented in a way to look more negative than it actually is.