Imagine this in the US

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   Pcunixposted 14 years ago

   http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/0 … t-election
   
   The former immigration minister Phil Woolas was ejected from parliament today after two high court judges ruled that he lied about his Liberal Democrat opponent during the general election, in a judgment that is likely to have profound implications for all future campaigns.
   
   Imagine having that in the United States.  It would ruin America if we demanded honesty from our politicians!
   
   I am so glad I live in a country where politicians can lie to voters with impunity.  After all, without lies and misinformation, how would the wonderful Tea Party candidates have done so well?   No, we sure wouldn't want this here!
   
   If we did that, we'd then have to say News stations couldn't lie either. Fortunately our courts have already decided that sort of restriction on deliberate falsehood wil never be tolerated: http://www.relfe.com/media_can_legally_lie.html
   
   Americans, we should be proud to live in a country where our Gawd given Freedom to Lie is taken seriously.

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      prettydarkhorseposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      or in Japan where the code of honor of the samurai followed by politicians, they do harakiri or commit suicide..

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      John Holdenposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Nobody usually cares about lying politicians, in fact a straight one tends to raise alarm.
      
      Let me indulge in a spot of paranoid speculation. I'm sure you are aware of at least most of this so please bear with me.
      
      In the run up to the last election the lib dems ran a campaign largely opposed to much of what the conservatives stood for.
      The conservatives won but without a clear majority of seats. They were able to persuade the lib dems to about turn on their policies and support the conservatives giving the cons a majority.
      Many of the government's actions seem to be more to do with attempting to ensure to reduce the Labour parties chances at the next election than resolve any problems we have.
      
      Now I'm not suggesting that Woolas's prosecution was a part of this but I'm not suggesting it wasn't either.
      
      The Lib Dems are very good at claiming credit for the work of others.
      
      I don't see it as government getting its act together and cleaning up, I see it as government getting even dirtier.

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         Pcunixposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         I have no knowledge of that, but it just struck me that in this country, nobody seems to care.  We expect lies and generally do nothing about it.

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            qwarkposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            The American voter is "dumbing down."
            I expressed this before. They are scary!

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            John Holdenposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            As do we.
            
            My point was that politics appearing to put its house in order was perhaps more Machiavellian than would appear on first sight.
            We only concern ourselves with lies when it suits the ruling party.
            
            Although Woolas's  comment were out of order they are nothing against Conservative corruption which somehow seems to avoid the courts.
            
            I would have been far more impressed if the person in court was accused of theft from the public purse but somehow it never happens they get away with repaying some of the proceeds of  their crimes and all is forgiven.

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               Pcunixposted 14 years agoin reply to this

               Yes.  Like Clinton's horrible lie.  That made me hate Republicans more than I ever thought possible until that time.

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      lady_love158posted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Yeah, in your world (wonderland) liberals don't lie, only conservatives do... but in the real world liberals are the liars, everything they say is a lie, a hate filled lie, twisted logic, and uter nonsense! If they were forced to tell the truth they wouldn't exist!

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         John Holdenposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Yeah, in the UK liberals lie. But line them up against the tories on the right and they are rank amatuers. If you want a hate filled lie try listening to our government talking about how we all have to tighten our belts, but it is important that the high earners earn more so they're getting a tax cut.
         For twisted lies and utter nonsense listen to the conservatives eh! It wasn't a liberal that appealed to the Muslim community to stone a journalist to death, but then I suppose that's all right as all Muslims want to murder us, or so the conservatives say.

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         Valentine Logarposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         In the real world most politicians tell lies. It doesn't matter which ideology they claim Right or Left, Liberal or Conservative, Christian Fundamentalist or Secular they all tell the story they believe will get them elected.
         
         In some cases they even believe their own lies. This is even more frightening.

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   paradigmsearchposted 14 years ago

   Pcunix -
   
   I read your latest hub. 3 times I tried to rate it useful, awesome, and beautiful. And 3 times the ratings had disappeared when I checked back. Just an fyi.
   
   - paradigmsearch

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      Pcunixposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I think it takes time for ratings to appear.   But I don't KNOW that, so there could be something broken.

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         paradigmsearchposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         You are right. I checked back again. The ratings are now there.

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            Pcunixposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            I see that, and thank you.  My mother was in that home for 12 years, so we brought her a lot of books

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   John Holdenposted 14 years ago

   As an interesting comparison, a conservative MP has just been suspended by his party for appealing to Muslims to stone a journalist to death.
   
   I'm not prejudging but I don't expect to be able to tell you the result of the court case.

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      Ralph Deedsposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Not good form, unless the journalist was Rupert Murdoch in which case, "Bravo!"

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         John Holdenposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         The journalist is Yasmin Alibhai Brown and I was badly briefed, it was a con. Birmingham Councillor, not an MP.

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            Ralph Deedsposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            Does Yasmin  work for one of Murdoch's newspapers?
            
            Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (born Yasmin Damji on 10 December 1949) is a Ugandan-born British journalist and author of Indian descent. Currently a regular columnist for The Independent and the Evening Standard[1], she is a well-known commentator on issues of immigration, diversity and multiculturalism.[2][3] She is a founder member of British Muslims for Secular Democracy."
            [Wikipedia]
            
            The Independent and the Evening Standard are not Murdoch papers. Therefore, there was no reason to stone Ms. Alibhai.

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   Lifeallstar1posted 14 years ago

   Now that I think about it, did we ever have a politician that was NOT caught in a lie? If you have even one name, let me know!

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   CYBERSUPEposted 14 years ago

   I have said this for a long long time " only in America does Crime Pay" Honesty is overlooked.

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   CYBERSUPEposted 14 years ago

   Thank You Pcunix for bringing this subject up. It needs to be heard.

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