What is a "lie?" Earlier today I posted that one in ten women in America will be raped in their lifetime. A poster challenged me and I went to a CDC report. It was one in five. Was I lying earlier? No. I was mistaken, remembered a number incorrectly, perhaps got it confused with another stat I had heard. We all make mistakes.
I'm sure that some of both candidates "lies" fall into that category, which I would call "honest/pardonable misstatement." On simple data points like the metric you misidentified, one, even I, would write off the error as a simple and honest mistake. No biggie; it's not hard to forget figures and statistics.
For example, it's no big thing to forget the specific dates during which Henry VIII lived/reigned, but if one is going to speak/write of him, accurately noting that he was a 16th century English monarch is minimally expected. It's altogether another to "forget" that he was a Tudor monarch, that he created the Anglican church over a row with the Pope deriving from his desire to end his marriage with Catherine of Aragon, transformed England's navy into a world class fighting force, or that he reigned during the middle of the Renaissance era.
However, as with so many things, context matters. As with the Henry VIII example, it comes down to having the integrity to refrain from speaking of things, particularly in front of the whole world, about which one is poorly informed. When I'm addressing my clients about business matters, I have to have the dot on my "i" and the cross on my "t." I have to because they are relying on me to know what I'm talking about. When someone asks me a question about "whatever," I have to either be right with what I say or say I don't know.
When I'm just chatting socially with them about some random topic about which I know a little but not much, I have to limit the nature and extent of my remarks to that which I know to be true or at least indicate that I'm "not sure, but if I recall correctly, 'such and such' is the case..." And by simply doing that, I build trust with the other person and I "buy" for myself the benefit of the doubt such that if the other person learns I was mistaken, they'll write it off as a simple misstatement or forgetfulness, and they won't consider it a deliberate manipulative effort, a lie.
But all of that pertains to facts about objects, and dates and places. When I'm speaking about myself, my beliefs, my important acts, accomplishments and failures, there's never any excuse for misrepresenting those facts about myself. I cannot today say, "I was in favor of Iraq War II," when the fact is I was not ever in favor of it; it doesn't matter that "you" don't know or recall what I thought about it 15 years ago. I know and I have a duty to tell the truth about what I thought then and now, regardless of whether time now shows I was right or wrong to oppose Iraq War II.
That higher standard of being correct also applies to remarks I make about other people because it's morally reprehensible to misrepresent another's ideas, words, deeds, and so on in an effort to belittle them. If I'm going to say, "OldLady did or said thus and such," you need to have done or said them to the extent that a neutral observer would agree you did. If you didn't, I am obligated to refrain from saying you did.
In light of the foregoing themes, examine the statements that are marked (by Politifact, or any other fact checker) and ask yourself, whether you think they are honest misstatements of minor facts uttered in the course of making a case that even without those facts would still be so or whether they are willful misrepresentations aimed at swaying folks' opinion. (I realize politicians are nearly always trying to sway opinion, but I think you understand what I mean.) As you consider them, ask yourself which of the following fits:
- The speaker not knowing what they're talking about re: crime in America or
- The speaker deliberately misrepresenting the truth to advance their aim of becoming President
Trump -- Some examples from his "pants on fire" file and from Factcheck.org:
- Lies about and misrepresentations of the state of things in the U.S./world -- Each of these statement show the man just has no idea of what he's talking about or he's saying what he thinks will inspire fear or anger in his constituents.
- "Crime is rising." -- In the gun debate, Republicans often and steadfastly note that crime rates have dropped off, largely because it has. But Trump says crime is on the rise. How does a man who wants to be President not know whether crime is on the rise or not?
- "Crime statistics show blacks kill 81 percent of white homicide victims."
- "I've seen numbers of 24 percent [unemployment] -- I actually saw a number of 42 percent unemployment. Forty-two percent. 5.3 percent unemployment -- that is the biggest joke there is in this country. … The unemployment rate is probably 20 percent, but I will tell you, you have some great economists that will tell you it's a 30, 32. And the highest I've heard so far is 42 percent." -- It may well be he did see those figures, but whether he saw them isn't what's important. What matters is whether he had the sense to know they could not possibly be accurate, and thus not repeat them. At the height of the Great Depression, the unemployment rate was ~24%. Does it look to you like we are anywhere near 24% unemployment? Show me the economist who has said the U.S. at any point in the 21st century has had 30%+ unemployment.
- The U.S. “trade deficit with China soared 40 percent during Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state.” The trade deficit increased by 17 percent when Clinton headed the State Department, which, we’d note, isn’t directly responsible for trade. (From Factcheck.org)
- Lies about and misrepresentations of other people's views, aims or deeds:
- May 2016 -- "Hillary Clinton doesn't do well with women." -- ??? In whose mind?
- June 2016 -- "The Obama administration was actively supporting Al Qaeda in Iraq, the terrorist group that became the Islamic State." -- WTF???
- "The federal government is sending refugees to states with governors who are "Republicans, not to the Democrats." -- The Obama administration leaves the decision about where refugees settle in the U.S. to private groups, most faith-based groups.
- June 2106 -- "Hillary Clinton has also been the biggest promoter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which will ship millions more of our jobs overseas — and give up congressional power to an international foreign commission. Now, because I have pointed out why it would be such a disastrous deal, she is pretending that she is against it. She has even deleted this record of total support from her book." -- ??? If one buys or borrows her book and reads it, one will find Mrs. Clinton's support and efforts to negotiate the TPP described on pages 69 and 70. Why on Earth the man even mentioned her book or her position shift on the TPP is beyond me. Trump is in no position to deride anyone about changing stances and he was just flat out wrong about the content of her book. He'd have been much better off to simply state what he thinks should be the specific terms of our future trade agreements.
- June 2016 -- Hillary Clinton is going to “raise your taxes very substantially.” (From Factcheck.org)
- June 2016 -- U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens “was left helpless to die as Hillary Clinton soundly slept in her bed.” Two emails from Clinton show that she was awake after it was learned that Stevens had died in the attack on the diplomatic facility in Benghazi. (From Factcheck.org)
- Full on character aspersions -- too many to list...you'll find them here: Trump’s Attack on Clinton’s Character
- Lies about himself:
- "I don't know anything about David Duke."
- Lies about things that don't matter anyway:
- "Out of 67 counties (in Florida), I won 66, which is unprecedented. It's never happened before." -- Okay...this one I'd write off as Politifact nitpicking. Why? Because whether it has or has not happened before is irrelevant anyway; he won what he won and lost what he lost. That's that.
We all sometimes speak sloppily, especially when just chatting, and say something less carefully than we would if writing a treatise. Politifact would have termed me a "pants on fire" liar, but I was not intentionally misleading someone with false information, which is what a "lie" means to me.
I think I've addressed this above....
he has a bad habit of not correcting himself when it is pointed out to him that he has erred.
That's a generous way of putting it. LOL But okay, fine. Let's call it a "bad habit."
To me, Clinton is less trustworthy, believe it or not. ... I can hear you screeching by now, 320, because it's a SENSE, an intuition, an instinct, that tells me she can't be trusted. No facts, I guess, to back me up. But in my lifetime, when I don't trust my judgment about people, I often rue the day.
Red:
I find that happens when I don't know much about someone. When I have good information about an individual -- and there is lots of it, pro and con, about Mrs. Clinton that is publicly available -- it doesn't matter what my "better judgment" once said, going with the evidence has almost never disserved me.
As long as we are talking about intuition, I don't feel either she or Trump is totally trustworthy, but I gauge their duplicitousness differently, and the difference has to do with motives. I see Trump's motives as being entirely for his own personal financial gain, regardless of the impact on others. I see Mrs. Clinton's motive as being for the ability to do good things on behalf of others. For example:
- Trump has always been a wealthy man. What has he done for the benefit of folks who aren't wealthy? Not one of his businesses makes available goods or services that average wealth individuals need or can buy. He's known to be among the most stingy billionaires in the country. What I'm getting at is that the man hasn't even shown a history of doing things on behalf of folks less fortunate than he.
- Mrs. Clinton has become a wealthy woman. She does work to boost her personal fortunes, we all do, but the focus of everything she's done professionally and personally has been folks, most often children, who aren't fortunate. She's lived her entire adult life in the service of others. Indeed, she and Bill Clinton didn't become wealthy until after they left the White House and began to command super high speaking fees.
Trump's an out in the open, saying what's going through his mind
That's all well and good. My issue is with the merit of the thoughts that go through his mind and the effectiveness of his mind's "filter" that clearly doesn't work well enough to keep him from uttering those things that cross his mind. It's one thing to speak one's mind and being accurate and truthful when doing so. People will hold one in high regard for that. It's another thing to make up things and/or just say something without
knowing whether it "holds water." People who do that deserve to be ridiculed and most definitely don't deserve to be President.
It's the difference between being an honest, responsible and mature adult and behaving like a child. When mommy asks her child if the dress looks good on her and the child responds, "It makes you look fat," that's the child speaking their mind. An adult could say the same thing because at the very least, it's true; thus they'd, like the child, be saying what's on their mind. When mommy asks, "Did you do your homework," and it's on the child's mind to say "yes" when s/he did not, that's not speaking their mind, that's lying. When it crosses little Billy's mind to someone he went to Disney World on vacation and he did not, that's lying too. And lying is what Trump does more than any other candidate this election cycle. Moreover, the thing of it is that most of the stuff he's lied about, or facts he's misrepresented, are things he didn't really need to mention in the first place.
I get the sense he is the same jerk away from the camera that he is when the camera is on. People who vote for Trump will get what they see at rallies and on t.v.
He's not quite the same, but his need to be the center of attention is the same. The folks I know in the real estate industry and who've had business dealings with him say he's the "same jerk" on serious topics and that re: his business he's a totally "different kind of jerk." They say that when it comes to his industry, his company and most aspects of business management, he knows everything inside out and is excellent at managing things, but that he's a lousy manager of people and a manipulative, "zero-sum" style negotiator who aims to achieve "he wins, you may or may not win too, but whether you do or do not doesn't matter" deals. When it comes to more general topics, he's the "same jerk" you see, that is, the one who'll say "whatever" without regard to whether it makes sense, is right, etc.
I could learn to tolerate the "business jerk" in the White House, even though (1) I'd prefer "no kind of jerk" be President and (2) I don't think the "business jerk" as President will bode well for the U.S.' fortunes in the world because it'll create and foster even more animosity than currently exists toward us. I cannot, however, endure as President the other kind of jerk that is also part of Trump's being because I have no way to know that "jerk" won't initiate policies based on his misunderstandings. And to your point about his "bad habit," were he not to have that behavior trait, I could get past Trump's "just saying anything" were he to recant openly and unequivocally the things he's said that were flat out wrong or deliberate misstatements.
Politifact is also highly suspect by conservatives, who say they use their "fact finding missions" to bury Trump and judge his stuff "lies" when they are more friendly toward Clinton's gaffes. However, since it's pretty much the only game in town, there aren't a lot of options. The entire basis of your argument will be discarded by some conservatives here.
"Everything" is suspect to conservatives, especially the Republican flavor of conservatives, when it doesn't coincide with their viewpoint. Hell, I think one could legitimately make the case that a meaningful share of Republican Party could as well be called the "conspiracy theory party." The GOP ought to adopt Don Quixote as their mascot for they spend so much time "
tilting at windmills."
Red:
I'm sure some will, but the only way they can do so is to bring up something unrelated to my thesis and try to claim it somehow is materially related to my central claims, or by outright ignoring the facts that support my claims.
"Everyone's entitled to their own informed opinion, but nobody is entitled to their own facts."
-- Paraphrase of
Harlan Ellison
"Who says he's lying 77% of the time?"
Politifact.
Add the percentages for his false, mostly false, and "pants on fire" statement.
