Lying: Does It Matter?

[GMDino]

Quote:At this point, few people deny that Hillary Clinton lies, regularly. Her supporters are apt to shrug and say, “Yeah, so what?” Their attitude is “Lie back and think of Roe v. Wade.” 


Donald Trump is as regular and as shocking a liar. 


Consider three episodes, only. 


For many years, Trump posed as his own spokesman, calling himself John Miller or John Baron (or Barron). Under this guise, he would brag to reporters about his sex life, or adulterous life. 


He admitted this in a court case. 


But this year, perhaps forgetting that he had already admitted it, he denied it. 


At the same time he was denying it, some of his supporters were celebrating it, saying, “Ha, he goofed on the press, how cool!” They loved him more than ever. But they were not on the same page as their man: who was denying it. Though he had admitted it before. 


There’s an old line: “I cannot tell a lie because I don’t have a good enough memory.” 


During the recent GOP convention, Trump talked about the location of that convention. “I wanted it to be here. And they had lots of choices. I wanted it to be in Ohio. I recommended Ohio.” 


The Republicans’ decision to hold their convention in Cleveland was announced in July 2014. 


Did Trump determine or influence the decision? This is a small thing — relatively small thing — but isn’t it telling? 


Episode No. 3: During a GOP primary debate, Trump said of Vladimir Putin, “I got to know him very well because we were both on 60 Minutes. We were stablemates. And we did very well that night.” 


“We did very well that night” is a typical Trump touch. As is the lie. Trump was interviewed in the U.S., Putin in Russia. 


Now Trump is saying that he has never met Putin. 


Perhaps Trump is a fantasist, more than a proper liar. 


Ted Cruz has expressed this view. He says that Trump could say one thing and then the dead opposite, and pass a lie-detector test each time. 


Others say, “Nah, he’s a knowing, calculated liar.” 


I don’t know. I’m not a shrink. But I do know that many people are all too casual about habitual lying in their leaders. They are blasé to a fault. No one should expect the Trump army to care about Trump’s lies. The Fifth Avenue principle applies. Trump said that he could go out and shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue, and his supporters wouldn’t budge. That is absolutely true. But what about people like Paul Ryan and Tom Cotton — those sterling individuals — and all the conservative writers who are supporting Trump, and excusing him, and rationalizing him? Does Trump’s lying matter at all? Is it one more thing to be overlooked or spun? “Lie back and think of Hillary”? “Lie back and think of the Supreme Court”? 


Character has long been fundamental to conservatism, but it has been ditched this year, and that is no light or unconsequential forfeit. In the Democratic party, the Clintons have been corrupting, for 25 years. Trumpism has corrupted the GOP and the Right, grossly.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/438435/lies-hillary-clinton-and-donald-trump-do-they-matter

[GMDino]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/27/why-clinton-is-less-trusted-when-trump-lies-much-more/

Quote:How can you tell if a politician is lying? His lips are moving.


This election cycle, the age-old adage is ringing true for a broad swath of voters. In a recent CBS News poll, 67 percent of respondents found Hillary Clinton to be dishonest, and 56 percent thought the same of Donald Trump.




Although those numbers may be similarly high, few would contend that Clinton's and Trump’s deceptions — broadly construed to include exaggerations and omissions — are the same.


Clinton’s deceptions tend to be defensive — her reputation is under attack and she’s trying to save face. As determined by PolitiFact, a political fact-checking service, her false statements often come in response to scandals and allegations against her. For instance, with regard to her private email server, she has said she “never received nor sent any material that was marked as classified” and that the server “was allowed” at the time. Both proved false.


Trump’s deceptions, by contrast, are more on the offensive, more self-promotional. He exaggerates his successes in the business world. He called his book "The Art of the Deal" the “best-selling business book of all time.” It’s not, according to 
PolitiFact.


And he creates allegations against his political opponents and minority groups out of thin air, making himself appear better by comparison. Among his false statements, according to PolitiFact: Hillary Clinton “invented ISIS,” even though the group predates Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. The United States is allowing “tens of thousands” of “vicious, violent” Muslim terrorists into the country every year. This attempt to justify his ban on Muslim immigration was also found false.


That distinction between Clinton and Trump — offensive vs. defensive — has major implications for whether people view their lies as “legitimate” and morally acceptable, according to Matthew Gingo, a psychology professor at Wheaton College.


“Me lying to get myself out of trouble is not nearly as bad as me lying to get someone else in trouble,” Gingo said. “People view defense as more legitimate, such as physical self-defense.”


[/url]This has long been the consensus of psychological research. A 2007 study presented scenarios where people lied with varying motivations and interviewed people about how “acceptable” each lie was. They found self-protective lies (think Clinton) to be more acceptable than self-promotional lies (think Trump on his business record), which are more acceptable than self-promotional lies that harm others (think Donald Trump on Mexicans). A similar 1997 study of women found the same result, as did a 1986 study.



So Clinton’s omissions of fact, research tells us, should be perceived better than Trump’s flagrant scapegoating. Especially considering this disparity: PolitiFact has evaluated 203 of Trump's statements and 226 of Clinton's. It rated just fewer than a third of Clinton's as "mostly false" or worse but rated 71 percent of Trump's the same way.


But there’s another layer of complication here.


With Clinton, “there’s a lot more interleaving of truth and lies,” says Kim Serota, a marketing professor at Oakland University who has studied deception and political communication.


No one will ever know what exactly Clinton’s intentions were with her private email server, but anyone could find that the majority of Mexican immigrants are not, in fact, criminals and rapists. This makes Clinton’s deceptions appear more like “cover-ups,” Gingo says, which harms her public perception.

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This is no surprise to a well-read psychologist. A 2006 literature review covering 206 studies on lie detection found that people who are motivated to be believed tend to appear more deceptive to others. Cover-ups, which tend to be planned and calculated, have more of this motivation behind them than Trump’s off-the-cuff statements.


So even though research tells us that people should be much more put off by Trump’s deceptions than Clinton’s, her apparent motivation to be believed lessens that disparity.


Regardless of what the public perception is, experts see Trump as taking common political deception to another level. “I’ve studied many people who don’t want to tell the whole truth,” Bella DePaulo, a project scientist specializing in psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, wrote in an email. “But they don’t want to tell outright lies, either. So they will do things they can defend as truthful.” Such as telling your friend who acted in an insufferable play that you thought his costume was well constructed.
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But Trump is another story — or rather, tells other stories. “He is unapologetic about saying things that are completely and verifiably untrue,” DePaulo said. Experts find Clinton’s lying habits to be more “normal” among politicians in this respect.



“I think Trump is borderline pathological,” Serota said. “But the only person that would know that for sure is his psychologist.”

[*PhilHos*]

Wow. This is a new low in defending Hillary. Both candidates lie. Yeah, no shit, but Hillary's lies are better or less worse? Give me a break.

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[CKwi88]

All too frequently, people only care about the opposition living up to certain standards, while turning a blind eye to their own candidate's shortcomings on the same.

This election cycle is no different

[xxlt]

"Character has long been fundamental to conservatism..." So glad I did not have liquid in my mouth when I read that. I laughed so hard I would have spit liquid across the room and through the wall!

[GMDino]

(09-11-2016, 10:51 AM)PhilHos Wrote: Wow. This is a new low in defending Hillary. Both candidates lie. Yeah, no shit, but Hillary's lies are better or less worse? Give me lyinga break.

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Yeah, too nuanced for some I guess.

[treee]

(09-11-2016, 11:30 AM)xxlt Wrote: "Character has long been fundamental to conservatism..." So glad I did not have liquid in my mouth when I read that. I laughed so hard I would have spit liquid across the room and through the wall!

There are a lot of respectable intelligent conservatives out there. No Republicans really fit that description though. I'm saying this as a fairly liberal person.

[GMDino]

(09-11-2016, 11:05 AM)CKwi88 Wrote: All too frequently, people only care about the opposition living up to certain standards, while turning a blind eye to their own candidate's shortcomings on the same.

This election cycle is no different

Which is why I find it so fascinating that one candidate get accused of it while the other does it more.

And one candidate lies about their lies and  his supporters say "Well, she is worse" when, in fact, she is not.

That doesn't make her "good" it just makes them look silly.

If a Clinton supporter calls Trump a liar and says he lies more often they would be 100% right.  the other way around would be mostly wrong...but they don't care.

[StoneTheCrow]

Will she lie about why she bounced from the 911 memorial early?

[*PhilHos*]

(09-11-2016, 12:24 PM)GMDino Wrote: If a Clinton supporter calls Trump a liar and says he lies more often they would be 100% right.  

Prove it.

I personally don't care who lies more often because the fact is they both lie far too much to be elected to office. It's too bad too many people can accept one of these candidates because the other one is supposedly worse.

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[McC]

(09-11-2016, 12:53 PM)StoneTheCrow Wrote: Will she lie about why she bounced from the 911 memorial early?

If she opens her mouth, then, yes.  It's a chain reaction--her mouth opens, lies fly out.

[McC]

(09-11-2016, 12:53 PM)StoneTheCrow Wrote: Will she lie about why she bounced from the 911 memorial early?

She had to leave.  She had an appointment with some foreign billionaire who paid a hundred grand to say hello to her in person.

[StoneTheCrow]

(09-11-2016, 01:34 PM)McC Wrote: She had to leave.  She had an appointment with some foreign billionaire who paid a hundred grand to say hell to her in person.

Word is she fainted and lost a shoe. Now that's good stuff about the shoe.

[McC]

(09-11-2016, 01:42 PM)StoneTheCrow Wrote: Word is she fainted and lost a shoe. Now that's good stuff about the shoe.

I thought Huma was in charge of hair, makeup and wardrobe and she never makes mistakes.

[GMDino]

(09-11-2016, 01:05 PM)PhilHos Wrote: Prove it.

I personally don't care who lies more often because the fact is they both lie far too much to be elected to office. It's too bad too many people can accept one of these candidates because the other one is supposedly worse.

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Read the OP.

[*PhilHos*]

(09-11-2016, 01:49 PM)GMDino Wrote: Read the OP.

I did. Did you? Nowhere does it say that Trump lies more. "Donald Trump is as regulated and shocking a liar" is the only comparison in terms of volume and it doesn't say Trump lies more.

So again, Mr. Non-Hillary Supporter That Only Wants To See Fair Criticism Of The Candidates, I ask that you prove that Trump lies more often than Hillary.

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[GMDino]

(09-11-2016, 02:06 PM)PhilHos Wrote: I did.  Did you? Nowhere does it say that Trump lies  more. "Donald Trump is as regulated and shocking a liar" is the only comparison in terms of volume and it doesn't say Trump lies more.

So again, Mr. Non-Hillary Supporter That Only Wants To See Fair Criticism Of The Candidates, I ask that you prove that Trump lies more often than Hillary.

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http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/

But you "don't care".

[fredtoast]

Here is the way I look at it. Bot candidates lie. But which ones lie about their policies. Hillary lies to protect her reputation or make herself look better. Trump also tells those same type of lies, but he also lies about his policies and what he will do if elected. You can't believe a thing he says. On the other hand Hillary has been advancing policies since she was first lady, when she was a Senator, and finally as Sec of State. Her policies have always been consistent.

So if you vote based on personalities then both of them are liars, but if you vote based on policy one has been consistent while the other has been all over the place.

[JustWinBaby]

(09-11-2016, 02:40 PM)fredtoast Wrote: So if you vote based on personalities then both of them are liars, but if you vote based on policy one has been consistent while the other has been all over the place.

Well, if I hate both of their policies then with Trump you're saying there's a chance he'll end up being good.

I didn't know you were pro-Trump.

[*PhilHos*]

(09-11-2016, 02:19 PM)GMDino Wrote: http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/

But you "don't care".

I'll grant that you have NOW provided evidence that backs up your claim, however, I call your evidence bullshit because it says Hillary only lied 6 times.

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