REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Measuring politician's misleading statements

POSTED BY: KPO
UPDATED: Tuesday, September 4, 2012 12:31
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 849
PAGE 1 of 1

Monday, September 3, 2012 2:24 AM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.


Read an interesting article about lies in politics that gave a method to measure how misleading a politician's statement is. It's necessarily subjective, but still useful I feel. I thought it could be an interesting tool for analysing the 'lies' of boths sides, and how bad they are.

Here's the method:

Quote:

1.What was the speaker trying to imply? This is necessarily a judgment call, but it's what gets us away from "lying" and instead focuses our attention on how badly a speaker is trying to mislead us.

2.What would it take to state things accurately? This is the most important part of the exercise. Without getting deep in the weeds (nobody expects politicians to speak in white paper-ese), what would it take to restate things reasonably accurately?

3.How much would accuracy damage the speaker's point? Obviously, if accuracy dents the speaker's point only a bit, not much harm has been done. If it demolishes the speaker's point completely, it's as bad as an actual lie.



The whole article goes on to apply the method to some of the 'whoppers' in Paul Ryan's convention speech, it's quite interesting: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/09/we-should-focus-deceptio
n-not-lying


I think he's pretty kind to Ryan on the GM plant.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, September 4, 2012 12:31 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Very interesting, KPO. I'll have to read it over again (gotta go right now), but I found it most illuminating, despite of course being subjective. The GM plant thing pisses me off every damned time I hear it, but of course it's red meat to the base and they'll never hear the truth...

...about any of their lies, no doubt; and probably wouldn't care if they did. Republicans are running quite well on Obama-hate.


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

YOUR OPTIONS

NEW POSTS TODAY

USERPOST DATE

OTHER TOPICS

DISCUSSIONS
Parler back up
Wed, July 23, 2025 10:52 - 17 posts
US debt breaks National Debt Clock
Wed, July 23, 2025 10:49 - 45 posts
Futurist movement, Techno Science Optimists
Wed, July 23, 2025 10:48 - 93 posts
A.I Artificial Intelligence AI
Wed, July 23, 2025 10:36 - 325 posts
In the garden, and RAIN!!! (2)
Wed, July 23, 2025 10:20 - 5684 posts
The parallel internet is coming
Wed, July 23, 2025 10:18 - 238 posts
Veteran reporter resigns from CBS over liberal bias.
Wed, July 23, 2025 10:08 - 54 posts
Do you feel like the winds of change are blowing today too?
Wed, July 23, 2025 09:51 - 2610 posts
Putin's Legacy
Wed, July 23, 2025 09:42 - 137 posts
Japanese Whalers.....
Wed, July 23, 2025 09:38 - 230 posts
Who hates Israel?
Wed, July 23, 2025 09:35 - 136 posts
What kind of superpower could China be?
Wed, July 23, 2025 09:31 - 106 posts

FFF.NET SOCIAL