Paul Ryan, the Republican Vice Presidential nominee, took the stage last night to a roaring and eager audience. The main theme of his speech, the supposed faults and failures of President Obama's last term, was extremely popular with the crowd gathered in Tampa. Frequent "Boos" and cheers punctuated Ryan's speech that was considered successful in terms of introducing Ryan to the American people.
However, much of his speech was based on falsehood and, what we as Mr. Silton's AP Government students might call it, "spin." His speech was so full of deception that it is now popular with news companies to write a "Fact-check" of his speech; see here here here or here.
Some highlights of his lies include:- The GM plant: The plant's shut-down that Ryan blamed on Obama was really scheduled to be shut down before Obama was even president.
- Medicare: Ryan claimed that Obama was planning to siphon millions of dollars away from the current Medicare budget. Although not technically a lie, this was a "Literally True Falsehood" as Ryan's own Medicare plan would involve these exact same cuts.
- The stimulus: Ryan denied any job creation from the Obama's stimulus plan while in truth, the stimulus package prompted millions of jobs.
So what do you think? Is it OK for Paul Ryan to blatantly lie in his speech to attract voters? Does popularity outweigh truthfulness in today's political scene?
*Title from Al Franken's book of the same name
7 comments:
I think that Ryan's blatant lies are representative of a rather pathetic aspect of american politics. Not only is Ryan making completely false accusations, but he is doing so on one of the biggest stages of the election process, the Republican convention. While there is not much we can do about Ryan's accusations, I think that it is extremely wrong that many people in the country are going to unquestionably believe his "spin." Personally, I find the third bullet denying any job creation under the Obama administration to be the worst of his accusations. It's not even a "literally true falsehood" or even simply misleading, its just utterly wrong.
Although "spin" may be common in the political world, many of Ryan's comments amount to blatant lies (e.g. the GM plant, the deficit, the stimulus, etc.). While many politicians spin facts constantly, overt lying such as Ryan's in my opinion crosses a line. One often can't legitimately criticize someone for spinning facts, but outright lies like Ryan's are factual falsehoods which should not be tolerated anywhere, especially not in the political world. I would hope that we see few such obviously lie-ridden speeches in the next few weeks, but unfotunately I think it's quite possible that the lying won't end with Ryan.
Hopefully this dishonesty is as conspicuous as we think so that many viewers realize the lines that are being crossed here. In this day and age it should be. Of course that is an optimistic statement as viewers who want to believe in Ryan's message will surely find reason to justify his behavior. The huge focus on popularity and this selling of Romney's personality seems to be a significant distraction from the proposal of any real plan for solutions. We can only hope that incidents like these serve as a warning sign to any politicians who think they can get away with dishonesty and sheer rhetoric.
While I do agree that Ryan's complete lies are horrible, I think the bigger picture at hand is that we have a system that allows its biggest political players on the biggest stage there is to lie with no concern about what the consequences will be. I think all of the fact checkers are making a good start at making the public aware, but the fact that Ryan still has an enormous amount of supporters shows that this is still not enough. There should be real, legal ramifications to outright lying to the general public and without this, this problem will never go away.
I definitely agree with Sam; it is far to easy for politicians to get away with lying. The problem is that politicians risk little by lying because thanks to confirmation bias, their supporters will stay with them. People will generally support and believe whatever their party says while they are simultaneously out to fact check the parties that go against their views. For this risk free lying to stop, people must not only fact check other parties, but their's as well. Its obvious that politicians wouldn't be so inclined to lie to their supporters if their supporters actually responded negatively to it. Hopefully with these fact checks becoming more and more popular, politicians like Paul Ryan will realize that more and more people are starting to take notice.
I agree that it is silly and dishonorable that Ryan and even other speakers at the convention have had such blatant lies. Am I surprised that there was such lying? Not particularly. However, as the Democratic convention rolls around this week as I write this post, I am interested to see how they respond. I feel as though the Democratic party have been presented with a very unique opportunity. News about the lies at the RNC (especially Ryan's) has spread rapidly, and many aren't too happy about it. If the Democrats, alternatively, can restrain themselves and actually manage to tell the truth, they can have the chance to be the "good guys." People will look at the Democrat party and think them the honorable truth tellers. Compared to the Republican party, they will appear wonderful. There is still time for the speech writers to make their edits!
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