Lies

Reading both articles, I found myself mostly agreeing with the points made by Bok as opposed to the other article which I felt put too much faith in the ability of decision makers to know what exactly will happen when they choose to lie or not lie regardless of intent. But with Bok, as much as I tend to hate the "slippery slope" argument, I do feel like this is a situation where it fits. If lying has been shown to have postive benefits with a good intent, it's not hard to see how it could easily be changed into a private interest with possible beenfits to the public, like the example of the mayor running for election. The mayor is not an evil villian twirling his moustasche but does believe that him being elected will be beneficial and so he lies both for his benefit and what he assumes for the public.

Another argument by Bok that I found compelling was that of lying in the past influencing lies in the future. It reminded me of the "many dirty hands "and the discussion of responsibility models. Because there is a tendancy to protect those that came before you to prevent scandel and things like that and so if lies happened before, people tend to keep up the charade. Similarly if one person in an instution lies, for good or for bad, force other people in the same institution to also go along with the lie. So where does responsibility lie for the falsehood telling? Is it the people at the top? Or is there a personal responsibility to tell the truth and be a whistle blower?

Finally, the thing that resonated with me most was the idea of how a candidate that lies and decieves the American people about what they are about is against democracy. And as extreme as it is, I agree with it. More and more people are becoming disillusioned with politics and see all politicians as liars and scum. This brush that has tainted politics becuase of this "lying" I think is more dangerous than whatever the government would protect us from. If people lose faith in the government then it doesn't matter if they lie to protect us because we don't believe they can protect us at all. I think that if lying were more openly dicussed maybe this stigma could be shaken off and it would improve the view of politicians for the American people.