One of my favorite parts of this blog are the titles people contrive for their posts.
The C.I.A. probably felt threatened to some extent, and decided to go after Muammar Qaddafi. Was it warranted? Well we did not invade Libya, however, lying to the public and having no harm come from it doesn't make it O.K. Huang obviously supports her claim that there was deceit through memos from the Reagan administration. I find it interesting for the administration to hide its real intentions in the media by the quote, "it combines real and imaginary events through a disinformation program." Sounds familiar, i.e. WMD's. Also to leak stories to the press, to then use as hard news for other news organizations seems to be in a political non-ethics handbook.
Deception is lying and I think we need to make a firm rule of law about it. It fits into so many circumstances. This kind of parallels torture in some ways. The utilitarian is still itching at what is for the common good. We were deceiving Libya and no one was hurt, and maybe the Reagan administration was able to stay off terrorist for a while. It is a lot better lying when no one is hurt, than people dying from lies about torture. Although, the idea that my government is out there trying pursue an agenda, and by doing so, they mislead me. I don't care what the circumstance is, I say we take the easy way out and ban all torture once and for all.
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I can foresee no possible way to establish firm laws regarding deception. It seems easy in the context of a large-scale scandal, but in reality drawing the line to apply to every senator, congressmen, and further apply it to the American public seems impossible to me. How do you legally determine the scale of a lie?
ReplyDeleteOn top of that, how do you propose we go about finding the liars? Does it make it a lie if they truly believe what they are saying, or are you only talking about specific circumstances such as the ones we have been given when the knowledge was (mostly) there? In terms of legality, if you might suggest a polygraph test I am almost certain there are laws prohibiting the use of this unless certain factors are present(i.e. national security, large scandals, etc.). I honestly don't think a judge would have the time of day for accusations of lying, simply because it is so hard to prove.(I'm assuming this is what you are getting at, if it is not, please lead me in the right direction :\)
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