[EL] op-ed/Is there a First Amendment right to lie in politics?

[sean at impactpolicymanagement.com]

David's op-ed actually lays out pretty clearly through his examples why it would be a terrible idea. To have the government set "outer bounds" on political speech.

He cites the Swift Boat Vets as an example of the sort of speech he'd presumably prohibit and punish, yet to the best of my knowledge nothing substantial they ever said has been definitively shown to be false. Ditto, for that matter, for most of Sen. Kerry's statements.

I've never been in combat, but I'd imagine it's quite a bit more chaotic and confusing than you typical car crash, about which witness and participant statements are often wildly in conflict even when there is no motivation (avoiding blame, etc). It's not at all surprising to me that the accounts of Sen. Kerry and many of his fellow sailors conflict. I'm frankly horrified that anyone would look at these conflicting statements and assume it's appropriate for the government not only to definitively determine the 'truth' of this matter but then proceed to actively suppress and punish any dissent from that 'truth.' 

The matter of Obama's birth is even more disturbing in this context. Of course the accusation is ludicrous, and I admit to not following it closely for pretty much the same reason I don't follow the newest developments in phrenology closely, but my recollection was most of the statements by people pushing this story were along the lines of "I'm only raising the question, he can end these questions by releasing the long-form birth certificate" and the like. So now we're going to suppress questions that may lead to false impressions?

Oh, and false speech in commercial exchanges can be suppressed because it constitutes fraud, which is a form of theft, at least from an economic perspective.

Sean



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-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Klein <stephen.klein.esq at gmail.com>
Sender: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2014 08:50:06 
To: Schultz, David A.<dschultz at hamline.edu>
Cc: law-election at uci.edu<law-election at uci.edu>
Subject: Re: [EL] op-ed/Is there a First Amendment right to lie in politics?

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