It seems that all politicians are increasingly deceitful and there are no repercussions. You would think having politicians under oath could be perjured and sent to prison for lying since they work for the people they’re lying to.
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Why would politicians allow this to happen? They’d much rather this not occur so they can carry on benefiting with money, power, etc.
It’s very difficult to tell apart lies from genuine misunderstandings, a change of opinion, the discovery of new information, misremembering etc. I think the fear of going to prison for being wrong would make people more likely to simply say nothing.
While yes it would be nice to know when they make a promise they can’t be lying but there are many cases where this just falls apart.
Say your country is at war like Ukraine currently is, would it be smart for Zelenskyy or any other politician to answer every question truthfully?
“Why yes our plan is to move 30,000 troops at 4 am on the 16th to try and combat the flank on the Russian northern battalion”
It’s frustrating, but in a democracy the primary check to politicians that are deceptive or disingenuous is voting. A person that lies should lose elections. If they seem to have failed the oath of office they should be held accountable by voters.
Just lying, or being bad at their job, generally isn’t legally actionable. This can rase to the point of being legally actionable in the case of clear corruption that violates the law.
Perjury isn’t reasonable here, as you would need to prove they knowingly lied when taking the oath of office, something that seems impossible on the surface of it.
Because it’s not practical to accuse everyone lying of purgury. Literally every politician lies on a daily basis to earn a living. Most are white lies. They tell their Boss his/her idea is a good idea so they’re not fired for honesty, or telling the public the theory behind some new legislation as if that’s the actual result, so the public doesn’t riot, resulting in their boss firing them.
Putting every politician under oath would mean having a leash on every politician that is held, not by a single entity that can perceive and understand the lies they tell, but by the court of public opinion. That court is so cultivated by politicians to arm against their enemies, that such an act would mean a million knives at the throat of every man, woman, and(if current legal policy is any indication) child that happens to be in their way, or disagree with them, or any number of minor infractions.
Most politicians understand this on some level, and refuse the unilateral application of the Oath because it will become that knife, and be held against everyone by everyone.
Liberal democracies are a balancing act of measuring the potential harm of one action against the potential harm of another.
Empowering unelected judges to send elected politicians to prison, for lying, would be more harmful to democracy than the harm of using elections as the mechanism for removing lying politicians from office.
First, many are. But having lied during a campaign is neither a crime nor tort, and frankly I think it would spell the end of democracy it it were either.
Straight away, they are under oath when swearing in. It’s taking the oath of office.
I think the main thing here is that you’re trying to connect two different concepts. One is fulfilling the duties of the office, which is what they actually took the oath for, and the other is coming through on their campaign promises and whatnot.
You can only get them for perjury of their oath if you can prove that they took it without the intention to fulfil the duties of the office, and that’s a very difficult thing to prove, and not usually relevant because even if they did lie in their campaigning, they still really do mean to execute the duties of offices in accordance with the oath. Yes, even the dirty liars that aren’t on our side. The oath is actually fairly narrow in scope.
On the flip side, stuff they said on the campaign trail isn’t covered by the oath of office, or any oath at all, and thus there’s no grounds for claiming perjury and our only option is to vote the bum out.
“All politicians are increasingly deceitful?”
Are you actually five? Human beings have always run the gamut from thoroughly honorable to total scumbag. There is no “increasingly.”
Politicians are in fact sworn in. But… political speech is protected speech and as long as they are “on the job” they can say pretty much anything that they want.
There is also different kinds of lying. Political lying or “spin” is not contextually true, but technically true. It leaves out relevant information that would make that truth far more positive (or sometimes negative) than it’s being presented.
Spin is different than straight up, made up bullshit.
Either way, whenever you hear one speak, put a little imaginary asterisk at the end of their words. Trust but verify.
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