That it should be a criminal offence for a politician to lie

Democracy (4). Let's start with Pro's fourth point, since he does not seem to recognize my argument. Pro says, "...the democracy principle. My opponent STILL ignores this point. As he has ignored it for the whole debate thus far, I think it would be unreasonable to start a whole new line of argumentation now." I said in R2, "In fact, I said that the resolution would result in a sock puppet government that is less transparent and less trusted. If politicians continued to speak, government would be shut down by endless litigation, so non-politicians, who can lie without penalty would obviously be delegated to do all the speaking." It suffices that the result of the resolution fails to achieve the stated goal. I have argued throughout that the resolution will decrease transparency. The resolution makes lying a criminal act, without any qualifiers on whether the lie is justified or not (to mislead an enemy), whether the lie causes serious damage or no damage, or whether the lie is a slight exaggeration or a grave misstatement. The resolution makes no distinctions of exceptions. Moreover, anyone can file a lawsuit and any prosecutor can initiate criminal proceedings; it isn't limited to Congress or some special body. The consequence would be that politicians would say nothing or speak through proxies for fear of prosecution. That would dramatically lower the transparency of government, which would be bad for democracy. How could Pro have not understood that I was denying that the transparency he seeks would not result? 1. Pro's first point was that lying is immoral. I pointed out cases where lying is not immoral: to mislead enemies, to flatter or encourage friends, and for trivial purposes like using rounded numbers. So why should politicians be convicted criminals as a result of acts that are beneficial or at least not harmful? Pro relies completely upon jury nullification, that juries will not return verdicts as the law requires. A far better solution is to reject the resolution and start over. 2. Pro's second point mainly restates the virtues of transparency, refuted by the effect of the resolution being to decrease transparency. Pro further asserts, "When politicians lie, people are unable to distinguish between fact and fiction in government because there is often no mechanism for finding out the truth." In a democracy, people can figure out the truth themselves, and there are opposing politicians to refute lies. In many cases, no court could determine the truth. Did Obama lie when he promised reconciliation would never be used, or did circumstances cause him to re-evaluate his position? No court can determine what was in his heart-of-hearts. Voters get to make the call, and also whether they think the issue is important. It is not a matter for criminal prosecution. 3. Pro's third point was that "lying is already censored in a wide range of less important areas." Pro pointer to a blogger that made the parallel to consumer law, but never cited any surveys of consumer laws. In consumer matters, some lies are allowed and others are not. The same is also true of politicians, who must make certain financial disclosures, acknowledge sponsorship of advertising, and may, in serious matters, be called to testify under oath. Pro's analogy therefore fails. He might have argued that there ought to be broader circumstances when lying is criminal, but the resolution makes all lies crimes, even if trivial or simple flattery. N1. I claim that the resolution would, if politicians continued to speak, produce a flood of litigation that would cripple government. Pro argued that they would not, due to the time and money involved in initiating such litigation. Let's examine the two avenues of litigation, civil and criminal. Civil litigation requires no evidence to file. To win the lawsuit the plaintiff must have a preponderance of evidence on his side, but filing the suit requires no such evidence, just claims. In the U.S. filing a Federal lawsuit costs $350, and does not require the services of a lawyer. A website gives step-by-step procedures, http://www.tabberone.com... The lawsuit has better chances if it is pressed by a lawyer, but that's not a real obstacle. There are plenty of lawyers across the political spectrum willing to whip up lawsuits against whomever is in power at no cost. Since all lawsuits allege lying, they will quote the same legal precedents, the common legislation implementing the resolution, and probably the same arguments that punitive damages should be assessed. That all goes into a template, with a few paragraphs devoted to the specific accusations. There is already a business of selling templates for lawsuits of various kinds, see http://www.google.com... Expect one professional prepared suit to be copied. The case may also be pursued criminally. For a president making a broadcast speech, any citizen in any district would have standing. Indictment are made by a grand jury or a preliminary hearing. Grand juries comprise citizens who vote, usually by two-thirds majority, that there is probable cause to have a trial. Grand jury indictments are notoriously easy to obtain. Jurist Wachtler famously observed that "prosecutors have so much control over grand juries that they could convince them to 'indict a ham sandwich.' " http://www.barrypopik.com... So if one wants to indict George Bush, a far-left prosecutor and grand jury in a place like San Francisco would virtually guarantee charges filed. For left-wing presidents like Obama, venues in the South would do the job. All the expenses are then born by taxpayers. Indictment by preliminary hearing is done with a judge determining probable. Judges are probably harder to fool, but at the some time they are more likely to interpret the resolution as it was intended, to include all cases of lying, even if justified or minor. All the venues in the United States are available to find a prosecutor and judge that have a favorable attitude. All subsequent expenses are then born by taxpayers. The time and money obstacles to litigation are slight, but even if they were severe, there would still be a flood of prosecutions. That is because there are very rich people willing to go after politicians of any stripe. For example, billionaire George Soros has deep pockets supporting left-wing causes http://www.discoverthenetworks.org..., and billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch fund right-wing causes. http://www.newyorker.com... N2. While it is easy to instigate litigation, proof is very difficult. Pro said that intent is proved in murder convictions, so it ought to be easy in cases of lying. In murder cases, the proof has to be that the death was not accidental or natural, which forensics can do. However, proving premeditation in murder cases is much more difficult because it is a state of mind, so cases are often pleaded down to manslaughter or second degree murder. Proving an intent to deceive is far more difficult. Forensics rarely comes into play, and the politician simply says he was sincere in his belief at the time. N3. Conversations between a politician and his proxy, a sock puppet, are not public under the resolution. Hence the result is the politicians will not speak directly to the public, for fear that litigation will tie their administration in knots if they speak publicly. Sock puppets would be the rule, eliminating the transparency Pro hoped to achieve. If Pro manages to defeat the sock puppet protection legally, then politicians would stop communicating to the proxies. The danger was well understood in the U.S. Constitution. The resolution is negated.