Should TV Stations Ban False Political Ads?

Here’s an interesting question to ponder; please go to link to read the complete article at The Balance by Glenn Halbrooks.

“Lies!” That’s what many politicians would say after seeing an opponent’s campaign ad on television. Those politicians often demand that TV stations ban advertisements that they claim contain false information.

Voters often wonder why TV stations don’t investigate political advertisements to verify their truthfulness before allowing them to be shown on television. That way, the alleged lies never hit the airwaves.

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“God Bless America” Redacted?

Yesterday I was visited by a neighbor who was violently incensed by the news that Planned Parenthood was killing babes in order to sell the baby parts. She insisted that the video exposing this horrendous activity was absolutely true (you could tell because when people said words their lips moved). A rational discussion of the origin of the video and how that organization was known for highly editing their films to match their agenda was dismissed. A discussion of the current state of film editing was rejected since only crooked politicians did things like that. The level of discourse (in terms of vocal intensity) grew and grew until doors were slammed and feelings were probably hurt.

The last thing I heard was that we could never say “God Bless America” any more because God would never bless a country that allowed and even funded the killing of babies (which only God can create, of course) and the selling of the resultant baby parts.

This altercation emphasized to me the power and efficacy of out-and-out lying, or as Mark Twain is reported to have said,

The history of our race, and each individual’s experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal.

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Rape By Reasoned Logic and Clever Rhetoric

You’ve probably all heard that some no-goodnick in New Jersey has introduced a bill to make the definition of “rape” include any form of lying or subterfuge designed to get into a woman’s pants. We should all thank Troy Singleton, a Democratic Assemblyman representing Burlington, NJ.

Read the article in Slate for more information but here is the original announcement from nj.com:

Earlier this month, state Assemblyman Troy Singleton
(D-Burlington) introduced the bill (A3908), which would
create the crime of “sexual assault by fraud,” which it
defines as “an act of sexual penetration to which a
person has given consent because the actor has
misrepresented the purpose of the act or has represented
he is someone he is not.”

Oh Dear: that’s going to seriously cut down on the number of professed movie producers and directors in this country. But let’s zero in on that idea of misrepresentation.

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