I think calling Palin's statement the lie of the year is a bit unreasonable. I'm not so sure she doesn't think its true, and it even has a bit of truth in some distorted way. Its a questionable statement, and its certainly "spin", but I'm not sure "lie" is appropriate, let alone "lie of the year".
First runner-up went to conservative talk show host Glenn Beck for his remark that John Holdren, President Barack Obama’s top science adviser, was proposing to force abortions “and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population.”
That could be a candidate for lie of the year, but this is the first I've heard of it. That would count against me considering it the lie of the year since "lie of the year" should have more impact, and also because I haven't looked in to it to see if there was any truth at all to the statement (say Holdren had discussed such a thing as a serious possibility a long time ago).
Taking a quick look now. It seems that was the case. He had discussed the idea seriously decades ago -
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"Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock. ...
"Again, there is no sign of such an agent on the horizon. And the risk of serious, unforeseen side effects would, in our opinion, militate against the use of any such agent, even though this plan has the advantage of avoiding the need for socioeconomic pressures that might tend to discriminate against particular groups or penalize children."
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"Compulsory control of family size is an unpalatable idea, but the alternatives may be much more horrifying. As those alternatives become clearer to an increasing number of people in the 1980s, they may begin demanding such control. A far better choice, in our view, is to expand the use of milder methods of influencing family size preferences, while redoubling efforts to ensure that the means of birth control, including abortion and sterilization, are accessible to every human being on Earth within the shortest possible time. If effective action is taken promptly against population growth, perhaps the need for the more extreme involuntary or repressive measures can be averted in most countries."
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“To date, there has been no serious attempt in Western countries to use laws to control excessive population growth, although there exists ample authority under which population growth could be regulated. For example, under the United States Constitution, effective population-control programs could be enacted under the clauses that empower Congress to appropriate funds to provide for the general welfare and to regulate commerce, or under the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Such laws constitutionally could be very broad. Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society. Few today consider the situation in the United States serious enough to justify compulsion, however."
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He's not currently proposing the idea, and he didn't strongly endorse it even 30 years ago. So I can see the reason to object to Beck's statement. Still it doesn't seem lie of the year material to me.
Next in line was birther attorney Orly Taitz’s claim to have a copy of President Obama’s birth certificate from Kenya, purporting to show the commander-in-chief really wasn’t eligible to hold office after all.
That's very likely a lie, and if so, it might be a reasonable lie of the year candidate. If he had the copy, why doesn't he show everyone, put a scan of it on the internet, show it to journalists and let them photograph it.
But I haven't looked in to this claim at all. Perhaps there is some legal reason not to do so. Still I think it is almost certainly a lie, and a reasonable candidate for the "honor" of lie of the year.
Fourth place went to President Obama for his statement that “preventive care saves money,” A claim that is diputed by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
In some ways that's a pleasant surprise. Its the first that's not an objection from the left as to something a conservative said. Its also one that's releavant, and widely believed. And you have to really think to recognize it as not true.
OTOH since it is widely believed, and since its a complex issue requiring a lot of thought, I don't think its even a lie, I think that, at least the majority and perhaps almost everyone, spreading the idea believes it. Something that's false, but not a lie, can't reasonably be lie of the year.
I could try to think of some candidates, but they would be mostly or all off topic, and also might run in to some of the problems I've mentioned for these candidates.
If its obviously false, and probably not believed by those who are saying it, then maybe it doesn't have enough impact to be lie of the year.
If its believed by those who spread it, then no matter how outrageous, or how impactful, it can't be lie of the year since it isn't a lie.
Maybe some of the issues with climate gate?... |
