It’s an election year again, so it’s a good bet that we will hear various offenses against the truth with a good deal of regularity.
Many (most?) politicians lie if it will help them get elected. And that’s okay according to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). If you were not aware, SCOTUS says it’s okay for politicians to tell lies! (More on this below.) I think, however, God would disagree with SCOTUS.
One candidate for the senate here in Michigan, for instance, has run an ad saying the high costs of health care are all President Trump’s fault. Anyone with any intelligence knows that this is not true. But is it really a lie? Or is the candidate just expressing a really outrageous opinion?
What’s a lie?
“The Catechism of the Catholic Church” (CCC), in the section on the Eighth Commandment, states, “The eighth commandment forbids misrepresenting the truth in our relations with others.” And St. Augustine, in De Mandacio (On Lying), says in paragraph four, “it is a lie when a person willingly utters a falsehood for the purpose of deceiving.” CCC number 2482 quotes Augustine’s words.
So whether the Michigan senate candidate is lying or opining, the candidate is still uttering a falsehood for the purpose of deceiving.
The Catechism goes on to say (2498), “Civil authorities have particular responsibilities in this field because of the common good…. It is for the civil authority … to defend and safeguard a true and just freedom of information. By promulgating laws and overseeing their application, public authorities should ensure that “public morality and social progress are not gravely endangered” through misuse of the media. Civil authorities should punish any violation of the rights of individuals to their reputation and privacy.”
But candidates for public office have no reason to fear punishment (at least in this world) for violating “the rights of individuals to their reputation and privacy.” This is because the First Amendment protects lies, according to the Supreme Court (United States v. Alvarez, 2012).
It’s Okay to Lie?
An article examining this decision states that one of the reasons for the decision is that, “the Court feared that the power to criminalize lies could damage American democracy (emphasis added).
Uh . . . say what!?
But there is more to the decision than possible damage to our democratic republic. The article goes on to say, “The majority justices reasoned that unless the First Amendment limited the power of the government to criminalize lies, the government could establish an “endless list of subjects about which false statements are punishable.”
“Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion in Alvarez, illustrated this danger by citing George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, in which a totalitarian government relied on a Ministry of Truth to criminalize dissent.”
But even deliberate lies are constitutionally protected and have been since 1964.
“In New York Times v. Sullivan, the Court held that even deliberate lies (said with “actual malice”) about the government are constitutionally protected. This is separate from the more famous holding of Sullivan, which is that honest errors (but not deliberate lies) about government officials are constitutionally protected. And in United States v. Alvarez, five of the justices agreed that lies “about philosophy, religion, history, the social sciences, the arts, and the like” are generally protected.
However, “The Supreme Court hasn’t explained where the line is drawn, and that leaves unclear where important areas of controversy—such as laws punishing lies in election campaigns—should fall.”
Kinds of Lies
The CCC lists the various kinds of lies.
Calumny is making false charges or misrepresentations maliciously calculated to harm another’s reputation. Detraction is the belittling of a person’s reputation or esteem by malicious, or petty criticism. (And in an election year, both abound.)
Our legal system calls these kinds of lies malice and libel. Both can harm a person’s reputation. And both fall under the umbrella of defamation of character. A person found guilty of either usually must make restitution in some way.
But there is a difference between the two. Libel defames a person in writing or in recorded form (such as on websites, emails, or in print). Slander is when a person defames another person’s reputation orally, such as in a speech, a townhall meeting, or in an online video or some other public forum. (A good, short recap of libel and slander is here.)
CCC 2481 also says that “Boasting or bragging is an offense against truth.” So is “irony aimed at disparaging someone by maliciously caricaturing some aspect of his behavior.” (So we need to be very careful when we decide to make fun of someone, even when we are just joking around.)
And lest we forget, CCC 2484 says, “The gravity of a lie is measured against the nature of the truth it deforms, the circumstances, the intentions of the one who lies, and the harm suffered by its victims. If a lie in itself only constitutes a venial sin, it becomes mortal when it does grave injury to the virtues of justice and charity.”
So What is Truth?
Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” (John 18:38). And many have pondered that question through the ages.
Of course, Jesus answered Pilate’s question at the Last Super, but Pilate wasn’t there to hear the answer. Jesus said to his disciples, “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6).
Merriam-Webster offers a broader answer to Pilate’s question. It says truth is “the body of real things, events, and facts; the real facts about something; the state of being the case; a transcendent fundamental or spiritual reality; a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true.”
Today, however, society ignores both God and Merriam-Webster. Today relativism trumps truth. And it is this relativistic view of life that permeates society, politics, and, apparently, our legal system.
Relativism is the clear driver of our political system. Be that as it may, I actually have to agree with Justice Kenedy. We do not want an Orwellian Ministry of Truth. I do not trust the government to determine what is true and what is a lie. The stupidity surrounding the great Covid pandemonium put the nail in that coffin.
Even so, some political campaign rules would be nice.
Who Do You Trust?
I’ve now been voting in elections for 53 years. I’ve also spent countless hours researching candidates’ claims and statements, and charges against opponents, made by political candidates. Far too often the candidates were committing calumny or detraction, bragging, or, to be nice, just REALLY stretching the truth.
And it’s mostly of these tall tales that the public decides for whom to vote. I fail to see how campaign lies could possibly “damage American democracy.”
Perhaps not too surprisingly, the “five of the justices” who issued the plurality opinion in U.S. vs. Alvarez were “Justice Kennedy . . . Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Ginsburg, and Justice Sotomayor,” along with Justice Breyer and Justice Kagan who “concurred in the judgment.” Justice Alito, Justice Scalia, and Justice Thomas dissented.”
So the three conservatives on the court did not feel that lies could “damage American democracy” but the liberals and quasi-moderates did. This also is not too surprising.
There should be a set of rules governing political campaigns and electioneering in the U.S. Certainly we can do much better than the laws prohibiting electioneering outside polling places on election day.
Maybe Congress could come up with a good set of election campaign rules. It would certainly be a nice present for the American people on our country’s 250th Birthday.
