Enlil said:

So a woman at a political rally meets a candidate, and they talk. She's very pregnant,  fat, and ugly.  She mentions to the candidate how fat and ugly she feels.  He just says,  "not at all... you're beautiful and glowing..."

He did it because to tell the truth would lose him votes.

Jail?

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Enlil said:

So a woman at a political rally meets a candidate, and they talk. She's very pregnant,  fat, and ugly.  She mentions to the candidate how fat and ugly she feels.  He just says,  "not at all... you're beautiful and glowing..."

He did it because to tell the truth would lose him votes.

Jail?

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Enlil said:

So a woman at a political rally meets a candidate, and they talk. She's very pregnant,  fat, and ugly.  She mentions to the candidate how fat and ugly she feels.  He just says,  "not at all... you're beautiful and glowing..."

He did it because to tell the truth would lose him votes.

Jail?

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Enlil said:

That does not bode well for freedom in Wales.  The power to punish lies is the power to dictate truth.  Once the government has that power, it's only a matter of time before they have complete power over autonomy.

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ballsalsa said:

Enlil said:

So a woman at a political rally meets a candidate, and they talk. She's very pregnant,  fat, and ugly.  She mentions to the candidate how fat and ugly she feels.  He just says,  "not at all... you're beautiful and glowing..."

He did it because to tell the truth would lose him votes.

Jail?

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Maybe he's a chubby chaser.  Maybe he has a fetish for pregnant women.  How can I know?  I'd have to have access to some record of him admitting to the lie

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dinosaurs said:

Enlil said:

So a woman at a political rally meets a candidate, and they talk. She's very pregnant,  fat, and ugly.  She mentions to the candidate how fat and ugly she feels.  He just says,  "not at all... you're beautiful and glowing..."

He did it because to tell the truth would lose him votes.

Jail?

---

the question is essentially "should telling a harmful lie be punishable in instances where an objective truth is available?"

the problem is qualifying and quantifying the harm to determine whether it is of the character and severity that crosses a line and becomes a punishable expression.  did someone make a statement contrary to the known objective truth on a matter that is in-scope?  were they aware of the truth beforehand?  did the lie cause harm?  is that harm severe enough to warrant punishment? 

it starts to to sound a lot like a libel/slander case to me, along with the associated bullshit, and this is only if we're limiting the thought experiment to matters of objective truth.  I'm sure you can't throw a flaming bag of dogshit without hitting a lawyer that will try to argue the solution to 1+1, so even making allowance for the concept of immutable objective truth in court may be me showing my ass.

that said, I'm sure some guys in suits would love the chance to get paid $500 per hour to argue about whether there is harm found in telling a subjectively ugly pregnant woman that she looks good. 

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