Going to church with my dad as a kid,I can very vividly remember being told that all sins are equal. However, after doing research for this post, and asking some friends, I have now learned that is not the case. Similarly, there are different levels of lies, at least I believe so. I feel that it is a spectrum of how harmful your lie can be to others. Every so often you might tell a little white lie, like telling your mom you took the chicken out of the freezer to defrost when you actually did not and are now trying to defrost a chicken as fast as possible without her noticing. On the other hand some lies can be extremely harmful to you and others. Lying to your doctor about certain habits such as smoking or drinking can be harmful to you, as your doctor needs all possible information to provide you with the best possible care they can. The most harmful lies of all, are ones that hurt others, and these really can not be excused by the First Amendment.
For example, regarding lies about the current state of this pandemic, on July 6th Trump tweeted, “we now have the lowest Fatality (Mortality) Rate in the World. They just can’t stand that we are doing so well for our Country!” While yes, that particular day our total deaths for the day were lower than they had been at a total of 391 people. France, for example, had a total of 13 for that same day. Telling the people of our country that our mortality rate is low and that cases are going down, cause people to not take all of this seriously. He has also stated multiple times that Covid is no worse than the common flu. For instance, according to bbc.com, on March 9th trump stated, "Last year 37,000 Americans died from the common flu. Nothing is shut down, life and the economy go on... Think about that." I personally believe that the flu and covid are not exactly comparable when the average mortality rate of the flu is around 0.1% and currently our covid mortality rate in the U.S.is at 2.8%.
When you are responsible for leading a country but continue to lie to citizens about something this serious it can be extremely harmful to the health of others. This is no matter of judicial interpretation. If lying in court is a criminal defense, I would expect more repercussions for lying in office.
“Wall of Lies” in located in Brooklyn and home to over 20,000 false or misleading claims by our president:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51818627
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality
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Commented on Betty Mae’s post
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Grand Total: 25 points
Lying inveterately ought to be an automatically-impeachable offense. The current occupant seems to be double-teflon coated.
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