A Rabbi's Wisdom on Why Campaign Lying Matters

In Judaism, if you sin against another person, you must ask the forgiveness of the person you wronged. You do not ask God. You must ask for the person's forgiveness, in some cases, by even visiting their grave if they've passed away.

Lying or slandering or even gossiping about another person is a great sin against another person, and if you do it, you are personally responsible.I don't ever remember reading about an exception for politicians.

Of course you should be upset by lying. And of course you should be upset with religious or moral authorities who ignore it. But you should allow for the possibility that what you perceive as blatant lying is not perceived the same way by conservatives who may still be intelligent and moral. There is no way for you to tell how biased I may be myself (though of course I think I am being objective), but I don't see the examples you cite as being so clearly blatant lying. They seem more like the over-simplifications you would get if you tried to state, in one line, what is actually a complex and nuanced situation, depending on whether you were in favor of it or against it. And the original "accusations" or characterizations by McCain about Obama seem pretty mild to me -- why should progressives or liberals care if Obama voted for sex education, or if he knew lipstick on a pig would remind people of lipstick on a pit bull, or if everyone knew he did or not? The McCain campaign about lipstick on a pig. It may be pointless for me to make that comment, since I could be just as biased as any of the fanatical partisans who leave raving comments. I just was bothered by your low opinion of your fellow Americans and people of faith who haven't decried what you see as terrible lying. Why do progressives of faith have such a low opinion of conservatives of faith? It was only 2 generations ago that their mainstream faiths believed the same things Even if you don't agree with them, can't you remember that people like you once thought the same way -- and there are still people today who can think that way without being irrational, immoral, or stupid?

Why are negative ads effective? The answer is that a significant percentage of the voting public lacks and does not use common sense for reasons known but to themselves. Most of these folks believe that what they see on TV or hear on the radio, or read in the papers, is true. How scary. As examples of my argument are as follows: this country elected an actor as president twice, the second time with a neurodegenerative disorder and for the past 8 years we have been subjected to a "president" whose combined mental output is that of a Christmas tree light bulb! The republicans have trashed the Constitution in the name of protecting the American people, how disgusting.

So, to all of you graduates of the school of Gheabt nicht Sechel, keep on believing those negative ads and on the 4th of November you all will be in for a big surprise when Barack Obama and Joe Biden win walking away.

Hill 881 South