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5-13-98 Prager opened his show discussing lying and how Peter Tilden and Ken Minyard, KABC's morning team, lied about him. The controversy was based on the 5/9/98 article in the Riverside Press Enterprise. Can leaders justify lying?
Who's being deceived and why are crucial issues
Mark Kendall The Press-Enterprise
As President Franklin Roosevelt campaigned for re-election in 1940, he said again and again he wasn't going to get America involved in a foreign war. Behind the scenes he was leading the country toward conflict. He lied. Big time. Was FDR justified in misleading the American people? On the one hand, Roosevelt was "saving his political life" because most Americans didn't want to go to war, says Leonard Saxe, a psychology professor at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., who studies lying. On the other hand, the president may have saved the country, even the world, with the help of this deception. "In retrospect, I'm glad that he did" lie, says Saxe. Harvard philosopher Sissela Bok disagrees. She argues in her influential 1978 book "Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life" that despite the extraordinary situation, Roosevelt's lie cannot be justified. She believes that taking the risk that the public would fail to rise to a crisis honestly explained would have been better than resorting to deception. Essentially, the people lost the right to decide. What's more, a lesson that could be taken from FDR's lie is that leaders can lie whenever they hit a real or perceived crisis. His lie became a precedent used to justify Lyndon Johnson's actions in 1964, when he talked peace in the election campaign while secretly escalating the war in Vietnam, Bok says. Public life brings seemingly compelling reasons to lie. But the lies also carry more risks, affect more people and can reverberate into the future in unpredictable ways. This leads to the question: When -- if ever -- is it OK for the people in power to lie? The presumption is against lying because it destroys trust, whether between two people or between a president and the nation. "In a democracy people exercise power through voting," says Bok. "If the information they get cannot be trusted, how can they vote?" Lying is usually the "bodyguard" for other sorts of unethical conduct such as stealing and cheating, says ethicist Michael Josephson, founder of the Josephson Institute for Ethics in Marina Del Rey. Eliminate that behavior and the need to lie fades. "Why don't we stop doing the things we have to lie about?" he asks. Ethicist Dennis Prager gives lies a more central role. He is the founder of the Micah Center for Ethical Monotheism in Los Angeles, host of a KABC (790 AM) radio talk show and publisher of the quarterly journal Ultimate Issues. "Lying is probably the most harmful act that exists in public life," says Prager. "It is the basis of more evil than lust, love of power, jealousy or any of the other vices. . . . Lies pave the way for evil." Before the Holocaust, the Nazis spread lies about the Jews, saying they were racially inferior and they controlled the economy. "Without those lies the public could not have accepted the policies that followed," Prager says. Prager believes lying in public life is more troubling than lying in the private world. "In personal life, if you constantly told the truth you would hurt the feelings of everyone . . . gratuitously," he says. "In public life hurt feelings cannot be the guideposts for the way society runs itself because hundreds of millions of people are involved, not just one person." Reasons to lie Others say that at times people in power need to lie, and point out situations when lying might be the right thing to do. One important criteria is who's being lied to, says Charles Ford, the psychiatrist author of the 1996 book "Lies! Lies!! Lies!!!: The Psychology of Deceit." "The degree to which lying is prohibited is to some degree whether you're talking about the in-group or the out-group," he says. "Nobody expects the president of the United States to tell the truth to the Russians all the time -- he'd be a damned fool." But lying to the American people is another story. "The American people can understand that you lie to enemies," says Gordon Lloyd, a government professor at the University of Redlands. "As long as enemies are not Americans we can forgive you and it's not a problem. If you lie to us, the people who elected you, then you are in fact betraying the public trust." A complication: Sometimes it's necessary to lie to your own people in order to lie to your enemy. Paul Ekman, a University of California, San Francisco, psychiatry professor who has studied lying for three decades, recounts in his book "Telling Lies" how Jimmy Carter lied after the hostages were taken in Iran. President Carter and his underlings said a hostage-rescue effort would be logistically impossible and would likely end in death of the hostages, while at the same time they were organizing just such a mission (which ultimately failed). Ekman also notes that Carter had his press secretary deny a rescue attempt was in the works at the very moment the mission was going on. The purpose of the lie was to maintain the element of surprise. The lie was short-lived and, Ekman believes, justified because it was intended to save lives. Saving a life is the classic, most accepted justification for lying. In simplest form, Ekman writes, it comes down to this: A man with a gun asks, "Where is your brother? I am going to kill him." And you lie to save him. However, Ekman also notes this reasoning can be misused in public life. In his book, he mentions that Lt. Col. Oliver North admitted he had lied to Congress in 1986 about diverting Iranian funds to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. Congress had prohibited further "lethal" aid to the pro-American rebels. North's argument for lying boiled down to the saving-lives justification. Ekman says North was wrong for two reasons. First, it wasn't clear that cutting off this aid would result in Contra deaths. Second, North should not have lied to Congress. No one is obligated to be truthful to someone intent on murder; everyone is obligated by law to tell the truth when testifying before Congress. Simply put, Ekman believes this wasn't a clear case of lives being at stake. North gave his own judgment more heft than that of the majority of Congress. What's more, North had other options besides lying: He could have resigned and spoken out against the policy. National security has provided one of the most compelling -- and abused -- reasons to lie. The less connected the lie is to some immediate danger, and the longer it lasts, the more difficult it is to justify, Ekman says. President Lyndon Johnson kept from the public bad news about the progress of the Vietnam War, not only leading up to his 1964 campaign but also into the 1968 election (Johnson ultimately decided not to run). This lie was different from Carter's, in part because of its duration. "By creating the illusion of imminent victory Johnson deprived the electorate of information they needed to make informed political choices," Ekman writes. "A democracy cannot survive if one political party can control the information the electorate has about a matter crucial to their vote." When is lying justified? One danger of accepting lies for "the common good" is that the person making the decision can easily confuse self-interest with the nation's interest. Richard Nixon, for example, may have told himself his lies in the Watergate scandal were justified because his remaining in office was best for the country, Ekman says. The standard should be whether a disinterested, reasonable person would approve of the lie, says Michael Genovese, a political science professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Ekman suggests a similar standard: How would the recipients of the lie react to the news they were lied to? Loss of credibility is another issue. If a president lies on one subject should people expect he will lie about another? Yes, says John Anderson, a former Illinois congressman who made a high-profile run for president as an independent alternative to Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan in 1980. He believes the president should never lie. "I don't think a president has to put himself in a situation where in the interest of public security or national security he has to lie," says Anderson, now teaching law at Nova Southeastern University in Florida. "He simply refuses to answer the question." Just say, `No comment' More recently, the issue of lying in public life has become centered not on life-and-death national security issues but on the private lives of public figures. President Clinton is under investigation for allegations he lied under oath about an affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, and may have encouraged her to do the same. Political science professor Max Neiman of the University of California, Riverside, believes that lying on one topic doesn't necessarily indicate a propensity for dishonesty. Some topics such as sex are particularly difficult to be honest about. "I think quite frankly that to have a president of the United States get out in front of the people . . . and acknowledge that, yes, he's having an affair with a White House intern, is asking a lot," says Neiman. Prager will allow only that lying about public policy is much worse than lying about intimate matters. "But when you are talking to 250 million people it is difficult to draw distinctions between public policy and personal life," Prager says. Some wonder about subjecting political leaders to personal questions, raising the idea that the questions may be so inappropriate that lying is a justifiable response. In a March article in The New Republic, Harvard political philosopher Michael Sandel suggests, "There may be a case, in the name of privacy and decorum, for the president to deny a scurrilous charge even if true, provided it has no bearing on public responsibilities." The more prevalent view is that the best answer to an inappropriate question is no answer. "My position is that it is never proper in public office to lie," Josephson says. "It is quite proper to say nothing." Sissela Bok sees a different connection between private lives and public policy: People judge candidates on personal traits because they can't believe what is said about policy. After all, they need something to base their vote on. So maybe more honesty on policy issues would reduce the scrutiny of personal lives. "If we could trust what people said we wouldn't have to worry so much about the character issue," Bok says. Published 5/9/1998
Prager makes a sharp distinction between lies about the society (macro lies) and lies about your personal life (micro lies). If Prager lied about Monica Lewinsky, it does not matter much. But if Clinton lies about black churches being burned, that is terrible.
In his third hour, Prager discussed an LA Times article about the killing of a "fetus." If it is truly her body, you can't say "fetus killed." Prager said that the killed was a baby, not a "fetus." Wednesday, May 13, 1998 Community News File / Los Angeles Pregnant Clerk Wounded, Fetus Dies in Holdup
A clerk at a party supply store who was five months' pregnant was shot three times Tuesday during a robbery attempt, leaving the fetus dead and the mother in critical condition, police said. The incident began about 1:15 p.m. at the Happy Days Party Supplies store in the 3600 block of West 3rd Street, said Det. John Freitas of the Los Angeles Police Department. The robber demanded money from the 27-year-old clerk and opened fire when the clerk told him she did not have any, authorities said. There were no other injuries. The woman, whose name was not released, was taken to County-USC Medical Center with wounds to her face, torso and buttocks, authorities said. An emergency caesarean failed to save the fetus, police said. During yesterday's show and most of today's, Ken Minyard only gave the first part of the quote to his listeners. Ken said that he felt that there were times to lie and that the worst kind of lie there is, is telling people that lying is the most harmful act (in reference to Dennis' comments in the article). His partner on the show, Peter Tilden, asked the question, if Dennis would tell the truth if his wife asked "do I have a big butt?" Peter said that Dennis needed to "get his priorities in order." It was only at the end of the discussion today on the morning show, when Ken Minyard was challenged by a regular listener to Dennis' show, that he read that last part of the quote in which Dennis said that there are times when one must lie. So, for the sake of clarity, Dennis devoted the first part of this show to explain his position.
Dennis said of course there are times when you have to lie, both for moral reasons and to save hurt feelings. A moral example is the case in which a would-be murderer is chasing his victim. You see where the victim is hiding and he asks you where this person he is running after is hiding, of course you should lie. An example to save hurt feelings would be if your child comes to you with a drawing that isn't exactly beautiful. Of course, when he asks "do you like it, daddy?" - Dennis is going to say yes.
Dennis said that for politicians, public and private lies are also different. For example, if the president lied about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, it would not be so terrible to the country because it is a private issue between them, his wife, and his conscience. However, Dennis said it was harmful to the country when the president lied about seeing black churches burned when he was a child. A couple of years ago when churches were be set afire in this country (for the sake of clarity in this discussion it is important to note that more non-black churches were being burned than black churches), the president said it reminded him of when he was a child and saw black churches burned by white racists. Records since have indicated that not a single black church was burned in Arkansas when Mr. Clinton was growing up. Dennis said that these kind of lies fuel an already angry group. The president lied about what he saw as a boy, he made it seem that we have not progressed against racism, and he made people in Arkansas feel ashamed when they did not do what the president of the United States accused them of doing. This is the kind of lie that is most harmful and that has the potential to lead to evil.
In his final hour of the show, Dennis discussed a Los Angeles Times' article about a store clerk who was shot three times during a robbery. She was 5 months pregnant and both the headline to the piece and within the article, stated that the "fetus" was killed. Dennis said that this is the new language of the Los Angeles Times. It was not long ago that the paper would have written that the "baby" was killed. This is the result of the pro-choice influence in media. Dennis said that when a woman is pregnant, she doesn't say to her husband, come feel my stomach, the fetus is kicking. Or if a woman has a miscarriage, no one says, she lost the fetus. Dennis said only in a politically correct newspaper in mid 1998 would the headline be that the fetus was killed. One caller asked Dennis if this same woman chose to have an abortion would the paper or anyone politically correct still use the word "killed"? Another caller told Dennis that deep down the writer knew differently because he still referred to the woman as the "mother".
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