Show me a salesman who lies to you as big as the average modern politician and you've probably got good grounds for a civil suit.
As for using white lies to grease the wheels, pussyfooting around on what you want, when you have to do it even to a fundamental level, doesn't work long term. "I want to help the disabled (actually IDGAF, it's just because homeless people are damaging the housing market)" are not white lies anymore, the rationale and the motivation are almost direct opposites, and the viable excuses will only last so long.
The result might be what you want but it only works because the general public are buying the lie which isn't what you want. And the lie is the position that is getting more entrenched in their minds. The more you encourage a culture of being afraid to speak of harsh truths the more people will just delude themselves they don't exist because it's out of sight.
Nobody wants to be "cruel" but as long as the prevailing culture is to pussy out of publicly arguing where limiting resource expenditure and preventing damage isn't actually "cruel" just "pragmatic" then shit's just going to keep trending worse.
If using white lies to grease the wheels doesn't work long term, then representative republics with (some) democratically elected representatives don't work long term; because the whole system is predicated on salesmanship to manipulate procedural outcomes.
Even the most honest politicians will tell you "the truth and nothing but the truth" but not the whole truth. Which is just a white lie by omission.
You can argue about the degree to which this is acceptable, but it's a core part of the system.
I mean, I already put the caveats about the delineation between acceptable and unacceptable lies up above, (specifically when you're lying about your fundamental goals, and when the lies and the actual intended outcomes are in opposition rather than roughly in agreement).
And to me the "help the disabled/(GTFO homeless)" lie is well outside the acceptable playzone, so anyone who supports it sounds like they're saying almost any amount of blatant dishonesty is acceptable. And it's a real shame if someone who believes that missed their chance for a budding career as a CNN reporter.
And if I still lived in Seattle a politician could tell me "we will painlessly terminate the lives of the homeless and convert power plants to use their bodies for fuel as a Green alternative to coal or natural gas" and I'd vote for them as long as the homeless problem went away.
There's a point where things get so bad you just want a problem solved and don't care too much for how it's solved. Yours is a "peacetime" approach to politics, and I'm not sure we're still in "peacetime" on some of these issues.
Show me a salesman who lies to you as big as the average modern politician and you've probably got good grounds for a civil suit.
As for using white lies to grease the wheels, pussyfooting around on what you want, when you have to do it even to a fundamental level, doesn't work long term. "I want to help the disabled (actually IDGAF, it's just because homeless people are damaging the housing market)" are not white lies anymore, the rationale and the motivation are almost direct opposites, and the viable excuses will only last so long.
The result might be what you want but it only works because the general public are buying the lie which isn't what you want. And the lie is the position that is getting more entrenched in their minds. The more you encourage a culture of being afraid to speak of harsh truths the more people will just delude themselves they don't exist because it's out of sight.
Nobody wants to be "cruel" but as long as the prevailing culture is to pussy out of publicly arguing where limiting resource expenditure and preventing damage isn't actually "cruel" just "pragmatic" then shit's just going to keep trending worse.
If using white lies to grease the wheels doesn't work long term, then representative republics with (some) democratically elected representatives don't work long term; because the whole system is predicated on salesmanship to manipulate procedural outcomes.
Even the most honest politicians will tell you "the truth and nothing but the truth" but not the whole truth. Which is just a white lie by omission.
You can argue about the degree to which this is acceptable, but it's a core part of the system.
I mean, I already put the caveats about the delineation between acceptable and unacceptable lies up above, (specifically when you're lying about your fundamental goals, and when the lies and the actual intended outcomes are in opposition rather than roughly in agreement).
And to me the "help the disabled/(GTFO homeless)" lie is well outside the acceptable playzone, so anyone who supports it sounds like they're saying almost any amount of blatant dishonesty is acceptable. And it's a real shame if someone who believes that missed their chance for a budding career as a CNN reporter.
And if I still lived in Seattle a politician could tell me "we will painlessly terminate the lives of the homeless and convert power plants to use their bodies for fuel as a Green alternative to coal or natural gas" and I'd vote for them as long as the homeless problem went away.
There's a point where things get so bad you just want a problem solved and don't care too much for how it's solved. Yours is a "peacetime" approach to politics, and I'm not sure we're still in "peacetime" on some of these issues.