I would be pleased to see electoral reform in the US and overjoyed to see it in the UK (my own nation). However, I don't think party political politics is to blame. It's interesting that you dislike character attacks but I would predict that a non-party political system would become very focused on character rather than policies.
I'd rather just have an electoral system that doesn't inevitably trend towards a two-party system.
I would like to see actively lying to the electorate to be a criminal offence, although that's ground that must be trod very carefully (as it could be used to censor viewpoints rather than make sure that politicians express themselves in good faith).
I can think of a number of high profile cases where politicians have made factually incorrect statements -and- in which I suspect they knew they were doing so. The 'No to AV' campaign in the UK was characterised by factually false statements that seem to have been fabricated rather than due to genuine misunderstanding.
Phil Woolas lost of seat due to a court case about him lying in his election campaign: link
I've not been following the US presidential election as closely as many here surely are but I'm led to believe that Mitt Romney's campaign is characterised by falsehoods.
The difference is whether something has no basis whatsoever in fact, or whether you just have to stretch really, really hard to make the claim you're making. The two biggest ones I can think of are Romney's red-meat attacks: that Obama cut $700+ billion from Medicare, and that he "gutted" the work requirement. Both are sorta true, if you squint really hard and turn your head like a dog waiting on a treat. In reality, Obama cut Medicare payouts, not benefits, by adjusting reimbursement rates, and the work requirement went away in select states that wanted to experiment with a different mechanism, and in return promised higher results. The base-line is correct ("Medicare spending will drop $700b" and "some states no longer have a work requirement for welfare") but the actual circumstances are vastly different
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Is English your second language? This might not translate but let me try...
Neither Obama nor Romney addressed how they would pay down debt or deficit. That's bullshit! Both talked at some length about the Israeli situation, but we all know nothing is going to change there, so that's total bullshit. All candidates throw around numbers all the time, like either percentages or dollar amounts, often in future tense, that are statistically framed to favour the orator. That's bullshit. Candidates will say one thing to one audience and then something completely contrary to another crowd. That's bullshit.
Lying should be simply saying a falsehood, But quite often these lies are excused by simply having the wrong numbers/information in the notes in front of them. "i did not have sex with that woman" was a lie until Clinton clarified that his definition of sex excluded blowjobs. So that's bullshit too
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I'd rather just have an electoral system that doesn't inevitably trend towards a two-party system.
I would like to see actively lying to the electorate to be a criminal offence, although that's ground that must be trod very carefully (as it could be used to censor viewpoints rather than make sure that politicians express themselves in good faith).
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Good point, only two flavors of the same oligarchic party doesn't constitute a "two" party system.
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I can think of a number of high profile cases where politicians have made factually incorrect statements -and- in which I suspect they knew they were doing so. The 'No to AV' campaign in the UK was characterised by factually false statements that seem to have been fabricated rather than due to genuine misunderstanding.
Phil Woolas lost of seat due to a court case about him lying in his election campaign: link
I've not been following the US presidential election as closely as many here surely are but I'm led to believe that Mitt Romney's campaign is characterised by falsehoods.
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Neither Obama nor Romney addressed how they would pay down debt or deficit. That's bullshit!
Both talked at some length about the Israeli situation, but we all know nothing is going to change there, so that's total bullshit.
All candidates throw around numbers all the time, like either percentages or dollar amounts, often in future tense, that are statistically framed to favour the orator. That's bullshit.
Candidates will say one thing to one audience and then something completely contrary to another crowd. That's bullshit.
Lying should be simply saying a falsehood, But quite often these lies are excused by simply having the wrong numbers/information in the notes in front of them.
"i did not have sex with that woman" was a lie until Clinton clarified that his definition of sex excluded blowjobs. So that's bullshit too ( ... )
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However, 'bullshit' is somewhat ambiguous in meaning :oP
I'd still say that politicians lie, even if those lies are clouded in 'bullshit' to make them less obvious.
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