Sunday, October 16, 2016

Aren't both 2016 presidential candidates immoral?

Well, to an extent, yes. But there are definitely varying degrees of immorality. Like, take their Politifact ratings, for example. Hillary Clinton has 6 "Pants on Fire" ratings (which accounts for 2% of her statements that have been rated on that website). Having earned that rating six times probably does indicate that she's occasionally willing to say stuff that she knows is not true, if she thinks she won't get caught. I'm proud to say that Bernie Sanders, the candidate I voted for, has zero Pants on Fire ratings.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, has forty-nine Pants on Fire statements (17% of all the statements that have been rated). He actually has more Pants on Fire statements than "True" and "Mostly True" combined. There was even someone who went through and did an analysis of some of his speeches, and calculated that he tells a lie (or makes a false statement) an average of every three-and-a-half minutes.

So, in a simplistic sense, you could say that Hillary Clinton is a liar, and Donald Trump is a liar, but that doesn't make them equally dishonest. Also, as I mentioned in a much more heated discussion yesterday, Donald Trump has said that his strategy for dealing with terrorists will be to "take out" their families. Most people consider an attack against non-combatants to be a heinous and despicable war-crime; Donald Trump makes it a campaign promise. That's how far removed from basic human decency he is.

There's a famous quote from Isaac Asimov referring to the fact that the earth is an "oblate spheroid," not a perfect sphere. He said, "when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."

I feel like it's kinda the same deal with Hillary's and Trump's immorality. If you say Hillary is an honest and moral person, I think you'd be wrong. If you say Trump is an honest and moral person, I think you'd be wrong. But if you think that Hillary is just as immoral as Trump, then I think your view is wronger than both of them put together.