Against Deceit in Political Campaigns

Critics of Locke have long objected to his exclusion of atheists from his Commonwealth. Giving his practical reasons for this judgment, Locke observes that since an atheist would have no fear of divine retribution, the swearing of an oath would be at best, suspect; at worst, useless. - Put differently, Locke believed that atheists tend to lie more than most people.

As I have argued elsewhere, Locke was wrong in his belief that atheists would tend to lie because they were atheists. Liars are found everywhere. - However, although Locke was wrong about atheists as a class, he was right about the deadly effects of deceit in the State. In fact, State-sponsored deceit will, in time, destroy any democratic government. As Locke also noted, promises, covenants and oaths are the 'sinews' of the Commonwealth. Or, in slightly different terms, democratic government demands kept promises (among citizens); honored covenants (such as governments acting in conformity with the Constitutional documents of the State); and truly sworn oaths (in Courts of Law, or in any other legal agreements among citizens).¹

The deleterious effects of deceit in government actions are too familiar to rehearse in detail. Unkept campaign promises by politicians is a practice that has produced justified cynicism about politicians in all ages. The particular device of so-called "attack ads", as they have recently been used in Canada and the United States are at last becoming widely recognized as a disease that can prove fatal to representative government. For now, let us attend to the particular Canadian vice.²

A first question about deceit by government and its agents is: Why would anyone deliberately elect unscrupulous citizens to be Members of Parliament whose legally described function is to pass laws for the public good?

The reply is that the unscrupulous nature of the candidate has been concealed from the public, or at least from the electors. Moreover, the use of the "attack ad" has become so commonplace that the lies and distortions which are presented for public consumption are hardly recognized for what they are. In effect, virtually any thing that is said about the candidate whom one opposes, or actively dislikes, is all right. "The other team deserves it," is not far removed from a common attitude. And so, on reflection, it becomes clear that the use of the "attack ad" is insidious in political campaigns and has come to be tolerated, sometimes in the name of a misconceived notion of "free speech"; sometimes in the despairing belief of being "unable to change things now".

But all is not lost. For a second question is simply:

What would it take to change the campaign arena?

First, in order to preserve the virtues of unfettered communication on the world-wide web, the attempt to censor "attack ads" as a class is misguided. They can however be vitiated in their effects by a rival source of information that does not deceive the public, and is known not to deceive the public.

Second, the proposal to inform the public is the following:

1. As is customary now, a "paid political broadcast" by a named political party and presented by a named individual, (usually a Member of Parliament or a Member of the Assemblée Nationale) would be announced on the CBC or Radio Canada or by any other suitable means of mass communication, and could be repeated just as often as the parties may choose. The point is that these statements would be guaranteed to be authentic by the way in which they are designated and announced. And any attempt to pervert them would be a criminal offense and prosecuted under some suitable Section of the Elections Act to be determined. In this case, interfering with the authentic message is not a "fun game", but an attempt to deceive the citizens and by this means to inhibit their choice of representatives to the legislature. Accordingly the penalty would be severe.

An incidental effect of this approach to broadcast information would be a tendency to present party platforms and thereby reduce personal references. After all, if the point of the information is to attract votes, the candidates have an interest in making the advantages of their policies clear to the electors.

A second advantage is that satirical versions of the candidates' claims would be untouched; farce could be presented as freely as a discerning electorate might choose just because the satire and farce can be identified.

2. The practice of telephoning constituents can be managed by making each party responsible for the telephone calls that are made from each constituency office. This can be done by requiring each caller from an office to say who they are; for which party they are canvassing; the name of the candidate they are supporting and the telephone number of the office from which they are calling. - Each phone call can be routinely recorded, with the result that suspect calls are easily recognized.

The general point is that true statements about candidates and their platforms are made clearly recognizable, and supporting phone calls similarly can be identified. "Attack ads" or other misrepresentations would tend to wither in such a climate because their purpose is deception and the deception would be exposed. The human resentment towards those who attempt to deceive ultimately would ensure the end of this abuse of the public interest. Vigilance and the rapid exposure of suspect messages would be required of course, but the political parties would have an interest in this exercise.

To sum up, deceit in political campaigning can be arrested by asking the right questions, and then by taking suitable action. Because everyone is obliged to act with reference to what is believed to be true at the time, no one likes being lied to, certainly not by politicians seeking public office and the power that it confers.

Finally, Locke did correctly identify the lethal nature of deception in his Commonwealth, and representative governments today would do well to heed his observations.

Montréal

5-14 March 2012

Endnotes