Does The End Justify The Means?!

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Bobbyjo

At the Start
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Feb 18, 2005
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Somehow a discussion in the pub came around to this tonight - general consensus was that it can be understood why a politician would tell a lie if it is for the greater good that the public need not know the truth,

Opinions?
 
Well, we all know that they lie, frequently, and swearing that they're telling us the truth while they do it. But what would be an example of 'the greater good'? We were lied to about WMDs in Iraq, as a justification to get the public onside to assist America to invade Iraq. So no example there - we knew the Govt. was lying, and our opinions and protests counted for nought. There is still a cover-up in place, thanks to the MoD, regarding the strange deaths at the Deepcut Barracks, and lies have been told to keep that beyond public knowledge. No example there - we know something's wrong when all of the evidence in each case was totally destroyed, but now we can't prove something's wrong.

There are lies told about British Nuclear Fuel's safety, about animal and human health, about terrorist activity, about pollution levels, about GM crops, MMR vaccines, and on and on. So what would be a JUSTIFICATION to lie about something else to the public, for the public's sake? We're so used to assuming that politicians LIE to us, that what could possibly be left for them to lie about? What would be so much more important than taking your country into combat, or covering up deaths, diseases, potential attacks upon your homeland, that it would be okay to lie (again) to the public - for the tattered remnants of their own 'good'?
 
Exceptionally possibly say in war time - the Dieppe raid for example was covered up I think - the consequences of knowing it was a disaster could have had a very bad effect on morale .

Generally the answer must be no
 
In matters of national security, I'm happy for an otherwiuse honest government to lie as much as they feel the need.
 
If telling the truth puts British lives in danger (in war time as already stated) then I would rather they lie.
 
What is the point of telling a lie,when it is quite obvious that it is a lie?


MRSA only became an issue when the the Conservatives were in Power in the 1990s.

Is a lie.

MRSA was around in the late 1960s and ocurred in OPERATING THEATRES.The worry was that it was immune to almost all penicillin. (we had only a couple left in those days)
 
In matters of national security/war/British lives in danger, etc. all a Govt. has to do is say it's not answering any questions on the subject, end of story, bugger off Fourth Estate, we know best. It does not have to lie.

What is appalling is that it lies when British lives ARE in danger - as Derek says, through the spread of disease, through nuclear pollution, etc., and through reckless soldiering decisions.
 
I despair of the youth of today. I was in the pub with my buddies tonight and we talked of Golf, Hurling, Horses, Breasts, and gambling.
 
Ah, you've forgotten what it was like to be full of the angst of youth, AC. Surely you blamed your elders for the state of the world, poverty, disease, cruelty, war, and general malaise? I know I did - how the hell could they sit around talking such trivial tosh, when the world they'd created was falling to pieces around their flippant heads? Wait 'til WE took it in hand... and the argument's exactly the same, decade on decade, century on century. La plus ca change an' all that.
 
Indeed. When I was that age I blamed societies ills on middle class fattening men sitting in pubs discussing Golf, Hurling Breasts and Gambling. Thankfully they are all gone now.
 
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