When a lie is just a lie!

Having done graduate studies in the United States of America, my fellow citizens have a nasty pleasure in submitting to me the anomalies of American politics. The latest is that of the election of Georges Santos to the American Congress. They have all the trouble in the world understanding the story of Mr. Georges Santos. Indeed, they cannot understand how Mr. Santos, after having lied about almost everything (His name, his education, his origins, the death of his mother, etc.), can strut in the corridors of the capitol.

My fellow citizens do not understand how the First Amendment can protect Mr. Santos' lies and why lying to voters during an election campaign is not among the speeches that constitute the exceptions to speech protected by the First Amendment (speeches that incite violence, defame, constitute perjury or facilitate financial fraud).

I can understand the logic of American courts that upheld the principle that governments have no right to criminalize speech, however offensive or misleading it may be. What I could never understand, however, is the idea that individuals must decide for themselves what is true since this idea raises, for me, the following questions: How can individuals decide about themselves what is true? Should each individual hire their own private detective to investigate the statements of candidates for election in their constituency? What happens when the lie is discovered the day after the election?

Aware that this argument does not hold water, the American courts argue that it is better for individuals to decide for themselves what is true than to make the government an arbiter of the truth as if these two alternatives are the only choices available to US citizens.

Nothing is farther from the truth than that. Indeed, the reality is quite different since everyone knows that there are exceptions to speech that is protected by the First Amendment (speech that incites violence, defames, constitutes perjury, or facilitates financial fraud). The question that begs itself at this level is: Why not add lying to voters to the list of exceptions to speech that is protected by the First Amendment?

Some states have sought to make an exception for certain kinds of lies politicians tell during their election campaigns with the results we know since the courts have largely shielded lying politicians from conviction.

The most famous case arose in 2012, United States v Alvarez, where the Supreme Court struck down the Stolen Valor Act, a law that prohibited falsely claiming to have won military medals. Xavier Alvarez, an elected member of a California water district board, appealed his conviction under the law. The Supreme Court sided with him in ruling that an "interest in truthful speech alone" does not justify a ban on speech "in the absence of any evidence that the speech was used to obtain a material benefit." , the U S Supreme Court ruled. To uphold Mr. Alvarez's belief would be tantamount to giving the government “a broad and unprecedented power of censorship… in our constitutional tradition.''?

Now that candidates know they risk virtually nothing by lying during their election campaigns, what will stop them from doing so? Fear of God? It is certainly not Donald Trump who will say yes to you.