<story><title>The Lies that can Undermine Democracy</title><url>https://martinfowler.com/articles/202101-lies-and-democracy.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>igammarays</author><text>A lie is intentional. If a person legitimately believes the election was fraudulent, even if it was not, it&amp;#x27;s not a lie. It&amp;#x27;s a mistaken belief.&lt;p&gt;Calling the other side liars is precisely the kind of polarizing rhetoric that can undermine democracy. They are not liars if they legitimately believe what they are saying. 70% of Republican voters and some 10% of Democrat voters actually do believe there was election fraud [1].&lt;p&gt;The way to combat mistaken beliefs is to allow them to voice their views, then refute their arguments, not to call them liars and suppress their views. And even if they do not accept the refutation, the arguments should be left up for people to read and make their informed choice.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.politico.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;11&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;republicans-free-fair-elections-435488&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.politico.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;11&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;republicans-free-fa...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>The Lies that can Undermine Democracy</title><url>https://martinfowler.com/articles/202101-lies-and-democracy.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Grimm1</author><text>This was flagged dead. I vouched for it. There is nothing in here that is beyond discussion imo and we are still well into a situation in the US that requires discussion like this and this is a sufficiently nuanced take.</text></comment>