Redactors Does An Analysis Of Politifacts.com

[Newell Steamer]

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/3hywj0/lying_liars_of_the_gop_false_is_most_common/

Politifact is a fact-checking website that rates comments by political figures on a scale it calls the "Truth-o-Meter," which gives ratings of "True," "Mostly True," "Half True," "Mostly False," "False," or "Pants On Fire."

Combing through the past two years of Truth-o-Meter ratings on Politifact and straight up counting them, I found the following:

• The most common rating for claims by Republicans is "False" - the second worst rating out of six.
• The most common rating for claims by Democrats is "Mostly True" - the second best rating out of six.
• Republicans had nearly three times as many "Pants on Fire" ratings as Democrats (20 vs. 7).
• The three degrees of falsehood-dominant rating, Pants on Fire, False, and Mostly False, add up to more than half of Republican ratings, but only about a quarter of Democratic ratings.

The method for developing this information is that I simply counted up all the ratings for individual people (not organizations) whose party was verifiable as either Republican or Democratic.

B-b-but both parties are the same!!shift+1!!!

 

[brycejones]

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/3hywj0/lying_liars_of_the_gop_false_is_most_common/

B-b-but both parties are the same!!shift+1!!!

You have to know this will just get played as politifact is obviously a liberal organization and this proves nothing.

 

[cabri]

And info mumbers may be reversed when the other party is in charge.

 

[Newell Steamer]

You have to know this will just get played as politifact is obviously a liberal organization and this proves nothing.

Crafty liberals strike again.

I mean, they cook the monthly employment numbers and their leaders commit crimes they never get charged for - makes sense to create Politifacts. Especially since they do not provide ANY detail on how they rate something as a lie as well as provide proof on how they derived that rulin,... oh, wait, they do.

I guess the challengers has to counter Politifacts now. But, I doubt they would - because I am too stupid for them to explain to me what is wrong with Politifacts.

 

[shira]

Over many years, I have noticed that when articles in the American media mention Adolph Hitler, and the story makes a value judgement as to the goodness or badness of Hitler's behavior, over 99% of the time the judgement is negative. Conversely, articles in the American media that mention Arthur Ashe render positive judgments over 99% of the time. So, clearly, as regards Hitler and Ashe, the American media is grossly biased.

 

[michal1980]

Politifacts chooses which stories to claim are true or false. Just by the simple fact they pick stories means that this analysis is worthless.

 

[fskimospy]

Politifacts chooses which stories to claim are true or false. Just by the simple fact they pick stories means that this analysis is worthless.

No it doesn't. You don't know what you're talking about.

 

[Greenman]

The need for constant vindication is telling.

 

[brycejones]

Politifacts chooses which stories to claim are true or false. Just by the simple fact they pick stories means that this analysis is worthless.

The need for constant vindication is telling.

The choice to be willfully ignorant is telling.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

They all lie or deceive to stay in office. All of them.
Ever notice politicians are regularly clarifying statements or "mis speaking". How often does this happen in your life, I know it doesn't happen with important stuff in my life. This alone proves politicians straddle the truth vs lie line quite often.
Why we tolerate this behavior is a better question.

 

[brycejones]

They all lie or deceive to stay in office. All of them.
Ever notice politicians are regularly clarifying statements or "mis speaking". How often does this happen in your life, I know it doesn't happen with important stuff in my life. This alone proves politicians straddle the truth vs lie line quite often.
Why we tolerate this behavior is a better question.

Because part of being a politician is frankly telling us what we want to hear and that's probably been the case throughout history.

But it is sad when one of the two major parities has candidates are more likely to be lying out their ass than even being half-way truthful.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

Because part of being a politician is frankly telling us what we want to hear and that's probably been the case throughout history.

But it is sad when one of the two major parities has candidates are more likely to be lying out their ass than even being half-way truthful.

Without a doubt this is a shame and Americans should not tolerate such.

That being said and on another topic we need at least 3 more Trump and 2 more Hillary threads. After all #PoliticalBSMatters

 

[Greenman]

The choice to be willfully ignorant is telling.

No, it's just ignorant. Refusing to evaluate reality vs beliefs is so common as to almost be human nature. None of us like to discover that what we thought was "true" is actually a falsehood. That's why so many will defend an indefensible position. "Spin" is the malignant form of this, we find it easier to distort the truth than admit to being wrong. Add the "my team" component to that and you have politics as we see it today.

Yeah I know, it's a simplistic view.

 

[Zorba]

Because part of being a politician is frankly telling us what we want to hear and that's probably been the case throughout history.

But it is sad when one of the two major parities has candidates are more likely to be lying out their ass than even being half-way truthful.

Really in a representative democracy, shouldn't the politicians mostly be doing what their constituents want? I don't really care if the individual politician believes in what he is doing, as long as he is carrying out the will of his constituents or doing the "right thing" when the constituents are wrong on a specific issue.

Of course, that doesn't meant they should be lying about facts to make other politicians look bad. Which does seem to be a hallmark of one party for at least the last 15 years, ever since they got their echo chamber up and running.

 

[MongGrel]

Politifacts chooses which stories to claim are true or false. Just by the simple fact they pick stories means that this analysis is worthless.

 

[Moonbeam]

No, it's just ignorant. Refusing to evaluate reality vs beliefs is so common as to almost be human nature. None of us like to discover that what we thought was "true" is actually a falsehood. That's why so many will defend an indefensible position. "Spin" is the malignant form of this, we find it easier to distort the truth than admit to being wrong. Add the "my team" component to that and you have politics as we see it today.

Yeah I know, it's a simplistic view.

Where on earth did you get such a ridiculous idea. What possible reason could I have even disregarding the vanishingly small possibility that I could be wrong about anything, why on earth would I care and not just fess, straight up?

 

[Moonbeam]

No it doesn't. You don't know what you're talking about.

Hate to disagree, but it clearly did in his case. There is a universe you just discovered, not so far away, in which if a story is picked for analysis, the analysis is useless. Conservative stories are picked when they are lies not when they are the stories that happen to be in the news (in this universe).

 

[Greenman]

Hate to disagree, but it clearly did in his case. There is a universe you just discovered, not so far away, in which if a story is picked for analysis, the analysis is useless. Conservative stories are picked when they are lies not when they are the stories that happen to be in the news (in this universe).

You surprise me Moonie. Every time I think I have you pegged you rearrange all the holes. I think I like it.

 

[Moonbeam]

You surprise me Moonie. Every time I think I have you pegged you rearrange all the holes. I think I like it.

Thank you I guess, but I am not sure that what you saw in what I said was what I thought I meant.

Anyway, it was my other post to YOU I had hoped you'd answer.

 

[Greenman]

Thank you I guess, but I am not sure that what you saw in what I said was what I thought I meant.

Anyway, it was my other post to YOU I had hoped you'd answer.

I don't think I understand what you were looking for there. Perhaps I missed the point on both?

 

[Moonbeam]

No, it's just ignorant. Refusing to evaluate reality vs beliefs is so common as to almost be human nature. None of us like to discover that what we thought was "true" is actually a falsehood. That's why so many will defend an indefensible position. "Spin" is the malignant form of this, we find it easier to distort the truth than admit to being wrong. Add the "my team" component to that and you have politics as we see it today.

Yeah I know, it's a simplistic view.

OK I will just say this as straight as I can. Refusing to evaluate reality vs beliefs has been scientifically proven to be statistically more typical of conservatives than liberals. They, conservatives have been shown to have different brains than liberals do, and different in parts of the brain that lead to certain speculations, that, for example, the kind of difference would predict that conservatives defend emotional beliefs more than liberals, which has lead to further investigations into the matter that actually confirm that suspicion, or hypothesis, if you will.

Now I will admit that since this phenomenon occurs in humans it must be part of human nature, but saying something is human nature doesn't to me explain anything. I am interested in why humans deflect facts that imply their world view is wrong. Why would somebody not want their world view to be wrong and especially preferring denial to the pain of confession? What is at stake?

I posit the existence of an unconscious motivation, self hate, as the root of the matter, the feeling that if one is wrong ones unconscious feelings will surface and be confirmed. If you fail to pick the hand behind my back that holds a coin, you can weather being wrong because you consciously and unconsciously know you only have a fifty fifty chance. But if I tell you that you are upside down to reality, that is an existential threat.

So what I was doing was trying to prod you into looking deeper than just saying it's human nature. Otherwise everything you stated, as far as you stated it, is something with which I agree.

In the other comment to eskimo, I was simply saying that when you believe something it becomes true for you no matter how wrong it may actually be.

 

[Greenman]

OK I will just say this as straight as I can. Refusing to evaluate reality vs beliefs has been scientifically proven to be statistically more typical of conservatives than liberals. They, conservatives have been shown to have different brains than liberals do, and different in parts of the brain that lead to certain speculations, that, for example, the kind of difference would predict that conservatives defend emotional beliefs more than liberals, which has lead to further investigations into the matter that actually confirm that suspicion, or hypothesis, if you will.

Now I will admit that since this phenomenon occurs in humans it must be part of human nature, but saying something is human nature doesn't to me explain anything. I am interested in why humans deflect facts that imply their world view is wrong. Why would somebody not want their world view to be wrong and especially preferring denial to the pain of confession? What is at stake?

I posit the existence of an unconscious motivation, self hate, as the root of the matter, the feeling that if one is wrong ones unconscious feelings will surface and be confirmed. If you fail to pick the hand behind my back that holds a coin, you can weather being wrong because you consciously and unconsciously know you only have a fifty fifty chance. But if I tell you that you are upside down to reality, that is an existential threat.

So what I was doing was trying to prod you into looking deeper than just saying it's human nature. Otherwise everything you stated, as far as you stated it, is something with which I agree.

In the other comment to eskimo, I was simply saying that when you believe something it becomes true for you no matter how wrong it may actually be.

Got it. I honestly don't believe any of that has it's root in self hate, though I have no evidence to back it up other than a lifetime of observation. While you could be right, it doesn't fit in with what I've personally observed, so I reject the fact while I'm willing to accept that the idea may have merit. The problem is proving it, I don't see how that can be done.

 

[Moonbeam]

Got it. I honestly don't believe any of that has it's root in self hate, though I have no evidence to back it up other than a lifetime of observation. While you could be right, it doesn't fit in with what I've personally observed, so I reject the fact while I'm willing to accept that the idea may have merit. The problem is proving it, I don't see how that can be done.

I can't prove what can only be experienced personally, but I just did something I never do. Everything I know I know from within, everything I say I acquired from my own study and from teachers I've had. I am not a scholar or knowledgeable in the academic field. I am a nobody. But I just looked on the net to see if I could find anybody saying something approximately like me and found this:

http://www.mindandsoul.info/Articles/386134/Mind_and_Soul/Resources/When_the_person.aspx

All I can say is that I am not alone.

 

[1prophet]

Politifacts chooses which stories to claim are true or false. Just by the simple fact they pick stories means that this analysis is worthless.

Six pages of Obama's broken promises on Politifact

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/rulings/promise-broken/

Including the lie of the year
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...ar-if-you-like-your-health-care-plan-keep-it/

Lie of the Year: 'If you like your health care plan, you can keep it'

It was a catchy political pitch and a chance to calm nerves about his dramatic and complicated plan to bring historic change to America’s health insurance system.
"If you like your health careplan, you can keep it," President Barack Obama said -- many times -- of his landmark new law.


But the promise was impossible to keep.
So this fall, as cancellation letters were going out to approximately 4 million Americans, the public realized Obama’s breezy assurances were wrong.
Boiling down the complicated health care law to a soundbite proved treacherous, even for its promoter-in-chief.


Obama and his team made matters worse, suggesting they had been misunderstood all along. The stunning political uproar led to this: a rare presidential apology.


For all of these reasons, PolitiFact has named "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it," the Lie of the Year for 2013. Readers in a separate online poll overwhelmingly agreed with the choice. (PolitiFact first announced its selection on CNN's The Lead with Jake Tapper.)

 

[michal1980]

No it doesn't. You don't know what you're talking about.

I don't?

So what unbiased method does politifact use to pick it stories?

The reality is politifact choose whatever stories they want to rate.

To then extrapolate from that republicans are lying more then democrats is just plain stupidity.

All it says is that of the stories politifact choose to rate republicans 'lie' more.

http://editions.lib.umn.edu/smartpolitics/2011/02/10/selection-bias-politifact-rate/