George Will and Stolen Valor
I like George Will, I’ve met him twice and the conversations we had were some of the most memorable I’ve ever engaged in my entire life. That’s why I tried to ignore this column he did a few weeks ago in the Washington Post “Who gets to judge political truth?“, but it haunts me.
First, I’d ask Mr. Will, what’s the difference between “political truth” and “good old every day, run-of-the-mill truth?” A lie is a lie no matter who is say it. He cites the Alvarez case in which Xavier Alvarez lies at a political to potential voters that he was a 25-year Marine with a Medal of Honor in an obvious attempt to win votes from sympathetic military supporters. He was defrauding voters. If there is no Stolen Valor Act, how are voters compensated and protected from this malfeasance?
But Alvarez defamed no one, and it is unclear how his fabrications about himself caused America’s armed forces reputational harm. Furthermore, his lies did not fit any of the other four traditional categories of unprotected speech — obscenity, fraud, incitement, or speech integral to criminal conduct.
Well, without the Stolen Valor Act, Will is right, it’s not criminal conduct, except that he did defraud the voters with his lie. Wouldn’t Will like to see politicians forced to tell the truth during their campaigns? I would and this might be a good start.
Like I said, I like George Will as a person, but unfortunately, it looks like he has joined the folks who think that opposing the Stolen Valor Act makes them look smart. It doesn’t, George. It makes you look blind.
Category: Stolen Valor Act
Will is in fact wrong. By lying about his military qualifications and awards, with a goal of inducing voters to find him more palatable than the other candidate, he is guilty of fraud in the inducement. He intentionally misrepresented himself to make himself look as if he were the superior candidate, which was not necessarily the case. It constitutes fraud in most areas, but there are several court cases wherein judges have ruled that a political candidate may lie with impunity in order to get elected. And that is a no shitter there, people.
I’m tempted to say this shows the difference between military and civilians, but it seems more likely that it shows the difference between civilians and politicians. Will has spent so much time around politicians who tell such whoppers that he can’t see the harm in this ‘small’ lie.
But Stolen Valor IS fraud, just the same as if Alvarez had falsely claimed to have a degree from Harvard, served in the Peace Corps, or invented the Iphone. He lied with the intention of defrauding the voters, plain and simple.
Will is being disingenuous, but as we saw in Connecticut, voters love love love them valor-stealing politicians.
With promises of votes before an election, people will give money (cash, time, or other resources) to Alvarez (and any other candidate stealing valor). Regardless of the results of the election, Alvarez gets to keep that money. Perhaps Will should read up on how rarely a politico, even a loser, goes bankrupt during an election cycle.
After a successful election, the money and favors pour in. If the election is not successful, Alvarez keeps the money, and parlays his notoriety into a lucrative position that keeps him in the limelight for the next election.
I read Will’s column more as an argument for winning at any cost, and a discussion on how closely one should hold to his or her personal conviction.
Remember… Will never served in the military. Another example of society’s disconnect with the military. Some of the worst arguments I ever encountered in the military regarded the distribution of awards. I feel since I represent a true minority of today’s society, a veteran of the U.S. Military, I should be protected under minority right’s status.
I, too, respect George Will but not because I know him personally or because I agree with his analysis. And I do agree with it, in part. (By the way, as I read his piece, I saw the ‘political truth’ title as applying to the Driehaus matter, not the Stolen Valor act.) His objection to the Stolen Valor Act is that the 1st Amendment protects non-commercial speech that is both truthful and untruthful. In the context of the Stolen Valor Act, that is a tough pill to swallow. But let’s say that Congress passed a law requiring that all speech be truthful. Would that be okay? Hell no, because the government has no authority to compel truth in our conversations. Similarly, when it comes to the Stolen Valor Act, Will is saying that the same holds true, that government cannot intrude upon our speech and compel that only truth be spoken. With the Stolen Valor Act, it is the lying—the false speech– that is being punished. If one lies to obtain goods, services, or anything of monetary value through his lying, that’s fraud and is a crime. Will’s weakest point is found in his asking who is harmed by the lie and concluding that no one is, except, perhaps, the reputation of the liar himself. The counter argument is that every individual who legitimately earned a military service award is harmed by the proliferation of false claims because the dishonor brought by the false claimant necessarily detracts from the honor of the legitimate awardees. But that’s tough to measure, since we are talking about honor–an abstract concept that too few people appreciate nowadays. We’ll see what the Supremes have to say about this matter soon enough.
In re-reading my post @5, I see that I dwelt on honor, not valor. Valor is what results in the honor. Perhaps the law should have been called the Stolen Honor Act.
When I first heard the argument that Stolen Valor is unconstitutional because it limits free speech, I didn’t buy it. I said, “How is this any different than fraud?”
The more I thought about it, the more I started to see one clear difference. Fraud is when you lie for some kind of material gain. If I tell my insurance company that I was robbed, when in fact I wasn’t actually robbed, I am guilty of fraud because I am trying to shake them down for money. If I tell my employer that I don’t smoke because I want to pay the cheaper rate on insurance, and then they find out that I do smoke, they can charge me with fraud. I was lying to save money. If I tell people that I am collecting spare change for earthquake victims when in fact I am pocketing all of the money myself, I am engaging in fraud because I’m tricking people out of their cash.
So some guy who just sits around the bar and tells war stories about when he was a SEAL in ‘Nam and won the Congressional Medal of Honor, is in quite a different category. No fraud there, and in that case I suppose that his bullshit lies are in fact…sigh…protected speech.
But a politician who’s lying to get elected? Is that fraud? Well, if that were fraud, most of Congress would be in jail. Politicians lie to get elected all the time. Is it fraud?
I don’t know.
It does seem like some sort of fraud. Maybe it points out a distinction between regular run-of-the-mill speech (and regular lies), and political speech. Obviously politicians have been lying for as long as there have been politicians. Sad to say, lies have come to be expected and normal. To hold Alvarez accountable for lying would be to hold other politicians accountable, on a practical level an impossible job when every other word is a fabrication.
It IS fraud. Because how many cases have we seen where someone claims status they never earned in order to obtain goods and services they in fact are not entitled to nor would they have otherwise received had the truth been known?
Doesn’t matter whether you’re defrauding the VA out of hundreds of thousands in PTSD/disability claims or bullshitting some guy out of a beer at the local watering hole, unless you’re trying to figure out whether to charge a fraud with a misdemeanor or a felony, either case is still a crime.
Re: #9
“Because how many cases have we seen where someone claims status they never earned in order to obtain goods and services they in fact are not entitled to nor would they have otherwise received had the truth been known?”
Well, that would OF COURSE be fraud. If you’re trying to claim some kind of veterans’ benefit that you’re not entitled to by fabricating or misrepresenting military service, that’s fraud. No question.
But a politician who just says “I was in ‘Nam” when in fact he wasn’t? Sounds like Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut. He’s a punk and a poser. But I’m not sure he’s committed a crime.
If we charge Blumenthal with fraud for lying in order to get elected, we’ll have to send the paddy wagons to congress and just start filling them up.
I never thought of charging a lying politician with fraud, although it seems that they lie for material gain. Are we ready to start charging lying politicians with fraud? We might not have any politicians left. Seriously!
If we charge Blumenthal with fraud for lying in order to get elected, we’ll have to send the paddy wagons to congress and just start filling them up.
I’ll drive.
It is worth reminding ourselves that the Stolen Valor Act is law and that, as so often happens with new and different Federal laws, it has been upheld as constitutional by one circuit and declared unsconstitutional by another. That means that the Supremes get to decide the matter and, as of today, George F. Will is not a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and neither am I.
Will’s was a knee-jerk reaction to the law…evidenced by his lack of understanding of what it took to get this law passed. He cites it as a feel-good action by a very supportive and well-intentioned Congress. He couldn’t be more wrong. Congressional leadership fought the SV Act for more than a year, not on its merits but because it was introduced by a Freshman Congressman in the minority party. Ultimately, we won that one based on its merits. But when I saw how Will saw this as a feel-good, pandering move by Congress, it immediately set off alarms that in this case, Mr. Will did NOT do his homework before writing his column.
“If we charge Blumenthal with fraud for lying in order to get elected, we’ll have to send the paddy wagons to congress and just start filling them up”.
I volunteer to help pack the lying bastards and bastardettes into the wagons. I do have 27 years experience in doing that.
If you pad your resume in order to get elected, and you do get elected, then that ought to be a charge of election fraud, and you should be charged and stand trial for it.
Surely there ought to be a few good citizens in the person’s district who would be willing to sign a complaint with federal or State officials?
I’d imagine that a Federal Civil Right’s Act violation might also be possible in this situation.
It’s no different than ballot stuffing, poll taxes, or voter intimidation, at least to my mind.
V/R
UpNorth, we just might get a chance to send one of our own to the Senate next year to replace one of those bastardettes.
How would Will feel if someone claimed his writing as his own? Oh that is right-there are laws against that.