Should there be a Code of Conduct or ethical behavior in political discourse?

[Anevers]

Stopped reading there! Of course there'll be contradictions and consequences but a code of conduct could stifle unpopular opinions or the expression of offensive matters.

If you cannot defend your position with facts and have to rely on falsehoods perhaps your ideas have no place in a political debate.

[Endus]

You would be if the code prohibits anything considered aggravating to others.

Still isn't a restriction of free speech, since you're free to say whatever you like in other venues. It's only being restricted in the particular venue in question. Kind of how you can say "the food in that restaurant sucks ass" outside a restaurant, in the public street, but if you say it inside, the owner has the full right to kick you out.

[dextersmith]

Still isn't a restriction of free speech,

Prohibition isn't restriction??

[Mistame]

If it's not the government making the rules, then "freedom of speech" does not apply.

[Mifuyne]

There are enough places where anyone can go to that has the same principles as the person in question.
Just look at the internet.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Prohibition isn't restriction??

You are acting like preventing people from speaking certain things in a debate means its everywhere in the country. That isn't how it works.

[dextersmith]

If it's not the government making the rules, then "freedom of speech" does not apply.

You are acting like preventing people from speaking certain things in a debate means its everywhere in the country. That isn't how it works.

OP posed his inquiry without specifying the type of venue in which the discourse could take place under, so I am not incorrect in my assertion.

[Endus]

Prohibition isn't restriction??

Only if it's the government doing the restricting, and it's restricted everywhere, to everyone. We're talking about a code of conduct that participants would voluntarily accede to, to participate in the political system. Those codes of conduct already exist, in other professions, and clearly they aren't seen as any such restriction of those members' freedom of speech. Because it's something they voluntarily take on.

[Malachi256]

The code of conduct in politics should be votes.

If you're voting for people whose behavior you don't approve of, /shrug, and if you're not but they're winning anyway, welcome to democracy.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

OP posed his inquiry without specifying the type of venue in which the discourse could take place under, so I am not incorrect in my assertion.

When we're seeing debates and such, that is the context. You simply assumed.

[dextersmith]

When we're seeing debates and such, that is the context. You simply assumed.

You assumed.

What am I assuming? I've considered the political discourse can take place anywhere and at any level. I'm not saying it will happen but that it could. What more is there to debate here?

[Theodarzna]

If it's not the government making the rules, then "freedom of speech" does not apply.

I am curious about that,

If your employer flat out said you will be fired if he or she hears you support a particular political candidate, is that a violation? Or no?

[Deleted]

I think the only rule should be that information that is presented as fact, is indeed fact.

Of course this will be difficult on contentious points, or speculative points. But when people do present data, we should by now have the technology to immediately check if the data is obviously wrong.

So perhaps when Trump is saying things like all Mexicans are rapists, there would be a series of statistics in proper context of the data displayed in real-time while he is speaking, so everyone has kind of an idea of whether it's true or not.

Just this little step in real-time data presentation would go a long way to preventing the kind of demagogic abuses and charlatanism we see a lot in politics from occurring.

Apart from that, I think discourse should be completely free. We should give people as much platform as possible while still letting the free market decide who gets the most attention.

The key "intervention" should be on the other end, to always ensure that we're not cutting off anyone's access to the debate, for whatever reason.

When in doubt, read Mill, or Hitchens, or Paine. Proceed from an understanding that the majority can be wrong, very very wrong.

[Deleted]

So perhaps when Trump is saying things like all Mexicans are rapists, there would be a series of statistics in proper context of the data displayed in real-time while he is speaking, so everyone has kind of an idea of whether it's true or not.

Just this little step in real-time data presentation would go a long way to preventing the kind of demagogic abuses and charlatanism we see a lot in politics from occurring.

What would happen in that scenario would be a gross distortion of the actuality.

You'd get some kind of number showing Mexicans do indeed carry out a disproportionate number of rapes. Probably. I haven't checked the stats but generally speaking poorer ethnic minorities do carry out a disproportionate amount of reported violent crime.

So then this piece of race-baiting is confirmed in the public mind.

Now, that is highly misleading because we are talking about reported crime. It is very likely that the biggest criminal class is the super-rich. Why? Because they can buy off their victims and law enforcement and do what they want. That is not going to show up in stats. It creates a huge distortion.

Poor people by contrast have no access to effective legal defense and can't buy off their victims.

There is also selective cherry-picking of data. Some ethnic group will have a disproportionate number of crimes in some area through sheer statistical inevitability. Jews for example commit a disproportionate amount of financial crime. Does this mean Jews are bent when it comes to money? No, it means more Jews work in finance so they produce a disproportionate number of financial crimes.

Basically this suggestion would validate all kinds of nasty race-baiting. The adage that "you can prove anything you like with statistics" is pertinent.

- - - Updated - - -

The code of conduct in politics should be votes.

If you're voting for people whose behavior you don't approve of, /shrug, and if you're not but they're winning anyway, welcome to democracy.

Poltical elites can afford to spend billions creating a view of the world to their advantage.

You can't have democracy without unbiased access to truth: the media is controlled by billionaires who have no interest in that. They can paint whatever version of reallity they need to, people accept it, and vote accordingly.

[Deleted]

You are acting like preventing people from speaking certain things in a debate means its everywhere in the country. That isn't how it works.

And you seem to think preventing people from speaking certain things in public venue where message has best chance to come across is somehow fine?

[Austilias]

Who creates the code? Who sets the rules? Who enforces them?

This is frankly a moronic idea; the implementation of which would be frankly impossible to obtain without the presence of Human bias. If people want politicians to be held to account, we already have a pretty effective means of doing so; namely, the media. The good thing about the media is that, for the most part, they don't lie about their biases; a sort of honesty we should appreciate from those whose trade is built entirely on Humans.

Funnily enough, the media finds itself under the constant threat of censorship; which perhaps says more than a little about those who'd wish to bypass them and install these allegedly unbiased moderators.

[Deleted]

Who creates the code? Who sets the rules? Who enforces them?

This is frankly a moronic idea; the implementation of which would be frankly impossible to obtain without the presence of Human bias. If people want politicians to be held to account, we already have a pretty effective means of doing so; namely, the media. The good thing about the media is that, for the most part, they don't lie about their biases; a sort of honesty we should appreciate from those whose trade is built entirely on Humans.

Funnily enough, the media finds itself under the constant threat of censorship; which perhaps says more than a little about those who'd wish to bypass them and install these allegedly unbiased moderators.

That any one believes the self-appointed clique of the super-rich that own the media themselves trying desparately to curry favour with business interests that fund their enterprises through advertising, is somehow a regulator of political power, is one of the most depressing things I have ever read.

[Austilias]

That any one believes the self-appointed clique of the super-rich that own the media themselves trying desparately to curry favour with business interests that fund their enterprises through advertising, is somehow a regulator of political power, is one of the most depressing things I have ever read.

That anyone believes the entirety of the world's media are all on the same side, and part of some 'self-appointed clique of the super-rich', is one of the most depressing things I have ever read.

[Norwegian]

The one thing I'd like to see would be debates where the moderator, well, moderates. By this, I mean give the man a team of 10+ researchers, working in the background in realtime, as well as a booklet of expected facts and details he can reference himself, and make one of their roles calling out politicians when they say something that isn't factually correct.

Not to silence them, but just to clarify for the audience that the speaker has either made an error or, if they double down, is deliberately and maliciously lying to everyone for political gain.

Honesty should be the one central core principle, in politics. If we don't find a way to hold politicians to that, then we're letting them tell whatever fanciful lies will delude enough of the populace to get by until the next election. To paraphrase Barnum; you don't need to fool all of the people all of the time, you just need to fool a majority for just long enough for them to vote.

And really, this shouldn't be taken by anyone as being a partisan position. The only way this is partisan is if your "side" relies on just this kind of dishonesty to win.

Ironic that you of all say this.

[Deleted]

What would happen in that scenario would be a gross distortion of the actuality.

You'd get some kind of number showing Mexicans do indeed carry out a disproportionate number of rapes. Probably. I haven't checked the stats but generally speaking poorer ethnic minorities do carry out a disproportionate amount of reported violent crime.

So then this piece of race-baiting is confirmed in the public mind.

If it's true then it's not a gross distortion.

(in this particular case though it isn't and the data shows that)

Things that are bad or insensitive or culturally difficult can still be true.

And if so, then the problem is real and should be dealt with, not wished away.

Now of course you could get some slightly bad data, or a bad use of data, etc - but it's still better than no data at all, given some of the crazy things people say when the public has zero reference points.