The policy of this blog is not to get involved in party politics. Epicurus was very definite about that, although good citizens ought to be informed and vote.
The warnings of Epicurus, however, were reinforced recently by the US Vice-Presidential candidate, Paul Ryan. Ryan claimed that his “personal best” in a Marathon run in 1990 was “two hours, 50 something”. In fact he ran it in four hours and a minute.
Now who cares whether he ran a single marathon or not? But to be stupid enough to lie about something that is on the public record and has nothing to do with politics (but everything to do with the character) is stupifying. I guess there are degrees of dishonesty and the massaging of facts among all politicians, but this takes the biscuit, and is massively unnecessary. Fortunately, it will not make the slightest difference in the US general election, because it will be ignored by the media and supporters so often vote on their prejudices, unalloyed by fact.
But you see what Epicurus meant. Plus ca change……
And now, inthe UK, the new Chairman of the ruling Conservative Party, Grant Shapps, is accused of secretly altering his Wikipedia biography to edit out references to his school exams (only 5 O levels – you can barely get a delivery job with 5 O Levels), his political gaffes and the identity of the property companies who are alleged to have given him money, a conflict of interest with his prior government job.
The Conservative party used to present itself at least as a party of gentlemen.
The problem for Epicureans is that by shrugging at all this you are really condoning it.