Quote:
Originally Posted by David Sklansky
Forget extreme hypotheticals. You know something that will switch votes away from Trump but shouldn't as far as you are concerned. You know that you would sit on it if it was the other candidate.
The entire thread is an extreme hypothetical. Nobody, including yourself, on this forum has ever been the sole person who knows about some big vote-switching piece of information.
What happens to anyone in political discussion is not whether they omit publicly unknown facts, its that they omit publicly known facts. If we argue to persuade, we may not provide every possible fact that hinders our arguments. It is a part of thinking about public discourse as an exercise of power. And generally this is "ok".
I also think your "extreme hypothetical" really depends on the role you play. The most common such examples seem to the release of private sexual information. I'm generally of the opinion that as part of journalistic ethics, they should air on the side of restraint about airing such things. As in, I don't think the media has a duty to report, say, that someone is gay or having an affair. However, if I'm a democratic operative trying to get my guy elected (as in my role is explicitly about exercising power), then it is entirely reasonable they should try to get the media to report the affair or whatever.