> The way to combat mistaken beliefs is to allow them to voice their views, then refute their arguments, not to call them liars and suppress their views. And ev

> The way to combat mistaken beliefs is to allow them to voice their views, then refute their arguments, not to call them liars and suppress their views. And even if they do not accept the refutation, the arguments should be left up for people to read and make their informed choice. Isn't this what has happened with Trump? He said the election was a fraud, he hasn't been able to provide any evidence at all, and no (IIRC) people responsible for election security have said that there was fraud. Yet Trump continues to say that there was election fraud. At that point it is a lie. In fact, I'd say the opposite of your argument: calling lies "mistaken beliefs", specially when they came from politicians with an agenda, is what allowed to create different realities for different groups and what is undermining democracy. Giving attention and importance to inaccurate facts and then debating the reality of facts gives people the impression that both sides are actually reasonable, when in reality one's true and the other's false. Climate change is the best example of this: for some reason, politicians and other figures have been allowed to say that they "didn't believe in climate change" and managed to move a matter of scientific fact to a matter of opinion. When you let lies go unaccounted and presented as "beliefs", you allow liars to create their own alternate realities. People don't have to know the truth, just believe whatever their group leaders say. And once the realities of different groups are separate enough, truths stop mattering and it just matters who do you follow.