Obamacare only became law because Obama lied by saying that under the law "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it."
Obama doesn't use truth as a strategy but that doesn't change the fact that Cato was a very successful politician when it comes to people respecting his positions.
I suspect that many on the left knew at the time Obama was lying about this but kept quiet because they really wanted the law to pass. They won.
The didn't lose but they also didn't get the single payer health care they wanted.
I think US politics is ready for someone like Cato to come up and take it over. You don't win in politics by telling a bit less lies than your opponents. On the other hand actually being honest has it's advantages.
Scott, known on LessWrong as Yvain, recently wrote a post complaining about an inaccurate rape statistic.
Arthur Chu, who is notable for winning money on Jeopardy recently, argued against Scott's stance that we should be honest in arguments in a comment thread on Jeff Kaufman's Facebook profile, which can be read here.
Scott just responded here, with a number of points relevant to the topic of rationalist communities.
I am interested in what LW thinks of this.
Obviously, at some point being polite in our arguments is silly. I'd be interested in people's opinions of how dire the real world consequences have to be before it's worthwhile debating dishonestly.