Cries of Hypocrisy
By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in General PoliticsI’ve noticed an interesting new line of attack against Democrats. Populist hypocrisy – the idea that it is disingenuous for politicians like Al Gore, John Edwards and Nancy Pelosi to ask for sacrifices from the rest of us while respectively running up huge electric bills, building massive mansions and requesting private jets. It doesn’t matter that all three cases are not nearly as cut-and-dry as the headlines make them seem. What matters is the perception of hypocrisy.
This is an interesting line of attack. After all, two of the Democrats greatest and most effective champions of the poor, Franklin Roosevelt and Robert Kennedy, were filthy rich. Were they hypocrites because they feasted while worrying about those going hungry?
Here’s where rightwing critics miss the point: Democrats hardly ever ask us to personally sacrifice. What they ask us to do is support government-based solutions. Yes, personal initiative is welcome (particularly in Gore’s cures for climate crisis) but, ultimately, all they’re asking is that we elect leaders who will marshal the power of government to address liberal concerns. Eventually we’ll have to pay higher taxes (particularly if we’re wealthy) but that’s a down-the-road matter.
The Republicans are the ones that generally demand personal initiative – whether it’s staying chaste before marriage or pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps without government assistance. A Republican politician who, for unfathomable reasons, was on welfare while cutting funds to that program would be a hypocrite. But a Democrat who lives in a mansion while increasing welfare spending is not.
The Democrats err not in failing to abandon privilege but in failing to look outside government power for solutions. John Edwards supports more government programs for the poor. But what if he instead supported living humbly and giving excess wealth to charity? Does not earnest sacrifice trump a willingness to pay higher taxes?
Morally, yes. But practically? Could we really be economically successful if we gave up the very-American desire to accumulate and then spend wealth? It’s vastly more realistic to just tax the hell out of ourselves than it is to expect each individual to willingly surrender wealth, however noble the cause. Unfortunately, most Democrats don’t even try to develop solutions based on individual initiative. They go right for the Big Government Spending Program.
But that’s another topic. In the case of Republicans labeling Democrats hypocrites, the tactic will fail simply because Republican politicians are just as ungodly rich and privileged as Democratic ones. As far as I’m concerned, what policies our leaders support matters much more than how they choose to live.
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March 8th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Let us look at the attack dog’s comments listed above further:\
*How about we examine the utility bills of the detractors & decide if Al Gore’s is out of line compared to theirs.
* Gore is rebuilding an existing house rather than razing it, saving energy & raw maTerials needed in the razing & construction of a new one. It’s size is hardly a mansion, being about twice the size of the normal house built today, without the need for conference & office space needed for the many meetings necessarily held there. Again, let us compare the size of Conservative leaders homes + offices compared to Gore’s.
* Pelosi did not order a private jet but a military one, which is normal for Senior politicians & those in line for the Presidency. Also, it was the Sargent at Arms of the Senate who made the request, & it was the military who does not have a plane capable of flying from DC to her home i California.
Talk about hypocrisy!
March 8th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
You’re absolutely correct. Democrats don’t ask us for personal sacrifices. No, they demand it of us, impose it upon us by law. They wish to impose upon us choices which they themselves are unwilling to make (in these examples) and which they, because of their own wealth, privilege, and political station in life, are unlikely to have imposed upon them even if they are imposed on the rest of us.
I’m trying to remember… did Democrats jump up and say it was irrelevant that George H.W. Bush (41) didn’t know the price of a gallon of milk, or did they say that reflected how out of touch he was with society?
March 8th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
As to your last paragraph, the difference between Republicans and Democrats is that rich Republicans don’t build political careers railing against the evil, pernicious rich. Rich Democrats do. Both classes of rich people may be bad or good in their own right, but only one of them is being hypocritical about it.
I certainly agree with your general point that the policies our leaders adopt is more important than how they choose to live their lives. But there can be relevance there. For example, the fact that so many Democrats with means choose to send their kids to private schools rather than public ones is one indication, among many, that our public schools are not very good, and that perhaps we should consider something more than the usual Democratic solution of further empowering the teachers’ unions and giving blanket pay raises rather than merit-based ones. On the Republican side, the fact that so many prominent Republican advocates for stronger families have been divorced suggests that perhaps we do need to maintain our no-fault divorce laws.
March 8th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
“You’re absolutely correct. Democrats don’t ask us for personal sacrifices. No, they demand it of us, impose it upon us by law.”
If you’re going to use blustering rhetoric give concrete examples. Where, in your own life, have you been forced to sacrifice in the name of a democratic initiative?
BTW: If you think the “Al Gore power bill”, “Edwards McMansion”, or “Pelosi Planegate” are examples of democratic hypocrisy you’re obviously only interested in talking points.
March 8th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Pat,
I dunno. I don’t see Democrats imposing much on me besides wanting to redistribute my wealth to other people and causes (they’re not making me work in a soup kitchen). If you want to talk about Democrats’ willingness to place impositions on business, you may have a point. But no one is accusing Edwards or Gore of running a business that pollutes the environment or denies unionization. As far as I know, the Democratic platform does not advocate the forfeiture of mansions — only that the owners of said mansions are willing to pay a crap load in taxes. As long as a millionaire Democrat isn’t dodging those taxes, it’s not hypocritical for them to live in a mansion.
As a side note, it’s just as silly for those on the right to claim you have to give away your wealth in order to earnestly support the poor as it is for those on the left to claim you have to join the military in order to earnestly support the war. Such standards are worthless.
March 8th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
“Limousine Liberalism” has been a political clarion of the conservatives for a long time and will continue to be effective.
Micheal Moore can rhetorically say, “I want a 70% tax bracket for the wealthiest Americans.” But in the meantime, he runs his business like a Republican. The hypocrasy isn’t that they are rich and want redistributive policies, but rather that they used the very system they allegedly hate to live luxurious lives of wealth. If Barbara Streisand had to “become” successful under Barabara Streisand policies, she probably would have never become the Streisand that makes makes me what to vomit today.
The essence of the Limousine Liberalism — “Now that I’ve got mine, screw the rest of you, It is time for reform!” And that is hypocrasy. This mentality is perfectly exemplified in Boulder County, Colorado with the following: Now that I have my mansion built on the side of the mountain, we must stop allowing construction…you know, for the environment.”
March 8th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Neither FDR nor Robert Kennedy asked us to make sacrifices they were unwilling to make themselves. It’s the hypocrisy of Gore and Edwards which gets to me. I don’t have a problem with Pelosi on this issue. I don’t recall her ever berating other politicians about not flying coach.
Gore preaches about reducing energy consumption while consuming 15x the energy that the average consumer does.
Edwards rails against the abuses of the rich, while living in the most valuable house in his entire county.
Both of these men have it well within their power to walk their own talk, yet have not done so. It’s the hypocrisy.
March 8th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Increasing taxes on things takes them away from people. If gasoline taxes go up by $2 a gallon, that’s going to prevent many poor and middle class people to go without as much gasoline as they’ve used in the past. Maybe that’s a good thing, maybe not, but it is imposing something on them.
And I have no idea, frankly, what policies Al Gore actually wants to implement, because he’s tried to make everybody by into his “doom is nigh” campaign rather than push for specific policies. A legislator in California has proposed banning the sale of general purpose incandescent lights. That’s an imposition.
Actually making significant cuts to CO2 emissions by the people in this country will require a whole lot of changes of behavior. It’s not all going to be accomplished by “alternative energy,” and even if it is, that alternative energy is likely to be more expensive (certainly going to be more expensive in the short term), forcing people to do without things they would otherwise have because they have to spend the money instead on the alternative energy or the taxes or what have you.
March 8th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Alan, Exactly the kind of debate we need to have to better our Govrnmnt instead of following a party blindly, like rooting for our favorite team no matter how bad they are, they’re better than the bums on the other side!
Now, when you say, “Dems. don’t ask us to personally sacrifice.” I disagree. Didn’t JFK make a career out of doing just that? Clinton publically called on the younger generation to join, I believe, the peace corps, mirroring JFK. I do agree with you that the Dems. believe that Gov. should work FOR the people, and, like you suggested, the trick is not over-reaching and raising taxes. Didn’t Clinton administration succeed in shrinking the Gov, while reducing the deficit to the point of surplus?
It’s the Repub. rhetoric that “demanding chastity before marriage” must be at the expense of common sense birth control. Then if a young woman gets pregnant she MUST have the baby for all sorts of reasons that suits their beliefs, but then they abandon the help the new family will need because “they need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps w/o Gov assistance…” To me that’s not moral, just unrealistic ideals done more for the religious right than for their own practical values.
All I know is that we’re constantly lied to by the Republicans in charge, and they rationalize it by believing it’s for the ‘greater good of the country’. The only problem is you can’t keep living the lie when you’re DEAD WRONG all the time.
March 8th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Clearly I over-simplified for the sake of brevity. There is definitely hypocrisy from limosine liberals just as there is hypocrisy from priviledge conservatives who preach family values while living lives of indulgence. My point isn’t that there is no hypocrisy in the Democratic worldview, just that these recent cries of hypocrisy are more rhetoric than reality.
Edwards, for instance, does not talk about the execesses of the rich so much as he claims the system is rigged in favor of the rich. The fact that he himself is rich and benefits from the system does not mean he can’t still want to reform government. I assume he is more the willing to pay whatever ridiculous taxes he wants to levy on people such as himself — until someone shows me that he’s been dodging his tax burden, I just don’t see how being rich makes him a hypocrite.
As for Gore, he’s concerned about our carbon footprint. It’s not really about how much power we consume as it is about being carbon nuetral. By all accounts, Gore practices what he preaches by using green energy when possible and purchasing those carbon vouchers (sorry, don’t remember what those are called) to offset the rest. I’m sure he could do better, but it’s silly to just look at his high power bill and assume he’s a hypocrite.
I attack the Dems a lot. But I try not to get caught up in spin jobs like this whole hypocrite offensive. It’s just not what the debate is really about.
As for who asks us to sacrifice, I stand down for now. That was a side comment that would take another post to cover in full.
March 9th, 2007 at 7:29 am
Cool, you deserve as lot of credit for makin some good points you knew you were gonna get in trouble for. What was so hypocritical to me,though, was during the first 100 days agenda the Dems were trying to push through the house, there were the Repub leaders whining bout excessive plane trips, corrupt ex-war heroes (Murtha), Pelosi losing control of her own caucus, bla, bla, bla…give me a break!!! They’re not gettin it (the Repubs), a change is gonna come, you ain’t seen nothin yet… OR NOT?
March 9th, 2007 at 11:02 am
Being rich doesn’t make Al Gore a hypocrite. Bill Gates is both richer and uses more energy in his home than Gore does, but nobody calls him on it. Jimmy Swaggart got in a heap of trouble for his sexual misadventures yet Ted Kennedy gets a pass for his. Similarly, Al Gore is going to be held to a different standard from the rank-and-file person, and rightly so.
Gore is like a guy who drives his Chevy Suburban to work while telling others to conserve gasoline, then points out that he keeps his tires at recommended inflation and doesn’t leave it idling overnight, so it’s all OK.
March 9th, 2007 at 11:50 am
Edwards does the exact same thing I do and most intelligent self-employed professionals. He pays himself a “reasonable” salary from his company in which he pays the app. 15% social security (self-employment) tax and the remaining profits are distributed to him via dividends at the capital gains rates. If Edwards believes in a huge social security net, then he should stop his tax avoidance and pay ss on his total income. (Maybe he already has.) True reform starts in the mirror.
March 9th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Edward’s lifestyle doesn’t bother me much. I think he’s sincere about helping the disadvantaged, although I don’t believe he has a clue as to how. The poor need help, but the right kind of help. Not just handouts. That clearly has not worked.
On the other hand, I think Gore is a self-serving idiot. To me, he’s just pushing his own personal agenda, mostly because he believes only he is correct. He wants EVERYBODY on the entire planet to change to his liking. That’s just completly arrogant. It’s like he thinks he’s God on earth.
To make matters worse, the more closely you explore his global warming “thesis”, the more holes you can poke in the so-called science behind it. And he wants to stifle the scientific debate, obviously so he can’t be proven incorrect which would cause his whole new belief system to collaspe.
It’s terribly important to expose the hypocrisy of a dangerous and power/fame/glory hungry man like Gore before he can completely consolidate the power he so lustfully desires.
March 12th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
I absolutely can’t plug this documentary (which is floating all over the blogosphere) enough: The Great Global Warming Swindle. I am not a partisan on this issue, because I make no pretenses at being a scientist (unlike al-Gor). However, when anyone says, “the debate is over” (be it global warming, evolution, exc.) I tend to think that the debate is in fact NOT over. Anyway, this an eye-opening, intelligent rebuttal of Inconvenient Truth – which I no longer believe is even remotely associated with the truth.
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=9005566792811497638&q=global+warming+swindle
March 14th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Pelosi gets the jet post 9/11 cause she’s the house speaker,period.And don’t shoot the messengers.How dumb do you think we,the readers,are?
March 14th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Sacrifice
Alan Stewart Carl has an interesting (but ultimately unpersuasive) post up at Donklephant, arguing that charges of environmentalist hypocrisy against Pelosi, Gore et al are misplaced. Two points merit response here…