Do talking heads count?

Sure! Anyone, prominent, really. I quoted clergy: talking heads are entirely fair game.

You could probably get a few gems from Limbaugh, who broke the law to get painkillers (for his legitimate pain) even though his denunciations of drug use applied to his own behavior.

I can see how that seems at least as fair as the last example I gave. But I wondered if I would regret it, and needed clarify further. I probably should have.

I'm not trying to point to people who have espouse good values and yet don't live up to them: I think we all qualify for that.

My point regards people who say or imply they believe in something and actually don't. This is the concept of "hypocrisy", which people fail to understand these days, so I've even tried to avoid the word.

Let me use my own case: I believe it's wrong to lust after women I'm not married to. But I admit I can't live up to that. If I found myself addicted to painkillers, as Rush was, I would still believe we shouldn't live our lives addicted to drugs. This is not hypocrisy, this is simply having standards.

But I don't believe our embezzler actually believed his behavior was wrong: From what was reported above, he was irate at the fact that taxes were being taken, and decided he was owed. If so, this wasn't an example of someone who fails to live up to his own high standard, this is someone who doesn't HAVE a standard, but affects one when convenient.

And yes, if I had to guess, I'd guess Limbaugh probably was harder about that issue before his own encounter with painkillers. But if so, the issue may be a lack of compassion, not deliberate hypocrisy. (Or not even that, if he had distinguished between recreational drug use and abuse of prescribed medication.) Oxycontin was, from what I've heard, quite a lot more addictive than admitted, and I'm sure Rush was far from being the only person snared by that.

Mark Foley opposed child abuse and exploitation but propositioned teenage pages.

I don't necessarily see any conflict there: According to all accounts, Foley scrupulously waited until the pages turned 18 before propositioning them.

I find that behavior slimy myself, and am not at all defending it -- but there's a huge difference between asking an 18 year old page for consensual sex and abusing a child. This argument presumes that ten or more years of development (and the consent of an adult) make no difference in the legal nor moral status of sex. Yet the law and common sense say otherwise.

(Though it's always interesting to watch Democrats suddenly become prudish! Now that's hypocrisy, because for so many it's clearly a value they don't otherwise pretend to hold.)

Now if Foley had been arguing for traditional family structures as a prerequisite to sex (one man + one woman), and clearly didn't believe it, then I think this example would fit in with the pattern I've described above.

And, again, I'm most interested in cases where the accusation itself violates the very ethic being pretended (as in two-thirds of the cases above).

Also, he was also on welfare for a while (though not while using drugs, IIRC.) I'd be willing to bet I could find a screed or two against welfare from Limbaugh.

I think I'm seeing that I (and many conservatives I know) have rather different understanding of hypocrisy than most people today.

For example, Clarence Thomas was accused of hypocrisy for allegedly (a) having benefited from affirmative actions and (b) being opposed to it. Of course, affirmative action is so ingrained in US life -- particularly academia and the government -- that if that kind of reasoning weren't fallacious, no minority could ever allegedly speak against it with integrity.

But the argument is fallacious: I could be a slaveholder's son, and still think slavery, though it brought me many good things, was immoral. This is true whether I always disagreed with it, or whether I recently changed my mind.

Was Rush against all forms of welfare? (I'm fairly conservative, and I'm not.) And did he speak against it? And aren't people allowed to change their minds? I was once a huge Jimmy Carter fan. Am I now a hypocrite if I say he's an unhelpful persona?

Again, to clarify the difference, I think hypocrisy is pretending to espouse a value you don't actually believe is good. But arguments from the left usually use "hypocrisy" in a way which omits nuance, human weakness, and learning: in essence, they use "hypocrisy" to mean "holding standards higher than one's own behavior."

If I argue an intact family is best, but I find myself divorced I'm a hypocrite to them. If I argue it's wrong to lust, but they catch me sneaking a peak at the Playboy Channel, I'm a hypocrite. Not just a human who can't live up to my own best ideals.

So it's best not to argue for those kinds of ideals in the first place. As some would say at college: the only sin is hypocrisy. By which they meant that it was okay to be utterly promiscuous, but if you suggested that was wrong, you were expected to be utterly and completely perfect. In this way it could be made to seem morally worse look at Penthouse, but hold a sexual ethic, than to cheat on your girlfriend or wife with many other women.

What they viewed as the worst thing ever I view as an essential step of maturity, and something important to our society: one must hold standards which one can't necessarily live up to. Otherwise, the highest standard we can suggest is the least-bad thing we've ever done.

One last note: I could have accused the tax cheat of being a hypocrite since he was (a) a Democrat, and (b) didn't want to pay high taxes.

But I deliberately avoided that because it didn't fit: He wasn't accusing Republicans (as far as the article said) on the basis of tax policy, while violating it. It could be that he was a Democrat who disagreed with the normal stance.

So he's a hypocrite regarding ethics, but not at all regarding taxes. It's just not enough to say someone's member of a group that believes X, and then accuse them of being a hypocrite because they apparently don't. You have to look at their own words and actions.

One last illustration: Bill Bennett was accused of hypocrisy because he'd gamble. But gambling is typically opposed by Baptists, not Catholics (who hold bingo games in their churches sometimes!).

You can't accuse one person of hypocrisy because many members of his group hold a different standard in some area. You have to look at their own professed standards.

fatigue to fantastic
recomended by pontabinaco. but too much reliance on drugs.

melatonin

if I found myself addicted to painkillers, as Rush was, I would still believe we shouldn't live our lives addicted to drugs.

One of Rush's points was that people don't "find" themselves addicted to drugs, but that they choose to be so. If oxycontin's addictive nature was misrepresented to people, that might change the situation somewhat. Perhaps I'm just more familiar with how drugs work that the nature of this drug seems kindof obvious. It's an opiod similar to opium and heroin. The fact that it required a prescription should have been a tipoff. But maybe pain made Rush do things he wouldn't have done in a more rational state.

I mean, if she wants to legalize drugs, send the people who want to do drugs to London and Zurich and let's be rid of them. Now...The problem with legalizing drugs is, it's just another abhorrent example of human behavior that we've suddenly decided, "Hey, we can't handle it. We've given up and we're going to sanction the destruction of lives. We're going to let you destroy your life. We're going to make it easy, and then all of us who accept the responsibilities of life and don't destroy our lives on drugs--we'll pay for whatever messes you get into."...

I'm appalled at people who simply want to look at all this abhorrent behavior and say, "Hey, you know, we can't control it anymore. People are going to do drugs anyway. Let's legalize it." It's a dumb idea. It's a rotten idea, and those who are for it are purely, 100 percent selfish.

--Rush Limbaugh TV show (12/9/93)

I could entirely believe that Rush's problem is a lack of compassion. But he hasn't ever sought to differentiate between those who use drugs recreationally and those who use it as a form of self medication for pain or for the side effects of chemotherapy, or something similar. If he had, and I've just missed it I'd be willing to consider changing my view.

Furthermore, he calls those who want legalization categorically selfish. (Because anyone opposed to him has bad motives, of course.) Not "sympathetic but misguided", but selfish. If he wanted an exception for, say, medical marijuana and similar drugs, or even softer sentences or rehab for such people (as he seemed to have gotten), he had his chance to say so.

Prosecutors agreed to drop the charge if Limbaugh paid $30,000 to defray the cost of the investigation and completed an eighteen month therapy regimen with his physician. Limbaugh has argued that those who use drugs illegally should be sent to jail. Specifically, Limbaugh said that not enough white people were being subjected to this type of punishment. The problem isn't simply that Limbaugh failed to live up to his ideals, but that he reccomended a specific punishment for people who violated his ideals, and then managed to avoid that specific punishment because of his wealth.

Granted, religiously Limbaugh isn't 'conservative' in that he doesn't dovetail with the religoius right and has said so.

I agree with the Clarence Thomas exmaple. A person isn't responsible for actions that they didn't take.
If Thomas was speaking out against affirmative action long before he rose to the top of the political food chain, then I don't mind if he benefitted from it against his will. However if he only started speaking out against affirmative action once he was in a position of prominence and power, and stood to benefit from his opposition, I'd be more suspect of his sudden change of rhetoric. It's not overt hippocracy, but British law was of the opinion that silence regarding an act before you was a form of consent. I honestly don't know the details of Thomas's background, so I didn't use him as an example.

It's an opiod similar to opium and heroin.

opiod -> opiod agonist

recomended by pontabinaco. but too much reliance on drugs.

I'm sorry: I didn't quite understand this. Are some words missing? And want's a "pontabinaco"? Google seems to never have heard of it. (Though I have no doubt Random Observations is even now rapidly becoming the #1 "pontabinaco" site in the world!)

One of Rush's points was that people don't "find" themselves addicted to drugs, but that they choose to be so.

Well, I'd say he's probably wrong on this one. One might argue that fighting to kick the habit is always an option, but I have no doubt people, following their doctor's orders, found themselves with an unwelcomed dependence.

If he said it at the same time as his addiction -- while saying such abuse is bad, then we've got hypocrisy. Otherwise, well, not.

I notice the quotes are from '93, so apparently not.

I could entirely believe that Rush's problem is a lack of compassion.

Me too. Full disclosure: I'm not a huge Rush fan. When I first heard his show, in the early 1990s, I often agreed with the general direction of his comments, and was very glad there was another voice saying something else than what I heard in the other media, but his style (me! me! me!) annoyed me endlessly and put me off.

Furthermore, he calls those who want legalization categorically selfish.

Yes, that seems like a flaky argument. Misguided? I'd agree to that also. Selfish? Huh??? (Another disclosure: I think most people -- me included -- are selfish. But it's a non-sequitur here.)

As I said, I'm hardly a Limbaugh fan.

Limbaugh has argued that those who use drugs illegally should be sent to jail... and then managed to avoid that specific punishment because of his wealth.

Again, if he said these things during the same period of time, I agree. But if there's a decade or so in between (and an unwanted addiction) it may be reasonable to give him room to have learned a little about what it's like to be other people and have changed his mind.

In the examples I give above, the commit/accuse pattern is happening simultaneously. If you're having to stretch to find examples of words and actions over a decade apart, it may be a sign that you're doing a conscientious job of trying to make a weak argument as best as it can be made.

I feel I have a much better example from the right: During Clinton's impeachment, Dan Burton (R) was decrying Clinton's sexual behavior while carrying on an affair. (This criticism does not apply to Gingrich, who only spoke publicly against Clinton's perjury.)

But even that still isn't my preferred case: where the very accusation itself violates its own pretended ethic.

A person isn't responsible for actions that they didn't take. If Thomas was speaking out against affirmative action long before he rose to the top of the political food chain, then I don't mind if he benefitted from it against his will.

I wouldn't care if it wasn't against his will. I also end up doing things I believe I shouldn't -- and it's hardly against my will. But that doesn't make me a hypocrite for thinking what I did was actually wrong and saying so.

Let's say I lived in a society which only allowed whites into power. This allowed me (as I'm quite pale) to get into power -- I knew full well that I was getting slight edge because of it, because perhaps some otherwise-worthy non-white opponents might have been wrongly disqualified. And yet I said, once there, that I thought that system was wrong and unhelpful.

Hypocrisy? I think not. I'd be cheered as a hero. So I don't see why the morality is suddenly different if we substitute "black" for "white" and weakened "allowed only" to "encouraged".

Implicitly, perhaps. He claimed that 78% of every dollar for welfare was eaten up in overhead.

I've heard the same point from Starr Parker, a black woman who also opposes welfare -- though she actually started out as a poor "welfare mom". And I don't see why it being true or not makes a difference. (See below.)

As I said, he might have been in favor of it at one point, and changed his mind politically. Again, I once was a fan of Carter, and now I oppose him. There's no hypocrisy there, it's just called "learning." This would even be true if I'd somehow benefited from Carter.

I would ask what the implications of painting with such a broad and dishonest brush would be.

Well, if *Rush* originated the lie, then we don't need to go further: I assume we'd just condemn him for lying, not hypocrisy.

But if it's simply a mistaken number he repeated, I don't see what relevance that has to his character. Much less the alleged topic of this thread.

(Note: I'm enjoying this conversation, and your good attempt to meet my challenge. Thank you! You might not have guessed that from the final sentence above, so I just thought I'd toss it in here, explicitly.)

I'm sorry: I didn't quite understand this.

Terribly sorry. I have a habit of saving all my messages in text files since I've lost long messages when browsers crashed. That was from a different conversation.

I also end up doing things I believe I shouldn't -- and it's hardly against my will. But that doesn't make me a hypocrite for thinking what I did was actually wrong and saying so.

I'm concerned with people who support an ethical standard until their situation changes, in which case they change their beliefs to maximize their personal benefit (monitarily or psychologically). It undermines the virtue of whatever standard they're arguing for, because it's not really a 'standard' at all. Though if Limbaugh came forward and said "I've changed my mind about drug use. I believe that people who use drugs should get treatments and fines rather than jailtime" I'd be willing to consider that maybe he has changed his mind because he's learned from his experiences. I'm not aware that he's ever gone on the record with such a statement, though. But maybe I just missed it in my hasty search.

Let's say I lived in a society which only allowed whites into power. This allowed me ... to get into power ...And yet I said, once there, that I thought that system was wrong and unhelpful.

Hypocrisy? I think not. I'd be cheered as a hero. So I don't see why the morality is suddenly different if we substitute "black" for "white" and weakened "allowed only" to "encouraged".

For all I know, Thomas may have been a longstanding opponent of affirmative action. I don't claim to know the first thing about his background. I do think something's wrong if a person's standards change radically in response to what benefits them. It implies that their statements are not based on ethical stadards at all, but rather the opportunism of the moment. Such opportunism easily turns into hypocricy. Also, Thomas criticized the standard itself and never, so far as I'm aware, criticized the people who benefited from affirmative action. That may offer him an 'out' from 'hypocricy' charges. Rush might get off of the 'hypocricy' charge for welfare on the same ticket.

And being cheered as a hero and being hypocritical are not always mutually exclusive.

I'm enjoying this conversation, and your good attempt to meet my challenge. Thank you!

Thanks, and likewise!

But if it's simply a mistaken number he repeated, I don't see what relevance that has to his character.

He said it and similar figures on several occasions. I would assume that if it was wrong, he'd be confronted on the matter. He may be plausibly accurate or he may have misled people, but I'm hesitant to apply the 'mistaken' category. Especially considering his profession, his professional resources, and the responsibilities which go with them. Though perhaps hypocricy isn't the best word for that stance, since I couldn't find attacks against actual people on welfare (in a quick search).

Though I suppose limbaugh's comments don't technically fit the 'simultaneous' requirement in the same way that Obama's do.

Someone speaking out against welfare after having gotten off of it is not the same as some currently milking the system speaking against it, which would be completely hypocritical.

It highly likely a FORMER welfare recipient would be in the BEST position to speak to the corrupting, debilitating nature of the process and after freeing themselves from (like an addict getting free of their addiction) the system, having the clearest voice about the danger.

William M. - Sure, but one argument Rush seemed to be giving, which I cited, was that welfare was a highly inefficient form of charity. And so far as I can discern, his statements were incorrect. There must be some advantage to the system, or he wouldn't have used it. I've conceded that his actions regarding welfare might not actually be hypocrisy, per se. But I'm not sure the addict/addiction comparison is entirely apt, either.