Plastic Bag Hypocrisy?

The NY Times had an editorial endorsing a bill to require retailers to charge $0.10 for each plastic bag they provide custormers.

There were several news articles on this bill, and although I am not sure, I think the charge does not require the NY Times to charge for the plastic bags they provide customers.

Of course it is possible, though unlikely, that NY Times editorial writers think the ill effects of plastic bags described by the NY Times (litter, clogged storm drains) do not come from newspaper bags. If they are that clueless, then they are not hypocrites.

The NY Times editorial is here.
A news report, from another publication is here.

Hillel Foundation, the American Studies Association and Hypocrisy

 A few weeks ago, the American Studies Association (ASA) voted to boycott all Israeli scholars (I think that means no Israeli could present papers at meetings - of course, why any Israeli would be presenting papers at meetings of the American Studies Association is an open question. The ASA boycott was based, on the 'lack of effective academic freedom of Palestinian scholars and students...".  The ASA boycott was opposed by numerous organizations including the Hillel Foundation.

For some years, the Hillel Foundation (We are contributors to the Hillel Foundation), has had a policy to reject the formal participation of those who boycott Israel at official Hillel events.

Recently, one Hillel (the Swathmore campus Hillel) voted to call itself the 'open Hillel' and to allow such participation.

Supporters of the Hillel at Swathmore have accused the national Hillel foundation of being hypocritical in opposing the ASA boycott while undertaking a boycott of their own. 

For Hillel not to be hypocritical, there must be substantive difference between the two cases, and, there is.

1. The ASA policy bans all Israelis, whatever their belief, whatever their academic merit, whatever the topic of the presentation or paper. The national Hillel policy bans only individuals.

2. The ASA policy aims at a highly tangential population and seems odd on its face. After all, how many Israelis are even interested in American studies. The national Hillel policy bans a group that is much larger (a lot of anti Israel groups are on American campus).

3. The ASA policy seems to single out Israel and, in fact, their boycott policy falls under the national Hillel policy (which dates a few years before the ASA boycott). That is, the national Hillel policy mentions boycotts and those with double standards (the ASA doesn't seem to acknowledge that some groups are discriminated against other than Palestinians). 

Thus, I don't think Hillel can be fairly called hypocritical in this case.

Notwithstanding that, I personally, don't understand the national Hillel policy. It seems to me that national Hillel ought to allow, on a case by case basis, supporters of the boycott, those with double standards, etc. to address Hillel if such persons are otherwise of good will.

The open Hillel policy is here.
The national Hillel policy is here.
Information on the ASA policy is here.
A NYTimes editorial following a NYState Legislature action is here

You're a slease; Oh yeah, you're worse, you're a hypocrite.

The primary for the Democratic candidate for Governor of Maryland is this year. The leading candidates are Doug Gansler (left, the current Attorney General of Maryland) and Anthony Brown (right, the current Lieutenant Governor of Maryland).

Gansler implied Brown was unethical because Brown's campaign had accepted some $30k or so of donations from individuals in firms with ongoing contracts building, maintaining or managing the State Healthcare website (the Maryland health care website is arguably the third worst of the nations worst performing health care websites - Oregon and Minnesota are worst. In addition, Brown was formally tasked by Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley with leading the website effort).  Gansler does not use the word 'hypocrite' nor does he imply any criminal or civil wrong doing. He does however fail to mention that the $30k involved is below 1% of the Brown campaign funds raised so far.

Brown countered by accusing Gansler of hypocrisy because Gansler's campaign had accepted contributions from individuals in companies that do business with the State (the scale of this is unknown). 

Gansler then said that the latter contributions (that is the ones to the Gansler campaign) are less important that the former (that is the ones to Brown) because the individuals in companies that contributed to the Gansler campaign were awarded contracts based on bidding while the firms that contributed to Brown are in an ongoing effort managed by Brown. Gansler could have said (he did not) that the contributions to Brown's campaign were a type of protection racket given that many of these firms should be fired for bad work.

First up, Gansler. He didn't accuse Brown of hypocrisy. 
Next up Brown. He did accuse Gansler of hypocrisy. Gansler's defense, that is, that the two situations are dissimilar, is a reasonable one even if the dissimilarity isn't that much (by the way, Gansler's implication that all Maryland contracts awarded by bid are on the up and up is laughable - bidding language can be, and frequently is 'tilted' to produce certain results- and selection panels are easily influenced by 'hints'). 

In fact, I think that maybe the issue that Gansler was trying to emphasize was that the website that Brown was 'in charge of' isn't working.

The idea for this post came from Irwin. He had seen an article in the Baltimore Sun that reported on these issues.

Update on Professor Schwyzer

It turns out there is more to the story below. The Professor recently was driving under the influence of alcohol and injured a woman in an auto accident. In addition the Professor admitted that he had continued to date students for several years after he had claimed to have broken the habit. He also admitted (or perhaps bragged) that he had conned his way into a position in the gender studies department at Pasadena City College.

The above courtesy of a post at insideHighered

Professor Admits He is a Hypocrite but is he

At the left is Professor Hugo Schwyzer, who is a professor in the Gender studies department at Pasadena City College in California.

He is known for teaching a course on pornography, once bringing in a famous porn star to lecture the class (his academic training is in history and literature). He is also known for appearing on the Ricky Lake show to brag that he had a circumcision at the age of 37. He was also known an a principle contributor to the 'good men project'. One issue that he influenced was the doctrine that to be a 'good man' you should confine yourself to marriage and prior to marriage you should date women your own age.

He recently sent a series of tweets admitting to unfaithfulness with much younger women. In an admission to a reporter, he said that these things were acts of hypocrisy, but, that it was because he was weak willed. If he is telling the truth about the weak will he has found an exception to the hypocrisy definition but if he was just sorry he was going to be caught he is a hypocrite.

A tweet indicated that he would not teach further courses in gender studies and hoped to teach a Western Civilization course (which would be consistent with his academic study).

The above could be an article in The Onion but its not.

Professor Schwyzer's bio is available at wikipedia.
The interview noted above is courtesy of the Daily beast.

Matt Damon and Public Schools

Matt Damon has been an advocate for public schools, for more public spending on public schools, for more status for public school teachers, etc. His mother is a public school teacher and he attended public school growing up. The image shows Damon with his wife Luciana Bozán who was at the time pregnant with a girl who was later named Stella Zavela. He also adopted Luciana's three children from an earlier marriage. Matt and Luciana have three children together (that's six for the family).

Damon moved to Los Angeles in 2012. He recently enrolled all his kids in private school. Some people have accused Damon of hypocrisy.

Damon's argument against enrolling the family in public school was an odd one, it amounted to 'the public schools aren't progressive enough'.

Since I have no idea what 'progressive enough' means in that context and because Damon could have used the privacy argument in justifying private school and because Damon never actually advocated that rich people send their kids to public schools, I'll give Damon a pass on this. 

Interestingly enough though, Damon is starring in a movie called Elysium, about a  future in which rich people live in above ground luxury while the poor live in ground level slums.

A Huffington Post article on this is here.

An article in a Florida paper about this subject using the word 'hypocrite' is here

A wikipedia article on the movie Elysium is here.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium_%28film%29

Grand Mufti of Kashmir and Jammu - music hypocrisy

The Telegraph carries a new report of a religious leader attending, and apparently enjoying a musical show. This same fellow, one, Grand Mufti Azam Bashiruddin Ahmad, had earlier given a fiery anti music sermon and fatwa. That's the Grand Mufti in the hat.

I wondered whether there was some distinction between listening to music (OK) and playing music (not OK) that would justify the Grand Mufti's actions. As near as I can tell, both listening and playing music are criticized by Mohammud. Also since Mohammud's actions are, per scripture, praiseworthy, they are to be emulated and besides the criticism seems to be divinely initiated.

I suppose that the Grand Mufti's actions could be defended if there were some greater purpose; that is, enjoying the music this one time would help some overarching objective but no such defense has come out. Thus I'm going to have to call this one hypocritical. As for the seriousness, it would seem it isn't trivial because, assuming Muslims aren't supposed to listen to music, the pictures of the Grand Sheik enjoying music would weaken the resolve against music (I'm assuming the Grand Sheik is pretty important). Of course if the entire hadith against music is wrong, then it is the sermon that was a problem and the enjoyment of music actually improved things.


article in Telegraph is here
quotes from anti music hadith are here (this source is anti Islam but no muslim has criticized this content as false)

Mira Sucharov Agonizes over Hawkings Supposed Hypocrisy

Several weeks ago, cosmologist Stephen Hawking said he would not attend a conference in Israel in protest of Israel's policy (Hawking claims Israel is occupying Palestinian land but the policy could also be called 'partially administrating' or something (I'm not sure whether Hawking thinks Israel inside the green line is an occupation).

Several opinions came out accusing Hawking of hypocrisy because he uses Israeli made devices to communicate (including the communication of his non attendance at the conference). 

The accusation of hypocrisy, is I think, incorrect because Hawking didn't say 'everyone should attend the conference and then didn't' or 'no one should denounce Israel and then did, both of which would be hypocrisy. Since the two issues are separate, I don't consider it hypocrisy.

However, I may be in the minority. 

An Haaretz blogger named Mira Sucharov, who is also a professor (the second image is her), assumes that this is hypocrisy and agonizes over it and over an event in her (Mira's) life that she thought was hypocrisy but justified, that is, she bought something from a store with a Nazi poster. (something I would not consider hypocritical unless she had previous said to boycott all stores with Nazi posters).


Mira's column is here.

An opinion piece in a British Newspaper on the Hawkings non attendance of the Israel conference is here.

An Endorsement of Hypocrisy

Larry Flynt (that's him in the image) is the publisher of Hustler magazine. In today's news was word that Flynt is endorsing former Governor Mark Sanford for a House seat in South Carolina. Flynt is also donating funds to Sanford's campaign.

The reason Flynt gives is that while he dislikes Sanford on policy, he likes Sanford for exposing the hypocrisy of traditional marriage.

Actually, Flynt means to say (I think) that Sanford is a hypocrite and also was a pro family value conservative.  (Sanford, while governor of South Carolina) famously flew to Argentina to carry on an affair while telling his wife and the media that he was hiking the Appalachian trail.

I'll not comment on whether Sanford was a hypocrite or Flynt is one. Its just interesting that someone puts money into his pro hypocrisy opinion.

News article on Flynt's endorsement of Sanford is here.

 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/larry-flynt-endorses-mark-sanford-449105

MJ Rosenberg says Hagel is a bad liar, not a hypocrite

M J Rosenberg is a political analyst, columnist and consultant (that's him with Obama).. 

He has had a long career. He worked at AIPAC, he worked as a political appointee in the Clinton administration. He was a foreign policy chief of the leftist org Media Matters.  He is currently known to be a critic of Israel's policy in the West Bank. Some would say he is more than a critic and has crossed the line to Israel hater. Whatever.

What concerns this site is his comments on Chuck Hagel, the nominee for DOD Secretary.

MJ Rosenberg asserts that Hagel was lying in his testimony to Congress and that Hagel's difficulty with lying made him (Hagel) come across as stupid. M J does not use the word hypocrite.

Here is a post by MJ on this subject.

Glenn Greenwald Resists the Hypocrisy Label

Glenn Greenwald is an American lawyer by training who writes a column for the British newspaper 'The Guardian'. He focuses on civil liberties related issues (that's him on the left - pun intended).

He recently wrote a column entitled,

DOJ kill list memo forces many Dems out of the closet as overtly unprincipled hacks

 The column points out some of the people and groups that harshly criticized President Bush for various executive actions taken (e.g., drone warfare) while either excusing or ignoring President Obama's actions of the same sort. An example is, 

" ... quoted Jennifer Granholm, the former Michigan governor and fervent Obama supporter, as admitting without any apparent shame that "if this was Bush, I think that we would all be more up in arms" because, she said "we trust the president"."

"... polls now show that Democrats and even self-identified progressives support policies that they once pretended to loathe now that it is Obama rather than Bush embracing them...."

The point to me is that Greenwald does not use the word 'hypocrisy'. Instead, as in the title, he declares what others would call hypocrites as 'overly unprincipled hacks' (how many hacks are principled I wonder?). Interestingly, while pointing out that former candidate Obama was one of the people who criticized the tactics President Obama now employs, Greenwald chooses not to call Obama a hypocrite or a hack. 

Interesting Greenwald cites the lack of hackery (or lack of hypocrisy - Greenwald uses neither word however) of the Republicans in this particular instance.

"  What also made this last week unique was the reaction of the American Right. Progressives love to recite the conceit that Republicans will never praise Obama no matter what he does. This is a complete sham: conservatives, including even Cheney himself, have repeatedly lavished praise on Obama for his embrace of Bush/Cheney policies in these areas..."

 

The Greenwald column is here.  

Related column in Salon webzine is here

What Difference Does It Make?

Secretary Hillary Clinton was testifying before the Senate on the issue of the Benghazi terrorist attacks. One of the highlights was a statement made in response to a question that had the words, "...we were misled..." where the statement seems to actually be a question of  'were we misled' regarding U.N. Ambassador Rice's statement on five different news shows that the Benghazi attacks were protest of a video on Youtube rather than a planned terror attack.

Here is a piece of the answer:

“With all respect, the fact is we have four dead Americans was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans,” Clinton shouted. “What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, senator.”

I seems to some people that the "What difference at this point does it make?" contradicts "It is our job to figure out what happened..." 

or is it

One possible way of looking at "What difference ..." is classifying it as a rhetorical question. If so, it does not contradict the "It is our job...". Of course, that way of looking at it would mean it was, in fact an admission that "...we were misled..." so that is not likely the way Secretary Clinton intended it but who knows.



Video of Q&A here

Colin Powell and dark vein of intolerance

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell defended former Senator Chuck Hegal's use of the term 'jewish lobby' a few days ago (reported by  Bloomberg new service as a remark that while insensitive was not really insulting (the phrase 'jewish lobby' was used in place of the more correct description 'pro Israel lobby' and of course, the pro Israel lobby includes a lot of non Jews)..

But at about the same time, (reported by Politico) Powell criticized Republicans for long ago remarks using phrases Powell deemed to be racially insensitive, e.g., criticizing President Obama as 'lazy' after his performance in the 1st 2012 debate (btw, I don't understand how that is racially insensitive but let's assume Powell actually believes it is).

The two events were within 48 hours of each other. 

Incidentally, NY Gov (a Democrat) used the phrase 'shucking and jiving' with respect to Obama back in 2008; an event which passed unremarked by Mr. Powell.

Hypocrisy?

Unless Powell is very, very forgetful or very stupid, this does appear to be a case of hypocrisy. 

But this brings up a question. Why would Powell be so oblivious to the hypocrisy problem? It seems that because he is viewed favorably by most people, especially in the media, he can get away with it.


Politico article is here
Bloomberg report is here       
Report on the 2008 incident by Huffington Post is here.      .

NBC's Gregory and the Efficacy of Armed Guards at Schools

Dave Gregory is a journalist. He has children who go to a private school and that school has armed guards.

Dave Gregory recently went on something of an on-line rant scoffing at the the notion that armed guards could prevent multiple killings at schools (this was during an interview with an NRA official). 

Hypocrisy?

Nope. 

Here's one reason: Gregory is not in charge of the school's security; for all we know he may not approve of it. 

Here's another reason: Gregory may approve of the security but on the grounds that the security at the school protects the kids (Sidwell Friends), not so much from crazed killers but from nosy journalists (since Gregory is a journalist himself this brings up a new layer of issues, but I'll ignore it).

Article on the issue is here. Picture of Gregory is from Wikipedia on him.

Senator Mike Crapo and the DUI

US Senator Mike Crapo (pronounced KRAY-PO) was arrested on Dec 23, 2012 for DUI in suburban VA. There was no accident and no one was hurt (he ran a red light). His blood alcohol was 0.11 (the upper limit there is 0.08).

All this is unremarkable except that Senator Crapo (R-ID) is also a Mormon, at one time a bishop in a church whose doctrine prohibits alcohol (there may be a medical out on this but Crapo didn't claim this) and one who has proclaimed his alcohol abstinence as a personal value.

Is this hypocrisy?

No. As I see it, it's sin.

If Crapo would, after being arrested, said something implying that it was OK for him to drink but not for others, that would have been hypocrisy. 

It reminds me of the joke where the Priest says to the Rabbi,  
"just between the two of us, have you ever had pork" to which the Rabbi says 'yes'. Then the Rabbi says to the Priest, "just between the two of us have you had sex since you became a Priest" and the Priest says 'yes'. Then the Rabbi says, "beats the heck out of pork, doesn't it?"

Newspaper article on the DUI is here.

E.J. Dionne and the Hypocrisy of Analysis

Eugene Joseph Dionne is a columnist for the Washington Post (that's him in the image).

In an analysis of the 2012 Presidential Election, he said that Obama now a strong mandate.

Back in 2004, after the Presidential Election that year, he said that Bush did not have a mandate.

Here are some sentences from the 2012 column,

"... now Obama will have the strongest argument a politician can offer. Repeatedly, he asked the voters to settle Washington’s squabbles in his favor. On Tuesday, they did. And so a president who took office four years ago on a wave of emotion may now have behind him something more valuable and durable: a majority that thought hard about his stewardship and decided to let him finish the job he had begun."

Here are some sentences from the 2004 column,

"...A decent respect for the outcome of an election never requires free citizens to cower before a temporarily dominant majority... A 51-48 percent victory is not a mandate."

Interestingly, in both the 2004 and 2012 election, a sitting President won another term. In both elections, the margin was about 51-48. In both elections the President's party had a strengthened majority in the Senate. One difference was that in the 2004 election, the President's party had a majority in the House but in the 2012 election the President's party had a minority in the House. Thus, it seems Bush's mandate in 2004 was stronger than Obama's mandate in 2012. I suspect Dionne is simply a partisan hack but one could argue that there was other complicating features that made the 2004 election not a mandate but the 2012 one a mandate. Thus I'll not call Dionne a hypocrite, though I suspect he is (and I also find him a boring one also).


Dionne's column of 11-7-2012 is here.
Dionne's column of 11-4-2004 is here.

Why Was Thomas Jefferson a Hypocrite

Almost always, the posts on this site will analyze whether or not somebody is a hypocrite.

Not this time.

Thomas Jefferson is nearly universally recognized as a hypocrite on the slavery issue. 

From his earliest writings, through the documents relating to the establishment of the United States, through his Presidency and his post Presidency, Thomas Jefferson denounced slavery on moral and ethical grounds.

Yet, not only did he have slaves, he also put advertisements in the newspaper to have run away slaves returned, he hired overseers to minimize unruly slave behavior knowing these overseers were inclined to violence, etc.

The historical question is "Why?". There have been three or four hypotheses for this. The one most favorable to Jefferson is that he sincerely believed that emancipation should be gradual to avoid problems for slaveowners, free farmers, slaves, etc. The least favorable to Jefferson is that he compartmentalized his moral position into a very small part of his thinking. 

The book, whose cover is above, seems to propose that Jefferson was seduced or overwhelmed by his economic interests. Per the books reviews, Jefferson had a number of major business problems as well as many cost overruns developing Monticello. His slaves provided the economic basis for a steady income (including income from selling slaves) and without that he couldn't have continued to build out the estate.

The amazon site for the book is here.

Obama and the Stafford Act

I haven't had a lot of comments about the 2012 Presidential election because there is so much material that its actually depressing. But this time it was worth doing because of an oddity.

Back in 2007, then Senator Obama was addressing a mostly black audience in SE Virginia. During the speech, he implied that the Bush administration's refusal to submit a waiver of the Stafford Act (a requirement for a local contribution) to Congress, was racist. This referred to the case of the the salvage and reconstruction of New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina. Some people, in 2012, are accusing then Senator of using racially provocative language and racially provocative slang in the course of that speech.

The racist issue doesn't concern this post. What concerns the post is that, a short time before the speech (about a week before in fact), the Stafford issue had come up in the Senate and, then Senator Obama had voted against granting a Stafford Act waiver. The waiver was approved anyway.

Sounds like hypocrisy.

But its not.

The reason it is not hypocrisy is because of the complexity of legislation. The bill that contained the Stafford Act waiver also contained funding for Operation Iraqi Freedom (which Obama and about a dozen Democrats opposed enough to vote against the combined bill).



CSMonitor story on the reappearance of the 2007 speech is here.
A discussion of the 2007 legislation, including the complexity is here.
A listing of the vote on the 2007 legislation is here.

Paul Campos - Law School Hypocrit or Not

Paul Campos, a law professor at the University of Colorado writes a blog called "Inside the Law School Scam"

Several of his posts on that site show that law schools have used biased or unrepresentative or questionably information when 'selling themselves' to prospective students or to law school associations or to other organizations.

Several people commented at his site that he was a hypocrite for drawing a salary that is based, at least partly, on the proceeds due to such biased, unrepresentative or questionable practices.

This is pretty obviously not hypocrisy as I define it. Mr. Campos is not practicing the biased, etc. practices, his employer is. If the University of Colorado had an official policy saying, in effect, "We won't misrepresent the job placement of our graduates" and then did so, they would be hypocrites. If Campos did this, then he would be a hypocrite.

In some way, this is similar to the many cases where people say the Government should do (or not do) something and then take advantage of the fact that the Government does not do what they advocate. For example, there are probably thousands of people who feel that the interest for mortgages above a given limit should not be itemized as part of Schedule A of form 1040 but who itemize it themselves.

Basically, you shouldn't be called a hypocrite except for your own actions.

Professor Campos's blog post on the accusations of hypocrisy  is here.

The image on the left is from a Time Magazine piece written several years ago on another subject.

Harry Reid and tax form hypocrisy

U.S. Senator Harry Reid accuses former Governor and presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney of tax evasion and demands Romney release more tax returns (Romney has released his year 2010 return and his estimated year 2011 return). However, Senator Reid has not released any of his tax returns (fewer than 2 dozen US elected officials has released their returns, however Reid has filed a financial disclosure form which has different information than a tax return).

Does that make Red a hypocrite?

No.

Because a Senator is not a nominee for President.

Of course, this does not mean Reid is correct in that a Presidential candidate should be required to release tax returns nor does it mean Reid is correct that a Senator should not be required to release such returns. Neither action is required by the Constitution, neither action is required by law.  Thus whether someone should do so is a matter of opinion.

A satirical response to Reid has been initiated to the effect that there are rumors that he is a sexual molester and challenging him to prove that he is not.

A source noting that that Senator Reid is not one of the US elected officials releasing tax forms is here.
A story on the accumulation of wealth by Senator Reid during his Senator career is here.
A story on the Reid accusations is here and here. (leftist sources) and here and here (rightist sources)  
The satirical 'Reid is a pederast' campaign is described here.