Is William Bennett a hypocrite?

[ElvisL1ves]

He has another couple of options, Julie. He can learn and grow from the experience, drop the condemnations of others for not meeting standards he doesn’t meet either, and use his own learning and growing to help illustrate his sermons more effectively. Or he can shut up and mind his own business from now on. But I don’t really expect him to do either, do you?

See, the problem for those of us not in his family isn’t his gambling, it’s the hypocrisy of his condemnations. The hypocrisy of anyone else who refuses to apply consistent moral standards, loyally defending him while joining in the condemnation of other sinners, is another matter but a related one. The examples we’ve seen of that have been starkly illuminating, haven’t they?

[RTFirefly]

*Originally posted by ElJeffe *
Here’s what I want to know: Why does it seem, today, that hypocricy is the most vile sin of which one can be accused? If someone who drinks too much tells his kid that he shouldn’t drink, then maybe he’s a hypocrite… but does that someone how invalidate his advice?

Why now? I’ll let others deal with that. Bennett claims to stand for traditional, timeless Judaeo-Christian values and virtues, so I think it’s germane to point out that there were only two sins that Jesus harped on with any frequency, and hypocrisy was one of them. (Hardness of heart was the other, but that’s not relevant to this discussion.)

Izzy: from the Washington Monthly:

Explaining his approach, Bennett says: "I’ve been a ‘machine person’ [slot machines and video poker].

I know about gross and net, and I also know that slots and video poker are the most inexorable ways of separating fools and their money. You just can’t make enough back on other nights to cover the sort of losses Bennett had on the nights we know about. Heck, it’s unlikely you’ll win anything on any given night.

[John_Mace]

JS: All he has to do is outline why he thinks gambling is not unvirtuous and stick by it. If he can’t, then he is (somewhat of a) hypocrite. Not bowing to public pressure is also a virtue.

It’s funny. I would argue that pertty much anyone who sets themselves up, purposely, to be the arbitor or “virtue” is almost by definition not qualified. That is, unless you don’t consider Humility to be a virtue. Or at least the guy would have to scrupulously focus on the positive role models and stay away from the finger pointing at the non-virtuous. Personally, I pick my role models from people whose actions I admire, not whose speaches I admire.

As for the poll, put me down as thinking there is nothing wrong with gambling. In fact I’d like to place a bet on what the results of that poll would be…

[wonky]

*Originally posted by ElvisL1ves *
**See, the problem for those of us not in his family isn’t his gambling, it’s the hypocrisy of his condemnations. The hypocrisy of anyone else who refuses to apply consistent moral standards, loyally defending him while joining in the condemnation of other sinners, is another matter but a related one. The examples we’ve seen of that have been starkly illuminating, haven’t they? **

No. I don’t see.

It isn’t hypocritical of me to condemn child molestation and still eat chicken. PETA says eating chicken is immoral. I don’t agree. How am I a hypocrite for not agreeing?

It is not hypocritical to condemn others. It’s judgmental.

Saying “other sinners” assumes he is sinning by gambling. I don’t consider gambling away his entire net worth to be a sin. Stupid, yes. A sin, no.

How is he guilty of immorality if he isn’t doing something immoral? That’s the point I simply do not get. Saying that some people consider it immoral means next to nothing. PETA says it’s immoral for me to eat chicken. I’m not a member of PETA. Am I immoral for eating chicken?

Julie

[wonky]

*Originally posted by John Mace *
JS: All he has to do is outline why he thinks gambling is not unvirtuous and stick by it. If he can’t, then he is (somewhat of a) hypocrite. Not bowing to public pressure is also a virtue.

Sure, and I would have hoped the man would stick to his guns. But not doing so doesn’t make him a hypocrite. It makes him potentially a coward, a fool, or a politician.

**As for the poll, put me down as thinking there is nothing wrong with gambling. In fact I’d like to place a bet on what the results of that poll would be… **

I don’t like William Bennett. I’ve never much cared for the man. I don’t agree with his views on what’s “virtuous” and what isn’t. But it seems that some in this thread are deliberately redefining words just so they’ll have ammunition.

I think it’s perfectly legitimate to say, “Ha! William Bennett now gets bitten by the same sorts of moralistic blowhards as he’s been/encouraged in the past! Mwahaha!”

But that isn’t hypocrisy. That’s just good, clean, pie-in-the-face comeuppance.

Julie

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

*Originally posted by John Mace *
**If Bennett doesn’t think gambling is wrong why has he decided to quit? **

A lot of reasons, really.

For starters, even if there’s nothing morally wrong with gambling per se, once that gambling becomes public there becomes an issue of setting an example for the young. I don’t have a problem with cursing, but I try to refrain from doing so in front of kids because they may not be able to distinguish between when it is appropriate and when it is not. Same thing here – Bennett may not gamble with “milk money,” but some may see his example and fail to pick up on that critical point.

There’s also a point to not fighting an unimportant battle. Call it cowardice if you will, but I say discretion is the better part of valor. Even if Bennett thinks he’s 100% in the right, he could reasonably decide to refrain from gambling on grounds that it just isn’t worth the hassle, preferring to save his energy for more important affairs. If gambling isn’t that important to him, it isn’t a great sacrifice to give up, so why bother with the media headaches?

[Southerner]

Just wanted to add my 2 cents.

After reading this entire thread it seems that determining whether or not Bennet is a hypocrite or not comes down to what you include in your list of immoral behavior.
I live in the buckle of the bible belt and here when immoral behavior is discussed it includes gambling. Therefore Bennet is a hypocrite.

Now if you want to get into the “he never included gambling in his list” argument then when Clinton said “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” then he didn’t lie because he didn’t include a blowjob in his list of things that constitute sexual relations.

[John_Mace]

DCU: You make some good points. I probably came out too strong on the “hypocrite” side in my first post here. This is really pretty much tempest in a teapot. Still, I’d have more admiration for him if he stuck to his guns. And I’ll repeat my first thought: He who lives in a glass house… well you know the rest.

At the risk of adding to rumors here… Wasn’t Bennett also outed as a smoker back when he was Drug Czar and then had to quit for similar reason we are discussing here. Or was he already a reformed smoker? Or was this nothing but baseless rumors in the first place.

[RTFirefly]

Here’s a recent Bennett quote worth tossing in:

“To educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” A century ago, Teddy Roosevelt reminded Americans of this ancient truth, and sometime in the past half-century, we started to forget it. Students must be left free, it was said, to choose their own morals. The clarification of values, not the imposition of them, was the task of schools. After Columbine and too many similar incidents, however, such words ring hollow.

Here’s the thing with Bennett: as this quote shows, he believes it’s society’s business to teach its members right and wrong - and it’s important that we’re talking right and wrong here, not ‘what doesn’t (or does) hurt anybody else’: that’s permissive liberal talk. In Bennett’s view, we can’t condone homosexuality, or allow people to smoke marijuana, even though I’m not harmed by what two guys do together in a bedroom, whether they’re toking or fucking.

His present ‘I didn’t hurt anybody’ excuse is exactly what he’s found reprehensible in his opponents’ moral code for all these years. Wrapping himself in it is unquestionably hypocritical.

[ElJeffe]

After reading this entire thread it seems that determining whether or not Bennet is a hypocrite or not comes down to what you include in your list of immoral behavior.
I live in the buckle of the bible belt and here when immoral behavior is discussed it includes gambling. Therefore Bennet is a hypocrite.

That would almost be a valid comment, except for the fact that I’m guessing the people decrying Bennett’s “hypocricy” the loudest do not condemn gambling as immoral. Call it a hunch.

Beyond that, I’m going to gracefully withdraw from further responses in this thread, because I can only talk past people for so long. If people want to twist the definition of hypocricy for the sole purpose of shoe-horning in someone they don’t like, there’s not a whole lot I can do about it.

Oh, and JS, with regards to your poll - I have no moral qualms with gambling, but I choose not to do so, because I can think of better ways to blow my money.
Jeff

[wonky]

*Originally posted by RTFirefly *
**His present ‘I didn’t hurt anybody’ excuse is exactly what he’s found reprehensible in his opponents’ moral code for all these years. Wrapping himself in it is unquestionably hypocritical. **

Now, that I can agree with. If his only defense of gambling’s morality is that it doesn’t hurt anybody but that’s not good enough defense for other activities, I would consider that hypocritical.

Personally, I think it’s a very good rule of thumb for morality, though. If it doesn’t hurt anyone else, I can’t imagine it being immoral.

Julie

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

Just to wrap up a loose end, here is a discussion of sociomoral development from Kohlberg’s perspective. Please skip if you are not interested in this issue. The primary difference between this conceptualization and the proscription of morals is that it is not concerned with the action, but the reasoning behind the action. The dilemma of Hans and the drug is a classic instrument for assessing moral reasoning (Hans has a wife who is dying. A druggist in the town has the only cure for her disease, but Hans cannot afford the drug. The druggist refuses to make any alternate arrangements. Should Hans steal the drug? Why or why not?)

As such, I find this conceptualization to be much more useful for character education or moral education for students. A technique called “plus one” discussion has been demonstrated to lead to elevation of moral reasoning. In such discussion, a child’s reasoning is assessed, and he or she is exposed to reasoning on a dilemma that represents reasoning at the next higher stage, preferrably by peers.

Kohlbergian sociomoral reasoning theory proposes 6 stages of moral development, with a linear progression from stage to stage as people mature. As one progresses through these stages of moral reasoning, one’s reasoning becomes more complex, moving from moral judgments based on one’s individual perspective to a belief in a set of shared, systematized norms. In a nutshell, lowest level moral reasoning determines what is right based on physical aspects and quantitative measures of the situation in a hedonistic fashion. Right is what is best for the individual. The biggest people are the most correct. A person who breaks 10 plates is worse than a person who breaks 1, regardless of the circumstances. Stage 2 reasoning is characterized by an understanding that different perspectives on what is just in a given situation may exist. However, the just solution is determined by the individual’s own perspective; that which allows maximal personal satisfaction is the just solution. “Do unto others exactly what they have done unto you.” Children at this stage often say, “that’s not fair” because they recognize that equity and fairness are important concepts, as long as their own fairness comes first. In Stage 3, the individual is able to coordinate the separate perspectives into a third-person perspective, or a set of shared moral norms. Motives for individual actions are taken into account, and prosocial actions are valued, as they support societal shared norms and expectations. In Stage 4, the shared norms of Stage 3 are systematized, and moral judgments are made in reference to legal systems or religious institutions. Norms apply consistently and impartially to all members (Colby & Kohlberg, 1987). Stages 5 and, moreso, 6 are rarely demonstrated. Individuals in these stages have adopted certain universal moral principles. They accept the rules of society to the extent that they are founded in these moral principles. In situations where the rules, laws, or actions of a society conflict with these underlying principles, however, they tend to abide by the latter. Thoreau’s civil disobedience, Gandhi’s protests of injustice in India, and Martin Luther King’s passive resistance may serve as examples.

[astorian]

I’m not giving William Bennett any blanket support or even forgiveness here. As I said in another thread on this subject, Bennett was an idiot to do ANYTHING like this that he must have known would embarrass his fellow conservatives.

Still it’s worth noting one line from NEwsweek’s piece:

“The popular author, lecturer and Republican Party activist speaks out, often indignantly, about almost every moral issue except one—gambling.”

**

In other words, Bill Bennett has NOT been going around condemning gambling!!! Even Newsweek concedes this!!

So, feel free to condemn Bill Bennett for any number of reasons- because you disagree with him on key issues, or just because you don’t like him. But there’s no hypocrisy on this issue because he HASN’T been a voice against gambling.

[RTFirefly]

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by astorian *
Still it’s worth noting one line from NEwsweek’s piece:

“The popular author, lecturer and Republican Party activist speaks out, often indignantly, about almost every moral issue except one—gambling.”

**

In other words, Bill Bennett has NOT been going around condemning gambling!!! Even Newsweek concedes this!!**Scroll up, astorian. That’s no secret in this discussion.

However, as we’ve also discussed, Empower America, “one of Bennett’s several shirt-pocket mass movements” (Kinsley), has repeatedly done so. So he’s covered his bets both ways, so to speak: if this business hadn’t come to light, and anyone had pressed him on the gambling issue, he was in position to say, “Look at what my organization has published about gambling,” and now that it has, he was equally able to say, “I’ve never [personally] condemned it.”

So, feel free to condemn Bill Bennett for any number of reasons- because you disagree with him on key issues, or just because you don’t like him. But there’s no hypocrisy on this issue because he HASN’T been a voice against gambling.

To quote Kinsley’s argument:

1. He never specifically criticized gambling. This, if true, doesn’t show that Bennett is not a hypocrite. It just shows that he’s not a complete idiot. Working his way down the list of other people’s pleasures, weaknesses, and uses of American freedom, he just happened to skip over his own. How convenient.

And:

He wants to put marijuana smokers in jail. He wants to make it harder to get divorced. He wants more “moral criticism of homosexuality” and “declining to accept that what they do is right.”

In all these cases, Bennett wants laws against or heightened social disapproval of activities that have no direct harmful effects on anyone except the participants. He argues that the activities in question are encouraging other, more harmful activities or are eroding general social norms in some vague way.

Certainly gambling fits this profile - and as I’ve mentioned, his posse has condemned gambling, and he’s never gainsaid them.

I’d call this hypocrisy. If he isn’t participating in the exact sin he’s condemned, he’s (a) participating in the sort of sin he’s made a fabulous living out of condemning, and (b) participating in a sin that his organization has condemned on his dime.

Finally: if gambling’s somehow the exception to the standards he’s laid down for similar sins, and if his pals have gotten it wrong all this time by condemning gambling, how come he hasn’t spoken up - especially when he’s got all this firsthand experience with it? Something to hide, maybe? Lacking the courage of his convictions? Certainly if he’s for X, and is content to leave everyone with the impression that he’s against X, that’s dishonesty if not hypocrisy, in addition to being moral cowardice.

Might want to move down to the $5 machines, Bill. When your speeches no longer rate $50K, and people stop buying your books in anything like the way they have, you won’t be able to afford to drop $600K in a single night. (Yeah, I know you’ve said you’ve quit, but you’re clearly a problem gambler, and this ain’t what they call ‘hitting bottom’. You’ll once again “find yourself in Vegas with a handle in your hand” soon enough, I’ll wager.)

[Sam_Stone]

So much misinformation on both sides…

For the record, I think Bennett is a moralizing blowhard who should mind his own business. He’s made a tidy sum of money telling people how to live their lives. I have zero sympathy for a guy like that being caught doing something that he knew would embarass him. He sets a very high standard for the moral behaviour of others. He should not accept a lower standard for himself.

And who cares if he hasn’t specifically argued against gambling? That’s because he does it! That’s exactly what I don’t like about him. If he didn’t gamble, but instead had three divorces and a mistress, he’s the kind of guy who would become an anti-gambling crusader and make excuses for mistresses. Bah.

He’s a hypocrite in the same way that Arianna Huffington is a hypocrite. She goes around screaming about SUVs, while flying first class wherever she goes and maintaining two giant mansions. Even if she only drove a 30 year old Yugo, she’d still be a hypocrite, because the larger issue is not SUVs, but living ‘lightly on the land’ - she claims to be for the environment, while her personal lifestyle burns more energy than any ten average people with SUVs. The same goes for other ‘limousine liberals’. Bennett is a ‘limousine moralizer’, who exempts his own personal preferences while nailing other people for theirs.

That said…

Gambling is not immoral. Nor is blowing 8 million bucks necessarily excessive, when done by the very rich. Bennett is a very rich man. If his major hobby is to go to Vegas or Atlantic city and be treated to palatial rooms, the finest liquors, the best meals, the best entertainment, private golf courses, and all the other trappings of the vegas ‘whale’, and this costs him $800,000 per year in gambling losses, what’s the big deal? Would it have been more moral of him to buy a $40 million dollar Gulfstream jet so he could fly to Cannes every year? How about a $20 million dollar villa on the Riviera? Perhaps a $30 million yacht?

We’re all shocked because it sounds like a lot of money to just ‘blow’. But I guarantee you, the casinos make sure guys like Bennett get value for their money. When he decides to go on a junket, they probably fly THEIR Gulfstream down to pick him up. He gets to live like a king for a week or two several times a year, and it costs him what, the advance on one of half a dozen books? The money he makes from five or six speaking engagements? To him, this may well be controlled gambling for entertainment.

Now, did he lose 8 million? Probably not. I have personally purchased, over the last ten years, several million bucks in casino chips. Over that period of time, I made a couple of hundred thousand dollars gambling. If I had purchased those chips in amounts of over 10K at a time, the casino would have had a record of those purchases, but not necessarily a record of the chips I cashed back in. I also guarantee you that the casino does not believe I made that money, or they would not have let me play blackjack any more.

In Bennett’s case, he’s not an ‘advantage gambler’. In other words, he’s a loser. But the games he plays (high stakes slots and video poker) actually have quite low house odds - he probably lost about 1% of the money he fed into the machines. But that doesn’t mean he only lost $80,000. Because he may have cycled that 8 million through the machines many times. How much he lost depends on how many cycles he would go through.

Consider it this way: I take $100, and feed it into a machine with a 1% edge. $99 comes back out. I feed that back in again. $98.01 comes out. I repeat until bored or exhausted, and cash out whatever I have left.

This difference between buy-in and cashout is the casino’s ‘hold’, and for games like the ones Bennett plays, it’s typically 30-40%. So if 8 million was the amount of his chip purchases over the last ten years, he probably lost 2.4-3.2 million.

[DoctorJ]

I do believe Slate nailed him.

As drug czar in 1989 and 1990, he constantly emphasized that anyone who patronized that addictive industry was responsible for its victims. On Meet the Press, he advocated mandatory sentences for “recreational, yuppie” marijuana users, blaming them for “the murder and mayhem in Washington, the fact that we have babies now being born addicted to cocaine. … These people are accessories to all those things, and they need to start paying a price.” He told the Wall Street Journal that the “casual user … is driving the whole enterprise.” He told USA Today, “For your middle class or your yuppie user, let’s do what they do in Phoenix: Weekend in jail, counseling program, and you pay the cost of it.” He criticized celebrities who admitted to past drug use, warning that such disclosures gave kids the idea that “you can do drugs and still be rich and successful.”

What was that about “adults on their own time”?

By this logic, “casual” gamblers like Bennett (giving him the benefit of the doubt) are to blame for the ones whose lives are devastated and whose families go hungry.

One might argue that casino gambling is legal while marijuana is not, but I’d call that begging the question.

Dr. J

[system]

*Originally posted by Sam Stone *
For the record, I think Bennett is a moralizing blowhard who should mind his own business. He’s made a tidy sum of money telling people how to live their lives. I have zero sympathy for a guy like that being caught doing something that he knew would embarass him. He sets a very high standard for the moral behaviour of others. He should not accept a lower standard for himself.

And who cares if he hasn’t specifically argued against gambling? That’s because he does it! That’s exactly what I don’t like about him. If he didn’t gamble, but instead had three divorces and a mistress, he’s the kind of guy who would become an anti-gambling crusader and make excuses for mistresses. Bah.

He’s a hypocrite in the same way that Arianna Huffington is a hypocrite. She goes around screaming about SUVs, while flying first class wherever she goes and maintaining two giant mansions. Even if she only drove a 30 year old Yugo, she’d still be a hypocrite, because the larger issue is not SUVs, but living ‘lightly on the land’ - she claims to be for the environment, while her personal lifestyle burns more energy than any ten average people with SUVs. The same goes for other ‘limousine liberals’. Bennett is a ‘limousine moralizer’, who exempts his own personal preferences while nailing other people for theirs.

WEll, I was on the fence on this, but I like Sam’s analysis. Hard to argue with.

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

Bennett’s reaction kind of reminds me of George Costanza, from Seinfeld. When he was fired for having sex with a cleaning woman on the desk of his cubical, he argued, “Well, if I had any idea that kind of thing was frowned upon here, I would never have done it.” (paraphrasing from memory)

[El_Zagna]

In this thread and another similar one in the Pit Dewey Cheatem Undhow has provided a vigorous and impressive defense against the charges of hypocracy leveled against Bill Bennett. Except for one. Here’s how I worded it over in the Pit :

From what I can tell Bill Bennett excuses his own level of gambling because it’s not hurting anyone, and that’s fine with me. Similarly he excuses his own level of drinking on the same grounds. That’s fine with me, too. However would he allow a gay couple to excuse their homosexual behavior by invoking the same “it’s not hurting anyone” clause? What about the occasional pot user?

I’ve never read any of Bennet’s books so I can’t claim any great depth of knowledge of him, so maybe he doesn’t consider vices things that don’t harm anyone else. If so, good for him. On the other hand if those who enjoy “sins” to which Bennett does not partake are not allowed the “it’s not hurting anyone” clause then he is a big, stinkin’ hypocrite, is he not?

Others have asked similar questions here. Can charges of hypocracy be defended in this case?

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

*Originally posted by bnorton *
**Others have asked similar questions here. Can charges of hypocracy be defended in this case? **

I think Bennett’s defense would go something like this:

Gambling itself is not immoral.

However, irresponsibility with household finances is immoral (for lack of a better term).

That is true whether you are gambling, day-trading, or buying expensive cars you can’t afford.

In other words, owning a Ferrari is not per se immoral, but owning a Ferrari when you can’t afford it is immoral.

It isn’t gambling that is immoral, it’s participating in activities – any activities – for which you lack the financial resources that is immoral.

That dichotomy shouldn’t prevent someone from calling other activities (adultery, etc) per se immoral. Surely one can condemn adultery without being called a hypocrite for owning a Ferrari – charges that “he’s encouraging all those people who can’t afford Ferraris to buy one!” ring hollow to me.