I agree with you.
Which is why, in this crowd, Mr. Bennett’s spending is going to be seen as anything but frugal. If we were polling other people who made $58 million in income, however, the results may be different.
You’re not a hypocrite in that example. Why not? Because you did not put on a false appearance of religion or virtue. You don’t consider adultery to be incompatible with virtue; you never claimed martial fidelity was a virtuous behavior. You’re not a hypocrite.
So I can only be a hypocrite if I specifically list a requirement, that I break myself? Is there so such thing as the spirit of the law? I can rail against the lack of morality in the world, but has long as I don’t specifically mention the rule that I break or personally consider it to be a rule at all; I can never be called a hypocrite?
Even if I know what crowd I’m playing to believes me to represent and I do nothing to clarify my real beliefs?
Bricker reminds me of the snapping turtle that continues to cling to what it’s bitten long after its head has been cut off.
Alrighty, then. I’m finished with this because now you’ve either gotten confused are you’re lying. I specifically offered a bright line.
Yes!
Hypocrisy is the false assumption of a virtue. That is what the word means. There are plenty of other negative words to describe your conduct. But “hypocrite” doesn’t fit.
It depends on what “nothing” means. I can envision situations in which you may be considered to adopt a position, even if you say nothing. For example, if you give a speech about virtue, and the person that introduces you praises your commitment to marital fidelity, and then you take the podium without correcting that representation, I’d agree that you have crossed a line. But absent some sort of reason along those lines, I don’t see that “hypocrite” is the right word to use.
Words mean something. English is a rich language because we have so many words with such richness of meaning. We can say “stubborn” or “intransigent” or “pigheaded” or “muleish.” Each word conveys the same general sense, and yet each word has nuances that the others do not.
Hypocrite is a word with a specific meaning. It refers to a person who evinces a false appearance to virtue or religion. If we are not describing THAT, then we don’t get to use that word.
Now, I suppose
Oops. So you did, and I forgot that. I apologize.
To address this bright line proposal you’ve offered, we need at least a working assumption concerning Benntt’s income and his losses. May we agree on:
[ul]
[li]$58 million in income[/li][li]$8 million in gross losses[/li][li]$1.5 million in net losses[/li][/ul]
All three figures have some support in the preceding thread.
A turtle AND a weasel? Apparently Dr. Moreau and I share an island.
Needless to say, this does nothing to address the substance of the debate, and is simply another ad hominem attack.
So you don’t see any hypocrisy in being the co-founder of the Empower America organization that adamently opposes gambling and calls it a social ill while at the same time being a high-stakes gambler?
Actually there is nothing in the thread or anywhere else that tells us his net losses, which could be 1.5 million if he hit the odds or several million if he wasn’t lucky.
But you’re correct that there’s no way to know whether he fails on my, IMHO generous, bright line test. But like my IMHO poll shows, more people think gambling and frugality are mutually exclusive than think a man can lose several hundred thousand a year and be frugal, even if he has Bill Gates money.
No, because he’s merely a co-founder, not the absolute authority for the group. When you share authority with others, compromises must be made. Bennett may not have liked the organization’s position on gambling, but bowed to the will of the others involved… just as someone may not appreciate the Democratic Party being against gay marriage, but continue to support them based on agreement with other aspects of their platform.
With all due deference to your IMHO poll, it’s hardly extensive… and at least one person in it evinced a position more along the lines of what I’m saying: Evil Captor said: “I don’t think “frugality” is a concept that makes much sense if you have great wealth.”
And please note that I didn’t respond to it. If I had, you may be sure I would have agreed with myself. 
But I agree that more people, if polled, would probably agree with your position.
Now let me ask you: how about if we just polled people having a net worth of over, say, $2 million. Would that change the responses, do you think?
A debate that has turned into 200 posts over whether a multimillionaire moralizer not mentioned in the OP who has lost millions of dollars gambling is a hypocrite, when the person has preached frugality has no substance. And while the turtle bit may be ad hom (I see it as more relevant observation- you’re not going to yield if Bennett himself, flanked by the angel Sansenoy and the late Judy Garland, came to the boards and said “THOU ART WRONG! I AM A HYPOCRITE!”), this is the Pit, not a Debate arena; it’s the place for ad homs.
Whether it’s an ad hom or relevant commentary to say that you are easily the most self-impressed lousy-debater I’ve ever read is a matter I’ll leave to historians. Were there a judge on these boards you’d have been ruled the loser more than 100 posts ago.
In my experience, people who have some wealth tend not to be such dumbasses as to gamble extensively. People who used to have wealth are the ones who gambled a lot.
Gladys Knight, Omar Sharif, Mozart, Debbie Reynolds… I was trying to think of a few others who lost huge amounts of money gambling.
You haven’t spent much time in the high-stakes area of a casino at the blackjack tables. NBA stars, Hollywood types, industry folks… Again, when you have a lot, it’s not a big deal to play a lot.
What exactly is your experience with high-stakes gambling?
Again, we’ll have to agree to disagree.
I will note that if Bennett himself were to say, “I was a hypocrite,” I’d yield immediately… but if he were to deny it, you would press on and accuse him still.
:dubious:
I was being somewhat facetious, though not entirely.
You actually think if you asked those people you describe if they are being “frugal” that they are going to say yes?
Most people don’t consider themselves frugal or not frugal. For most people it’s not an issue. They don’t care.
And there are certainly more people who have $2 million who never participate in “high-stakes gambling” (though what high-stakes gambling has to do with it when Bennett was just playing poker machines I don’t know) than those who do. Asking outliers to define a word that is used to browbeat the rest of us is pretty damned silly.
Bennett is talking to people like me when he moralizes, and his organization is directed at people like me when they pontificate. If your argument is that there is one set of standards (definitions of “frugal,” for example) for people like me, and another set of standards (definitions of “frugal,” for him and his ilk), then you are sure as hell saying that he’s a hypocrite, according to definitions of “hypocrite” that “people like me” embrace.
The more you try to peel him off into a subset of humanity for whom the same rules don’t apply, the more horrible he and his defenders appear.
When the argument becomes that I can’t even comment on his frugality because I have no experience with high-stakes gambling, then I’ll admit it. I’m completely dumbfounded. The argument is so far from making sense that it’s in another language. I agree. High-stakes gamblers, which Bennett isn’t, probably wouldn’t condemn him. They’d be too busy hoping he’d get into a game with them so they can fleece him, 'cause dude ain’t too bright.
*That * from somebody who feigns indignation over claims of *other * posters’ refusal to admit being wrong? The hypocrisy just keeps on coming, ironic as ever.
The same standard applies to everyone. But because the standard is based on PERCENTAGES, not absolute dollar values, it certainly APPLIES differently to everyone, without involving any hypocriscy.
If, for example, the rule is, “A frugal person never commits more than 10% of his salary to gambling,” surely you don’t argue that’s a different rule for sets of people. It’s true that the application of the rule means he can gamble $5.8 million and you can’t. But that’s hardly hypocritical.
Your entire contribution to this thread has been sniping pot-shots at me. Sampiro and Homebrew are offering valid arguments, arguments which I respect as reasonable, even though I disagree with them. You haven’t done a thing here to clarify the issue; you have just offered snide little pseudo bon mots aimed at me.
No, because you are trying to make it about percentages. Frugality is an attitude, not a mathematical formula. It’s about not being willing to spend or waste money.
(To me, frugality isn’t a virtue, but then I’m not prone to writing books that claim it is.)
First, I think that it’s a stretch to characterize Bennett’s book as a book about being frugal and moderate. He devotes a chapter to Ben Franklin’s essay, which he quotes approvingly. He’s hardly made frugality the bedrock of his book.
Secondly, and most importantly… it IS about percentages. A frugal person is not a miserly person. A frugal person may spend money on entertainment and still be frugal. How much money may he spend? Well, that answer is not obvious. It differs between people. Warren Buffet may spend more on entertainment than I and still be frugal… because he has more to spend.
This is stunningly obvious. Why don’t you see it?
Because I disagree about the fundamental nature of the word. As does, apparently, pretty much everyone else in this thread and everyone I’ve queried in meatspace.
Many of the people I’ve asked say that to them gambling is fundamentally incompatible with frugality and that spending or wasting money for fun is fundamentally incompatible with frugality. Because they, and I, define frugality as the exact opposite thing from enjoying wasting money, or enjoying spending for the sake of spending.
Frugality is about saving money where you can. It isn’t just living within your means, which is the definition you keep trying to force on it. It is the attempt to be economical; it is the aversion to spending unnecessarily.
And if you come back and claim that Bill Bennett isn’t spending unnecessarily because he needs to gamble, then I’d like to introduce you to a leetle concept called “gambling addiction.”