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Book Review: "Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy" by Peter Schweizer
by Bob Powell,
12/02/05
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Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy by Peter Schweizer is quite clever and effective. It's clever because it uses "logical sleight-of-hand" to confuse and obfuscate. And it's effective because so many actually buy his illogic. In this case "effective" really means "deceptive."
This review addresses these issues:
- Particularly egregious nonsense
- The heart of the flawed argument that "Liberals are hypocritical"
*** Particularly egregious nonsense:
- Nonsense #1: "When a conservative fails to live up to his ideals, it's bad for him (drug addiction, gambling); but when a Leftist fails to live up to his ideals, it's GOOD for him (a bigger home, more financial security for his family)."
Now this is a great example of clever and deceptive logic. Why? Because there are two orthogonal axes of left vs. right: economic policy regarding markets and social policy regarding personal behavior. The economic policy spectrum goes from socialist to unregulated "free market." The social policy spectrum goes from libertarian "anything goes" to authoritarian state-regulated behavior. Note that the statement above shifts from personal behavior axis to the economic axis, comparing apples to oranges.
The appropriate example is to make economic comparisons on both sides:
When the conservative lives up to his ideals, it's good for him, but bad for everyone else. Conservatives call this "ideal," "economic freedom" with low regulation and taxes. But his "freedom" carries a price for everyone else because it externalizes the costs of doing business onto the public. That's redistribution of costs or, as I call it, "socialism on the cost side," which is far more prevalent than any redistribution of income. For example, the American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE) site estimates there's a 5-year $1.6 trillion national backlog of infrastructure projects: developers have externalized these costs onto the public to pay for the infrastructure that allows them to sell their product. Plus, each year Americans spend 8 billion hours stuck in traffic with lost productivity costs of $43 - $168B. And then there's the more obvious externality of pollution that causes economic damage, sickness, and death and public costs to clean up the mess. All of this is essentially theft.
On the economic front, when the liberal lives up to his ideals, it costs him; but it's better for everyone. That's because regulation prevents pollution and associated injury and death. And impact fees internalize the costs of growth so that "the market" can actually properly value choices.
On the social axis: When social conservatives live up to their ideals, there's coercion: imposing their "values" on others. When social liberals live up to their ideals, there's freedom: "live and let live."
- Nonsense #2: Confusing "liberal" with the "left"
Liberal is not the "left," much less the "extreme left." Socialists and communists are the far left. They believe all businesses should be nationalized, that is, owned and run by the State. No one hears this from liberals; nevertheless they're mislabeled as "leftists." Ridiculous.
On the other hand, conservative, "free market" Republicans and Libertarians who now control government ARE the far right. They believe virtually all government functions should be privatized. We hear it every day from Republicans. They're even privatizing much of national defense (e.g., logistics, food service, even some security functions); and they're profiteering from it. They're true extremists. Everyone is to their left, so naturally they see liberals as the left. But the U.S. has moved so far to the right that, practically, there is no "left" left.
Liberals realize for some things free markets are best and for others only government-regulated or government-run work. Liberals are the center.
*** The heart of the argument: Liberals are hypocritical
Examples from the book: "... the actions of such individuals would frequently be in opposition to their own set of self-held dogmas, his findings would reveal evidence of tax evasion, business agreements with previously denounced companies (a la Michael Moore's borrowing of funds from Disney to assemble `Fahrenheit 9/11'), and a departure from environmental care. We also learn that these individuals were opposed to the idea of joining labor unions, lest they would be compelled to submit the accompanying wages." And: "... a pro-union activist has personal business dealings that prevent organized labor to get a foothold, it is the laborers who are harmed."
On the "rules of the game":
This book essentially says that, if you think the "rules of the game" should be changed, then it's not OK to play by the current rules. If you do, then you're a hypocrite. Hardly. If current rules are that certain taxes can be avoided, but one thinks the laws should be changed, then it's not hypocritical at all to advocate changing the rules and still live by the rules in place.
On individual logic vs. collective logic:
Then there's the more fundamental and main problem with this book: it doesn't distinguish between "individual logic" and "collective logic." Individual logic says: "Do what's logical for me to improve my situation." Collective logic says: "Do what's logical to improve society." Both are needed. Not attending to the need for collective logic is why our society is failing on so many fronts.
Now libertarians and many conservatives believe that when individuals do what's logical for themselves, it's always logical for the whole. But that belief is false. In many situations, individually logical actions are collectively irrational and we fall prey to what's known as the "Fallacy of Composition": acting as if what's true for a part is true for the whole.
There are many examples where "individual logic" fails the whole: ocean fishing, farming, health insurance, offshoring, urban growth. The point is that one can advocate for creating rules of the game that support collective logic and prevent system failures. However, it's individually logical to follow individual logic because not doing so puts one at a serious disadvantage compared to others. Examples: higher labor costs, higher business costs from not polluting, less return on investment. Conservatives would love that because the liberal would be placed at a competitive disadvantage. And they'd call the liberal a "sucker," instead of a hypocrite.
So individually logical decisions can be collectively insane. One can't blame the individuals for the collective failure. It's the job of government to look out for the collective. "Free market" ideology says that's not necessary, but it is.
For examples of the "Fallacy of Composition" when we apply individual logic and experience collective failure of the system, see below. It's not just a matter that the system doesn't do as well as it could; it's that the system fails. Therefore, the need to do the right thing in such situations is a very serious concern indeed.
Examples of the "Fallacy of Composition" when we apply individual logic and experience collective failure of the system:
Sports Spectators.
Individual logic: A spectator stands to improve his view. His view improves, but now he blocks the view of others. To see better, they also stand.
Collective failure: Standing takes more energy, so the act of everyone standing is less efficient and no one has a better view than before.
Ocean Fishing.
Individual logic:
A fisherman puts out more boats to increase profits. As the catch increases, additional profits fund even more boats. All fishermen logically do the same.
Collective failure: As total fishing approaches the sustainable ocean capacity, capacity is eroded and the effort required per fish caught increases, which erodes profit per fish. This situation is particularly perverse because scarcity drives up prices, prompting more fishing and sending exactly the wrong signal to preserve the resource ... an extreme market failure.
Farming.
Individual logic: A farmer plants more land with more mechanization to increase production and income. All farmers logically do the same.
Collective failure: The market for farm commodities is essentially a commons into which too much production creates too much supply, driving prices lower. The market doesn't regulate supply and demand because both supply and demand are inelastic. Demand doesn't increase with lower prices because those with money to buy food can only eat so much. Though one might think that land would be taken out of production in response to low prices, it turns out that farmers don't take land out of production: a farmer who doesn't plant only benefits others, not himself. Because no one can make a living at very low prices, farmers demand subsidies and price supports. These subsidies and supports allow farmers to expand and be more efficient to put even more commodity into the market. This drives prices even lower in a vicious downward spiral. References on farming:
Subsidies and Demand
Other industries have the tools needed to manage excess capacity
Health insurance.
Individual logic: Some of the healthiest people to logically drop their insurance, estimating they don't need it. This is the dynamic of "adverse selection."
Collective failure: This raises average costs and premiums for those remaining, which leads the healthier of those remaining to also drop out. This creates a health insurance death spiral (as we're now experiencing). Add to this that unless everyone is covered, society does not take advantage of the positive externalities of health care: that is, when you spend money on your health, I'm less likely to get sick, and, if we're working together, I'm more productive. This promotes "free-riding" … there are advantages to me for just letting you pay for your health care. Also, some of the healthy who dropped out do get sick; and the costs are passed on to the public in taxes and to businesses in increased costs. This raises premiums and accelerates the effects of adverse selection.
Offshoring.
Individual logic: U.S. corporations reduce costs and increase profits by taking advantage of low offshore wages in a world economy with tremendous labor supply compared to demand. If only one corporation does this, it works for that corporation.
Collective failure: But this increases price competition and drives more corporations to logically use offshore labor. But when all do, none have lower costs than others and competitively, they're no better off than they were before. That's not the worst of it; the real problem is that the severe wage competition reduces U.S. wages, shrinks U.S. purchasing power, and erodes U.S. market demand. This further increases price competition in the U.S. and creates pressure for even more offshoring. As long as offshore pay is low and there's a global glut of capacity, this "reinforcing feedback" will continue to power offshoring and an exponentially increasing U.S trade deficit. So the catch is that we get less expensive goods, but U.S. purchasing power erodes, undermining the whole economy.
See Jobless recovery: Another example of the fallacy of composition?
See The Trade Deficit and the Fallacy of Composition
Growth.
Individual logic: Regions cut taxes and regulations to compete with other regions. Regions must compete for jobs because Federal Reserve policy assures there are always more people than jobs ("effective unemployment" is 9%, meaning the added value of 1 of 10 workers is zero and the added value of any one worker is zero!). Similarly, regions compete by not charging impact fees to pay for the long-term costs of growth (e.g., roads, bridges, schools, fire stations); if they do, jobs will go elsewhere.
Collective failure: Regions are left with ever-increasing infrastructure backlogs (that 5-year $1.6 trillion national infrastructure backlog), an increasing burden on the public to pay for the long-term costs of growth, and people stuck in traffic.
A response to my review and my comments on the response:
Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 20:33:07 -0800
From: [omitted to respect his privacy]
To: scuba@usa.net
Subject: Your review = Typical liberal attempt to cover up the truth
Robert,
Instead of acknowledging the truth that "Do As I Say" clearly proves by many documented instances that prominent liberals are hypocrites and demand that others do what they privately strive to avoid doing, you launched a tremendous diversionary tactic, literally a monstrous haystack of false arguments. This is done in military advances and by sophistic liberals, of which you show overwhelming evidence of being one. However, regarding the real subject of the book and its accuracy in fact, you never dealt with that honestly at all.
Right off the bat, you started out with:
]] This book is quite clever and effective. Clever because it uses "logical sleight-of-hand" to confuse and obfuscate. Effective because so many actually buy his illogic. In this case "effective" really means "deceptive."
This review addresses these issues:
- Particularly egregious nonsense
- The heart of the flawed argument: Liberals are hypocritical [[
That's sheer garbage; it hurls blatant smears against the book without any meaningful and proper supporting evidence from the text of the book to justify it. If anyone is trying to "confuse and obfuscate" the record of this book, it is You! I read many other such liberal reviews that attempted to smear, beguile, trick or deceive the reader into rejecting this book, and found no substance in them at all.
Actually, this is what typical liberals do--they lie a lot, and try to trick others with propaganda stunts that I studied in college, such as "begging the question" and "ignoring the question," "changing the subject," "faulty dilemma," etc. Hopefully, you should know what I'm talking about, since you showed evidence of using several of them. I noted that you even used the word "fallacy," several types of which your incredible smear partook of liberally.
You tried to use your phony claim of defining all reality to support your smear of "Particularly egregious nonsense" on the whole book! The fact of the matter is that the author went to great lengths to document each detail of the hypocrisy of his subjects and PROVED them so every single time by the historical record of their actions. You didn't prove diddly.
Incidentally, his solid proofs of hypocrisy on the part of his subjects also discredits your false claim that his theme of "liberals are hypocritical" is flawed. It isn't flawed at all, it's right on target and is the real truth of the matter. It's also clear that the overwhelmingly liberal mass media never prints the truth about the individuals cited in this book, hence it hides their hypocrisy, and they are trying to totally black it out by refusing even to acknowledge that the book exists--another liberal trick of hiding the truth from Americans.
I have read several of the specific case histories in the book and even checked the end notes for authenticity, and found nothing wrong. Of particular note is that liar Franken had the supreme gall to sue the author--not over his charges that were authenticated in the book, but over his approach in how he obtained the information in the first place. If that isn't an admission of guilt, I don't know what is. BTW, I read one of Franken's books "Lies and the Lying Liars that tell them." Guess what? By his own admission, Franken is the biggest liar in the book! --he even admitted to a few of his lies! So, Schweizer showed up Al Franken as a liar and a hypocrite, and good for Schweizer!
There isn't time nor space to cover all of your verbose attempts to claim to redefine the political environment as if you were God and then claim to discredit Schweizer's straightforward documentary on the basis of your own phony concept of the structure of all reality. In the first place, your claim:
]] Liberal is not the "left," much less the "extreme left." Socialists and communists are the far left. [[
doesn't hold water. Many who pretend to be merely "liberals" according to your definition are found secretly supporting actual terrorist groups that bomb people and want to destroy America, so there is a tremendous amount of overlap here.
One public figure, John Kerry, wants to be taken only as if he were slightly liberal [while trying to deny even that!] was a traitor to this country by going to an enemy country while still a reserve officer in the navy on "inactive status" [still subject to recall to active duty] in direct violation of military codes. Kerry also betrayed his fellow navy servicemen by claiming to a Senate committee that U.S. Navy perpetrated systematic war crimes, thus directly contributing to communists' torturing war prisoners, when he knew that that his story was a lie. Kerry should have been committed to Leavenworth penitentiary instead of elected to the U.S. Senate! (See "Unfit for Command" for details, and don't try to tell me it isn't the documented truth of his disgraceful conduct! I know better, and I thoroughly compared the book with other sources.)
So, if you have an honest thread in your entire character, you ought to own up to the fundamental facts: Schweizer really did pin down each and every one of his subjects as (1) being openly recognized liberals by their own track records (2) prominently, even vociferously, promoting practices and actions for all Americans to partake in that were claimed to be necessary and good, while (3) taking exactly the reverse direction in their own actions to avoid the pitfalls that their own proclaimed policies would cause to others. If this isn't hypocrisy, then I need a new dictionary!
Best regards,
[removed]
Retired electronic engineer
By the way, I noted tremendous intellectual dishonesty in your phony argument:
]] If current rules are that certain taxes can be avoided, but one thinks the laws should be changed, then it's not hypocritical at all to advocate changing the rules and still live by the rules in place. [[
You ought to reread what you wrote!!!!!!! If one publicly and quite vociferously proclaims, as does Ted Kennedy, one of the subjects in the book, that the rich should be taxed more heavily to properly redistribute the national income, then if Mr. Kennedy privately uses every trick he knows to hide his own rich assets to escape income taxes, as clearly documented in the book, then he is NOT a hypocrite?
--Especially when he is a lawmaker and sponsors laws that do to others what he refuses to submit to himself--even working to get loopholes for himself to avoid what he hits many others with [documented in the book, BTW]? Shame on you, my friend for trying to change the definition.
My dictionary says:
hypocrite -- a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, esp. a person whose actions belie stated beliefs.
2. a person who feigns some desirable or publicly approved attitude, esp. one whose private life, opinions, or statements belie his or her public statements.
What does your dictionary say?
________________
Comments on this response:
This writer's rabid response clearly misses the purpose of my review. He expects, even demands, that I attempt to refute the facts in the book. He sees any criticism as unfair unless it addresses the facts presented.
Instead, I implicitly concede the facts and explain why the alleged actions of liberals, even if true, aren't hypocrisy. The point being to undercut the props that hold up the facade of the book's premise and to point to errors in the book's logic (e.g., Nonsense #1).
The four main points the writer is unwilling, or unable, to consider:
- It's widely accepted that there are independent social and economic dimensions of politics. All politicians talk of the social conservatives and the economic conservatives as being distinctly different. See The Erroneous Rhetoric of the Right and the Political Compass for the matrix (specifically, US Election 2004 ... note Kerry is on the authoritarian and economic right ... just not nearly as extreme as Bush).
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| Axes with Names from Political Compass |
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| US Primaries from Political Compass |
For a time I was puzzled as to why economic conservatives would cater to social conservatives. Until I read the following quote:
- "Religion has always had one very useful role,
- it keeps the poor from killing the rich."
- Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821)
- Though liberals endorse policies that promote the common good, liberal is not the socialist "left" that wants government to own and run all businesses. In fact, we can't only pay attention to just the "individual" or just the "collective." We must pay attention to both. Both those on the far right and the far left are extremists and dangerous. For more, see Explaining Liberal Principles.
- It's not hypocritical to want to change the "rules of the game," yet continue to play by current rules. Insisting on playing by rules not in place will NOT significantly impact, if at all, system dysfunction. It will only negatively impact those who want to make the system functional and sustainable.
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| US Elections from Political Compass |
- Policies that promote the good of the individual aren't sufficient; there is a need for policies that promote the common good to prevent overall system failure, which is why we need to change the "rules of the game." See The Trade Deficit and the Fallacy of Composition for an examination of trade policy that illustrates why I believe our economy, and therefore the world economy, will collapse in approximately 3 years when the trade deficit reaches 10% of GDP and the accumulated trade deficit (trade debt) reaches 100% of GDP. Conservative "free trade" policies are destroying America.
Some specifics:
Kennedy diatribe: Relative to the writer's diatribe against Kennedy, it must be understood that "tax avoidance," legitimately following the tax code, is different from "tax evasion." The former is legal and the latter is not. I will concede that anyone who works "to get loopholes for himself" that are not in accord with his avowed principles, is a hypocrite. I'll wager there are many more "conservatives" in this camp than liberals, as evidenced by who's being investigated, indicted, and sent to prison these days.
Attack on Kerry: I won't respond to the writer's attack on Senator Kerry, The lies of John O'Neill: An MMFA analysis are well-documented.
Liberals want to destroy America: The writer maintains that "Many who pretend to be merely "liberals" according to your definition are found secretly supporting actual terrorist groups that bomb people and want to destroy America ..." I know lots of liberals and none of them want to "destroy America." Mr. Bush is doing a fine job of that and does not need help.
Liberal hypocrisy vs. Bush's hypocrisy: Finally, I don't understand how someone so sensitive to hypocrisy can be so immune to seeing Bush's real flip-flops, inconsistencies, prevarications, and lies.
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