Question about hypocrisy

U

Uninformed

5,000+ Posts
If a person believes that everyone should make it on their own and then is given $1 million, is it hypocritical to accept the money? For those who say that it is hypocritical, what is it that makes it hypocritical? Is it the amount? If he is given $5,000 and he accepts it, is it still hypocritical?


And let's not be dicks and make this political.
 
The question is not whether people need help to succeed. Obviously everyone needs help at some point or another. I have yet to see anyone give birth to themselves or nurse themselves.

The question is whether we need the government to be our nanny. Do we need bureaucrats to write regulations ad nauseum to protect us from ourselves? Do we need more government programs to "help" us succeed.
 
Said the boy to the girl. Hypothetically speaking of course, would you go to bed with me for a million dollars? Be honest now.

Girl Well I suppose I would for a million dollars.

Boy Would you do it for five bucks?

Girl No, what do think I am?

Boy We've already established what you are, we're now just negotiating the terms.

Doesn't really apply here............. sorry.
 
Eventually, I want to get to a political question: If a politician states that he is against government bailouts, yet at one time that politician received money from a bailout does that make him a hypocrite? I am not sure it does: Perhaps the politician learned that bailouts are often misused. But that is an easy out. If instead the politician felt that if the money was available "he wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth", would that be hypocritical? Personally, I don't think so. But I wasn't a liberal arts major.
 
If a politician is against bailouts but they pass anyways and then on principle refuses to try and get some for his constituents then I think his constituents would be pissed
 
Yes, of course it would be hypocritical.
What is your point?
There can't be any other answer to your question.
If I believe (a.) and do (b.), I am a hypocrite. But everybody is a hypocrite sometimes.
 
I think many on this board, myself included, are sometimes misusing the word hypocrisy. If someone is against giving benefits, it does not make them a hypocrite for accepting benefits. Calling Romney a hypocrite for benefiting from a gov't bailout when he was in the private sector is a misuse of the word. Similarly, calling Warren Buffett a hypocrite for calling for more taxes on the wealthy and then taking tax write-offs does not make him a hypocrite. On the other hand, if Al Gore is for limiting greenhouse gases and yet owns a huge house and flies private jets then, by definition, he is a hypocrite.

Anyway, this thread was started to examine the use of the word "hypocrite". It is my belief that we are oftentimes wrong to call someone a hypocrite.
 
You may negotiate the rules of the game and or negotiate the terms, you may not win, but that should not prevent you from using the rules to your benefit or the terms of agreement that you were against.
 
Should parents be able to leave their children an inheritance or should the government get what you leave behind?
 
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