Saturday, December 03, 2005
A Truly Engaging Book - Do as I Say (Not as I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy
First of all, you really should get a subscription to Audible (http://www.audible.com). If you do, use me a referrer. Audible is the best service I have ever used, and for my monthly subscription fee I get any books I want (I get two, but they don’t offer that deal anymore), and over the course of the past few years I have probably got about 3X the dollar value of books through Audible. So use it.
The best book I have listened to in a long-time....
Do as I Say (Not as I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy by Peter Schweizer.
Honesty up front...I voted for Nader in 2000 and Bush in 2004. While I am a registered Republican I could easily be a Democrat if they actually still believed in something. Both political parties are in bed with big money (be it union, big business, or any other large dollar contributors). The Republican Party is at its best when it concerns itself with small businesses, since big business tends to try and protect their own current situation. But that is another story for another article…
This book is well written, funny, and is not full of cheap-shots about people’s personality. It simply points out that what many liberals, from Ralph Nader to George Soros to Hillary Clinton to my personal favourite San Fran Nancy Polosi say and advocate one thing for the public at large (you and me) but do something different with their own lives. In other words, they believe that what is good for the mass geese is not good for them.
Now of course Conservatives and Republicans are also hypocrites. But most of their hypocrisy tends to be in the areas of personal behaviour. From Newt Gingrich’s affairs while encouraging family values (I remain a fan of Gingrich the thinker) to Rush Limbaugh’s drug addiction (though there is a great difference between people addicted to illegal drugs and those who become addicted to drugs they are prescribed, especially pain killers). Peter Schweizer makes the point that moral failings are understandable because of the fallen nature of all human beings. We can argue that elsewhere.
But the out and out hypocrisy of the people profiled in the book is incidious because if they are advocating policy positions that they don’t want to live by - from union labour (which they avoid when ever possible), to minority hirings (which some in the book think is a great idea for everyone else but themselves), to environmental rules that are just too bothersome for them to live by.
Schweizer over-states the case in some instances, but for each individual there is enough that is plain and simple to make you shake your head.
I give this book 2 thumbs up and suggest you go to audible.com or your local bookstore and get a copy of this one!
