I don’t know why it bugs me so much, but it does bug me when people try to make a big deal about the fact that Elizabeth Warren sent one of her children to private schools, claiming that this somehow makes her a hypocrite.
To be clear, it would be hypocritical for Warren to try to prevent other parents from doing what she did, i.e., to prevent parents with sufficient resources from choosing where to send their own kids, on their own dime. She’s not doing that. It’s not hypocritical for her to do the best she can for her own children, while simultaneously advocating to fix a system that is failing other children.
To say that ‘she benefitted from school choice but is trying to deny school choice to other parents’ is deceptive, in that it uses the phrase ‘school choice’ in two completely different ways, implying that being able to decide what to do with your money is the same thing as being able to decide what to do with someone else’s money. But those are not the same at all. Not even close.
Now, it might very well be the case that her policies regarding how tax dollars should be allocated to schools are short-sighted, or misguided, or ill-informed, or just stupid.
But stupid isn’t the same as hypocritical. And for those who are confused about the difference, it might help to look at an example of actual hypocrisy by a politician.
Near the end of his second term as mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg got the law changed to allow him a third term. Then, when that term started, he got the law changed back so that no one else would be able to do the same thing.
That’s hypocrisy. See the difference?
