{"id":2661,"date":"2009-12-15T09:58:07","date_gmt":"2009-12-15T14:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=2661"},"modified":"2009-12-15T09:58:07","modified_gmt":"2009-12-15T14:58:07","slug":"nyt-misunderstands-personal-discretion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/2661\/nyt-misunderstands-personal-discretion\/","title":{"rendered":"NYT Misunderstands Personal Discretion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Despite a catchy tease about New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg being a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do carbon emitter, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/12\/13\/nyregion\/13about.html?_r=2&amp;partner=rssnyt&amp;emc=rss\" target=\"_blank\">the <em>New York Times<\/em> goes out of its way to minimize criticizing him<\/a>.  Sure, the self-made billionaire frequently travels to Bermuda and other international locales on a private jet while urging others to conserve energy.  And yes, he preaches the virtues of public nutrition while emptying the salt shaker on his pizza.  But, cautions the Times, you must understand: Mayor Mike is rich, and rich people like riding on private jets.  They\u2019re comfortable, quick, and apparently serve sushi.  Besides, you\u2019d ride in one too if you could.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This is not Bloombergian hypocrisy; it is a paradox, shared by most of humankind. I\u2019ve lived within a block or two of a subway station since birth, yet owned a car since I got a driver\u2019s license. There is a long list of public figures \u2014 from movie stars to politicians to journalists \u2014 who preach conservation for everyone else, while living in mega-homes and flying in Gulfstreams. It is probably not a good idea for the rest of us to look down our noses at people who cannot resist such temptations until we can afford them ourselves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>At which point the newly wealthy would succumb to the temptation to indulge in similar naughty expenditures?<\/p>\n<p>The truth is that Bloomberg and the author of this tortured article aren\u2019t engaging in hypocrisy or a paradox.  They\u2019re just opting out.  Instead of abiding by the logical conclusions stemming from Nannystate environmental and food policies, they are choosing to exercise their freedom of discretion.  Kudos to Bloomberg for saving rainwater to reduce his foundation\u2019s energy costs.  Bravo to the author for keeping autoworkers, road maintenance staff, and car dealers employed by owning a car instead of using the subway.  But they should recognize that in each case it is the combination of personal wealth and a lack of prohibitory laws that allows each to adopt the level of self-imposed denial they deem sustainable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite a catchy tease about New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg being a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do carbon emitter, the New York Times goes out of its way to minimize criticizing him. Sure, the self-made billionaire frequently travels to Bermuda and other international locales on a private jet while urging others to conserve energy. And yes, he preaches [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[644,642,643],"class_list":["post-2661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-michael-bloomberg","tag-nyc","tag-nyt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2661"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2668,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2661\/revisions\/2668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}