On Our Double Standards
A meme is circulating that makes a point about American political hypocrisy. When an unarmed black kid gets shot dead, running away from the police, many say “he should have just complied”. But when a white cop refuses to get a lawfully mandated vaccine shot, and gets fired, you don’t hear, “he should have just complied”. When a baker refuses to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple or Hobby Lobby won’t provide birth control benefits, you hear “they can choose to do what they want, its their business”. But when a business chooses to require a vaccine mandate, many now insist it’s a curtailment of the anti-vax’ers “freedom”. Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland should be shot on sight. Insurrectionists in the Capitol are patriotic tourists. Everyone should pay a fair share of our taxes, except its okay if a rich guy can figure out how to pay nothing. You steal a loaf of bread and you go to jail, but steal a million from your employees and you’re a successful businessman. Use a food assistance card and you’re a moocher, but stuff a tax break in your wallet and you’re a pillar of society. This nation has become a haven for the unprincipled.

Why are we doing this? Why are we allowing it? Inconsistency and hypocrisy are a cancer on the cohesion of a society. Once we agree that what’s good for the goose isn’t good for the gander, then it all breaks down. That’s what’s happening. We’ve even found a term to combat the first paragraph of this commentary. It will be labeled “false equivalencies”. We simply deny that we’re responsible for some kind of logic in our beliefs. So, if the hypocrisy is pointed out, we say it’s “false”. But in the magic of our times, “false equivalency” is also used to defend inconsistency. We just compare two unlike things, and insist it proves our point. Ain’t it grand?

At one time there was something called “spin”. That was when the facts or accusations were bent a bit to make a point. There was a “liberal” spin and a “conservative” spin. But we’re way past that now. We are busy with outright lies and mass dis-information campaigns. We’ve adopted the Nazi propaganda maxim that if we say it often enough it becomes the truth. But the Brownshirts never dreamed of the echo chamber of todays social media. Lies travel so fast across the internet that the truth can’t keep up. And in true fascist style, those who attempt to “fact check” are being threatened, intimidated and run out of town.

This clouding of principle and twisting of consistency is very purposeful. Those doing it know their efforts only have to divide and discourage. A confused and directionless population is easily dominated and directed. The goal is to eliminate any jointly held values, that we can unify around and defend. The acceptance and then embracement of hypocrisy is a deadly political strategy. We’ll look back from our social rubble and say “it seemed like fun at the time”.

We need to declare a war on hypocrisy, on lies, on false equivalencies on those who employ those tactics. We need to measure issues based on our common principles and common needs. We need to be consistent in our judgements. Even within a healthy and truthful political environment there will be lots of room for disagreement and debate. But that kind of discourse will lead to solutions. What we have now makes that impossible.

Ihg 10-25-2021

If you like these commentaries, join my blog for free at: https://ikegittlen.substack.com/ and share. Let’s see what we can build together.