Hypocrisy

 Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy.

-Rambler #76 December 1750

Today’s theme is hypocrisy.  And before the left attempts to redefine that as well, reference Mr. Webster, a despised member of the “old white man” class, but currently considered the gold standard for definitions:  Hypocrisy is defined as “a feigning to be what one is not, or to feel what one does not feel; a dissimulation, or a concealment of one’s real character, disposition, or motives; especially the assuming of false appearance of virtue or religion, a simulation of goodness.”  Remarkable in that “Democrat” is not listed as a synonym.  Rather than a lengthy dissertation on my part, oftentimes giving me the distinct impression that I am railing into the wind, think of this as a homework assignment, or at the very least a thought provoking exercise whereby logic, rationale and common sense are prerequisites.  Let’s begin.

On Climate Change

If sea levels are rising precipitously, with some estimates predicting as much as two feet by 2060 and another at 7 feet by 2100, President Biden commented in his presser: roads that “used to be above the water level, now we’ve got to rebuild them three feet higher.” Really. No follow-up? With plans already underway in Miami suggesting that a mere three feet is not high enough, residents are wondering exactly how that will affect their property that borders those roads.  Think of the strip on Miami Beach, for example.  Are we going to raise all the properties three feet as well, or is the road going to be like a giant dyke, turning Miami into a sunnier version of Holland? And if climate change and rising sea levels are such an “existential threat”, why did Barack Obama drop some $13 million on an oceanfront compound on Martha’s Vineyard?  Why does Hollywood’s liberal glitterati have Malibu oceanfront palaces? Why are beachfront homes still commanding staggering prices on Cape Cod and in the Hamptons? Why would anyone have a home in the Florida Keys or the Outer Banks? Or perhaps a $2.75 million Delaware beach house, Joe. 

If CO2 is a greenhouse gas, a designation being actively pursued by the EPA, and we are naturally seeking to reduce our emissions, then why are we allowing 100,000 CO2 emitters into our country every month across our southern border with Mexico? And they’re not just CO2 emitters.  They need places to live, places to shop, increased infrastructure, more strip malls, more urban sprawl, more destruction of habitat for whatever wee beastie du jour Greenpeace is trying to save from extinction this week.  They will drive more cars, burn more fuel, heat their homes and most egregious of all: they will propagate and make even more CO2 emitters.

If the Paris Climate Accord is in place to combat global climate change, why does it disproportionately punish the United States, a country that, having withdrawn from the agreement, continued to reduce its carbon emissions on its own?  Why did Biden hitch our wagons back up to that economic recovery-busting train? Meanwhile, China and India, two of the rising stars in increased global emissions are allowed to go about their business of polluting on an epic scale to the year 2030 unchecked.   And not only at home. China has expanded its influence into South America where it is actively engaged in building ports to export raw materials and minerals from their mining operations, undertakings that are ravaging the land and producing astronomical amounts of greenhouse gases as a byproduct.  Right under our noses and in our own hemisphere.

On Race

Why, when the police repeatedly explained that the Atlanta area massage parlor shootings were not motivated by race, did the media, the Asian community and the Biden Administration continue to promote the theory that the attack was motivated by anti-Asian sentiment?  In a painfully uncomfortable exchange with the press, the chief of police had to repeatedly explain that he had questioned the perpetrator specifically on the motivation and he had stated that the attack was based on a warped perspective that the establishments were feeding his sex addiction.  No matter how many times the reporter rephrased the question in an attempt to lead the law enforcement officer down the chosen path of racial motivation, he was met with the same response.  The best exchange was hilarious: Question:  “How do you know it was not motivated by race?”  Answer: “Because I asked him.” But this is the way the media rolls, and it’s getting worse.  No longer the beacons of truth, it is all about sensationalism and promoting a liberal agenda.  Take the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando in 2016.  The media leapt on the premise that the club was targeted by Islamic extremists because it was a “gay” nightclub.  Not many recall the retraction when the actual story emerged.  Apparently another club with no LGBTQ label was targeted first but passed over due to having a higher level of security.  The Pulse Nightclub was merely a less secure target of opportunity.  And now we have the Boulder, Colorado King Soopers shooting.  Jumping on the tired old “disgruntled white man with an assault weapon theme”, you could sense the disappointment when the perpetrator turned out to be a Syrian immigrant, a Muslim with a history of paranoia and mental illness as well as a history of assault.  Posts online include references to having his phone hacked by his high school and being followed and chased by unknown assailants.  Alas, the perpetrator will become the victim as CNN is already reporting that he was made fun of because of his Muslim name, becoming more anti-social and isolated, fueling his mental illness.  And of course, when asked why he knew his phone was being hacked: “I believe part racism for sure”.  Not a word of condemnation as to why he shot only white people.  

If Black Lives Matter, why did Chicago post the second-most homicides in 2020 in more than two decades without a peep from the media?  Detroit, Washington DC, New York and Milwaukee all recorded increases in killings from the previous year.  The carnage is staggering.  Chicago alone reported 769 homicides in 2020.  As a comparison, according to Statista, in the first two months of 2021, police shot 132 civilians nationwide, but only 16 of those victims were Black.  Coincidentally that means 12% of the shooting victims were Black, reflecting fairly accurately their 13.4% of the population.  Hmm. That’s not exactly the narrative put forth by the media. But the left argues that proportionately by population, the chance of being killed by a police officer is greater if Black, whereby 35 per million members of the population will succumb, as compared to only 14 per million of whites.  But that math is fuzzy at best and absent from the discussion are statistics related to the type of crime, where that crime occurs and who is committing that crime.  Is it more likely that one demographic may have an increased probability of interfacing negatively with law enforcement?  Americans who identify as White make up 76.3% of the population, Blacks 13.4%.  Overall arrests broken down by race according to the DOJ breaks down as follows: 69% White and 27% Black. But more telling is the data on violent crime by race.  The DOJ reports that 58% is committed by Whites whereas 37.8% is committed by Blacks, punching well above their population percentage. Further breakdown reveals a much more disturbing trend: With a total of 11,970 crimes falling into the “murder and non-negligent manslaughter” category, whites accounted for 44.1% but Blacks are far overrepresented at 52.3% of crimes committed.   Of course rarely do they mention that in Chicago 79 officers were shot at in 2020 compared to 22 taking fire the year before.  10 officers were struck compared to only 5 in in 2019.  Who wants that job? Maybe after the cops are defunded, they will get more applicants.  Sure they will.

Returning to the theme of Black Lives Matter. Why are more Black babies aborted in New York City than are born?  The Guttmacher Institute reported in 2017 that Black women abortion rates were 27.1 per thousand as compared to 10 per thousand for white women.  Naturally, the report comes with the caveat that “lack of access to health insurance and health care plays a role as do racism and discrimination.”  Of course, access to condoms, oral contraceptives, Medicaid and the old stand-by abstinence must be a racial issue for the lefties.  Making up 13.4% of the population, Black women accounted for 32% of the total abortions. Isn’t Planned Parenthood a staple in minority neighborhoods?  You know, the progressive darling, the Margaret Sanger-established organization designed to further the founder’s eugenics-based principles of keeping minority populations in check.  Yeah, that’s the one. 

On Health Care

If Medicare for All is the ultimate goal by the left to achieve fair and equitable health care for all Americans, why is it that our elected officials are exempt, instead getting high quality private healthcare at taxpayer expense for life?  Surrounded by National Guard troops, Capitol Police, fences and razor wire the elite class all but proclaims: “let them eat cake”.  Tell me again how we are all equal. 

On Taxes

If “pay your fair share” is the progressive rallying cry for increased taxation on the wealthy, why does the US already have the most progressive tax code on the planet? Fairness doesn’t even enter into the equation. Recall, the top 10% of earners pay 70% of the tax burden. That seems less like a fair share and more like a punishment for success. The top 1% pays 38.47%, the top 5% pays 59.14%, the top 25% pays 86.1% and remarkably the bottom 50%, half of all earners, pay only 3.11% of the tax burden. Our “poor” have the highest standard of living on the planet and are the envy of the world.  Witness the line forming to get in at our southern border. Contrary to the liberal complaint that the Trump tax cuts of 2017 only benefitted the wealthy, the nature of the tax code became even more progressive by shifting more tax burden to the top earners.  Despite Biden’s press conference claim that “close to $2 trillion Trump tax cut-83% going to the top 1%”, it is far from the truth.  According to the Western Journal, what Biden chose to ignore is that 82% of middle class Americans received tax cuts, earning him two Pinocchios by none other than the Washington Post.  But the Democrats continue to repeat the falsehood, a narrative so effective that the New York Times reported that only 40% of Americans believed they received any tax cut at all. And they intend to use that narrative to rationalize the sweeping tax increases that are on the way. Hunker down folks, it’s going to be a long four years.

Gun Control

If guns should be banned, then why are our elite elected officials surrounded by them?  National Guard, Capitol Police and private security supply them with multiple layers of armed protection.  But you?  You’re on your own, pal. And those evil weapons of war, those assault rifles, designed only to kill people according to the phenomenally clueless network talking heads, should be banned altogether in the name of public safety to prevent mass killings.  Hold the phone.  Let’s look at the inconvenient data.  Rifles, of all types, including the preposterously demonized “assault weapons” are responsible for approximately 3% of all homicides with assault rifles making up one-tenth of 1%.  One tenth of one percent. Of the 10,265 murders that occurred in 2018, 6603 were a result of a handgun. In 297 of the cases, a rifle was used and in 235, a shotgun.  Remarkably knives were used in 1515 of the cases, blunt objects in 443, and hands, fists, and feet responsible for 672.  We should probably ban those too. With knives accounting for five times the numbers of murders as compared to rifles, it would make more sense to ban cutlery in the name of public safety rather than a rifle. 

Walls

Walls don’t work.  And they’re racist. Are they now?  They seem to work well when they are surrounding your gated community.  Or Nancy Pelosi’s Napa Estate.  Or the Green Zone in Baghdad.  How about the Berlin Wall?  That worked well for the communists for years.  I don’t recall a flood of immigrants into West Germany.  How about that wall the Israelis built, you know the one that the terrorists keep trying to tunnel under.  I don’t hear our elected officials chastising Israel on the ineffectiveness of that structure. And how about that razor-wire-topped monstrosity surrounding our Capitol and the White House. The one designed to keep you out.  Working to perfection. But the wall at the southern border with Mexico?  Nope. And it works less well when you broadcast to the migrant caravan the sections that aren’t finished, the construction you Democrats put a stop to.  Walls work, especially when your border security is stretched thin.  And what about all that “technology” that you Democrats were screaming about when Trump proposed a wall?  Where did that discussion go? As Candace Owens astutely pointed out: “This isn’t a border crisis, it’s a border plan.”

Covid

Wear a mask.  Don’t wear a mask.  Two masks are more effective.  No, three masks are even more effective.  Six feet social distancing.  No, only three feet is required. Get a vaccine. But still mask and social distance after you get it. You can still be a carrier. And a group of vaccinated people is allowed to get together without masks indoors.  But not too many.  Unless you’re Governor Gavin Newsome at a 5-star Michelin restaurant in Napa.  Or Saint Fauci at a ballgame. Masks and social distancing both optional in those cases.  But if you’re unvaccinated and unmasked, as long as you are protesting for Black Lives Matter, or are a member of Antifa, go ahead and assemble. In fact, go ahead and riot.  Burn some stuff.  Loot a few stores. And throw bottles at Police officers.  It’s all good.  And you immigrants flooding across the border? Rules don’t apply to you either. Americans may have to get the swab treatment stuck up near their pituitary gland somewhere to travel, but you folks? Nah. Even though we estimate you to have as high as a 50% Covid-positive rate, we’re going to pack you into crowded facilities and then fly you all over the country. But you Trump supporters that attended rallies, crowded together, some of you not wearing masks.  You are “superspreaders”.  And you “insurrectionists” are too.  

Women’s’ Rights

You do recall the public, disgusting, politically motivated attacks on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh?  The nation was forced to endure those partisan hearings with the star witness, Christine Blasey-Ford, she of the leftist university set, a research psychologist from Palo Alto with her huge smudged glasses and hazy recollection of fantastical gang rapes at alcohol fueled elite private school parties some thirty years ago.  Nothing specific, mind you and certainly no corroboration whatsoever, but it was definitely Brett Kavanaugh.  Uh-huh. And we must believe all women. Right.  Especially when they get awards from the ACLU for courage for supporting your leftist agenda.  And we also believe porn stars like Stormy Daniels, even when represented by shady, crooked, arrogant attorneys looking to turn a buck. Especially when the target is Donald Trump, the “misogynist”, one of many    “–ists” the left has thrown at him.  You know him; he’s the raging sexist that hired more women, and women with children, to high-ranking positions in his administration than any previous President.  The brute. But come on, we definitely don’t believe all women, now do we?  We don’t believe Tara Reid, even though she had a witness come forward that corroborated her story of a Joe Biden assault from 25 years ago.  We don’t believe Juanita Broderick, Leslie Millwee, Paula Jones, or Kathleen Willey, all part of Bill Clinton’s stable of sexual misdeeds.  We even dismissed and ruined then 22-year-old star-struck Monica Lewinsky for her affair with Clinton.  He suffered the indignity of impeachment, a monetary fine and having his Arkansas law license suspended for five years, but he remained in office with his power intact.  Two credible women came forward to accuse Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax of rape. They too were largely dismissed by the media and Fairfax continues to serve as Lieutenant to Ralph Northam, coming close to assuming his boss’ job until Northam was also given a pass for a “blackface” photo that started with an apology then morphed into a denial that it was even him in the photo.  And currently we have New York Governor Andy Cuomo amassing a sexual harassment resume that would make Bill Clinton blush.  After Republicans rallied, calling for his impeachment, it took a total of seven accusers to get the State’s Democrats’ attention with Senators Gillibrand, quiet for too long given her outspoken position in the #MeToo movement, and Chuck Schumer finally calling for his resignation.  But Governor Andy continues to play the denial game, and even apologized in that peculiarly paced “I’m talking to idiots” manner of speech for acting “in a way that made people feel uncomfortable”.  He stated that he has no intention of resigning and wants to wait for the full results of the investigation.  Of course we all recall what happened when his Moreland Commission was set up to investigate state corruption: his right hand man got caught in the net, and Cuomo shut down the his own ethics watchdog commission, presumably because it was sniffing too close to the throne. And what do all these women have in common, those that came forward and risked their careers only to be dismissed?  All accusers of Democrat politicians.  It seems only Al Franken took one for the team, but then again, he was always an outsider. And much like this level of hypocrisy, he wasn’t very funny either. 

And while on the topic of sex and women’s rights:  if women’s’ rights are so important, then what’s going on with this transgender nonsense in women’s sports?  I am barely able to keep track of all the letters in LGBTQ, now apparently bequeathed with addition of I and A, when we have the NCAA and Amazon extorting South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to alter a bill that passed through the overwhelmingly conservative assembly to protect women’s sports from transgender-identified males.  According to the National Review, “the bill upheld the biological definition of sex, ensuring that any team or sport sponsored by a public school, school district, qualifying association, or institution of higher education would have to be expressly designated as either a male, female or co-ed team.”  Seems logical, doesn’t it? But Noem, under pressure from Amazon and the NCAA was essentially threatened with having her state blackballed if she didn’t bend the legislation to their whims.  So cave she did.  The NCAA was essentially threatening to bar any athletes from South Dakota from their sanctioned competitions and would not hold any events, tournaments or playoffs in her state, a potentially huge cash incentive. What Governor Kristi did was alter the bill so that it did not apply to collegiate athletics and essentially removed its teeth by eliminating biological sex verification.  Despite the myriad of sexual variants proposed by the left, there remains only two biological sexes, aside from some aberrant mutations.  For those of you that are biology impaired, and especially you, the self-proclaimed party of science, a boy is no more a girl than he is a penguin, just because he thinks so.  Nature is a horrible thing and you play the cards you’re dealt, or the chromosomes in this case. No Barr Bodies in your epithelial cells? Congratulations, you’re a dude, regardless of the hardware or lack thereof down under. But these inconvenient truths have not stopped the state of Connecticut who declared transgender athletes may compete as a member of the sex with which they identify.  Using track and field as an example, two transgender athletes took first and second place at the state 100-meter championships collectively winning a total of 15 girls state championship titles, all previously held by biological females.  Although their times are not enough to win against males in their age group, these transgender athletes are shattering women’s records and denying biological female athletes their place on the podium and their ability to compete for scholarships.  As an measure of physical disparity, the US 2016 Olympic Silver medalist in the 400-meter dash is Allyson Felix, whose time can be bested by some 300 male high school athletes today. In the 1970’s Renee Richards, a male ophthalmologist and excellent club-level and collegiate tennis player, underwent sex reassignment surgery, eventually winning a court case to allow her to compete on the women’s professional tennis circuit.  Although she only reached a ranking of 20, one has to couch that with the fact that she was a lanky 6’1” tall, a more impressive height for a woman tennis player in the 70s, but also she was far older than most of her competitors, having had sex reassignment surgery and starting to play the women’s circuit when she was 42 years of age, long past retirement for most women of that era. Chris Evert, the world number one ranked female tennis player in 1975, was often quoted for saying her husband, John Lloyd ranked as high as #20 at one time, could easily clean her clock, alluding to the advantage males hold over their female counterparts. Martina Navratilova, also a former women’s’ number one and longstanding advocate for gay rights, was actually coached by Renee Richards.  She has raised the ire of the LGBTQ establishment despite being a lesbian herself, by denouncing the policy of allowing transgender athletes to compete against their cis-gendered counterparts.  “It’s insane and it’s cheating,”said the tennis great. “I am happy to address a transgender woman in whatever form she prefers, but I would not be happy to compete against her.  It would not be fair.” So do we really want our daughters competing against biological male counterparts who are bigger, stronger, and faster?  In contact sports like soccer, do we want to risk their injury with men on the field of play? Do we want to have them compete against males for career-making scholarship opportunities? After all the successes of Title IX, do we want to undo that success and deprive young women of the self-esteem and reward that comes from success in sports?  Why are we placing the rights of transgender males above the rights of women? Perhaps we should listen to female athletes like Martina, Chris and the brave young women in Connecticut who are challenging the policy in court.   Perhaps they have more insight than most.