"Hypocrisy on the Left"

  

Sydney M. Williams

swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Hypocrisy of the Left”

May 3, 2022

 

“Hypocrites are those who apply to others the

standards that they refuse to accept for themselves.”

                                                                                             Noam Chomsky (1928-)

                                                                                             Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda, 1991

 

“The best defense is a good offense,” is an adage that has been used by many, from George Washington to Mao Zedong. It has been adopted by the Democrat Party. Elon Musk’s bid for Twitter has Democrats atwitter. Columnist Leonard Pitt wrote that the purchase “will turn one of the world’s leading social-media platforms into an even greater transmitter of disinformation and hate…” Keep in mind, Mr. Pitt’s definition of disinformation includes only that uttered by conservatives.

 

Barack Obama, speaking at a conference organized by The Atlantic called “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy,” opined: “It’s very difficult to get out of the reality that is constructed for us.” Constructed by whom, one might ask? As the New York Sun editorialized, Obama’s words were an “apt description of what Mr. Obama and the Democrat Press have built. Forget the metaverse. This is an alternative reality.” Speaking at Stanford University, a few days later Mr. Obama added that social media censors don’t go far enough, suggesting the government must step in. Six days later, the Biden Administration announced the establishment of a Disinformation Governance Board (DGB), an Orwellian-like “Ministry of Truth.” Coincidence? The DGB’s mission is to separate fact from fiction for the American people. Its real purpose, I feel certain, is to censor information that does not accord with the Administration’s narrative. The Board will be chaired by Nina Jankowicz who will report to Alejandro Mayorkas, U.S. Secretary for Homeland Security. Ms. Jankowicz seems an odd choice, as she disbelieved the truth of Hunter Biden’s laptop, claiming it was Trump “disinformation.” On the other hand, she did believe Christopher Steele, the discredited purveyor of disinformation about the fake Russian collusion story.

 

Examples of the Left going on the offense abound. The Washington Post claimed that Ketanji Brown Jackson was treated worse in her hearings than was Brett Kavanaugh four years earlier. Really? Was Ms. Jackson queried on her behavior as an 18-year-old? As National Review commented: “This is pure revisionism.” `The information on Hunter Biden’s laptop (the “laptop from hell,” as Nina Jankowicz described it) was reported by the New York Post in October 2020 but was disallowed on Twitter and dismissed as Russian disinformation by mainstream and social media. Following the election, the laptop and its contents were confirmed as legitimate by The New York Times and the Washington Post. No longer able to dismiss its existence, progressives now consider Hunter’s laptop as an “irrelevant distraction.”

 

For years, progressives have indoctrinated public school grade students in critical race theory, gender dysphoria and victimization. They have censured conservative speech on college campuses and banned books in schools that are “hateful,” in their depictions and descriptions of race, gender and sexual orientation, including such classics as Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird. These actions are justified as being in the interest of “the common good.” However, when Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis took steps to ban math textbooks that include references to critical race theory or “social emotional learning,” President Biden, indignantly (and disingenuously), said that Governor DeSantis was banning math textbooks in a bid to keep students ignorant.

 

“Do as I say, not as I do” is a proverb whose roots trace to our Puritan forefathers. It has become an admonitory order from the hypocritical Democrat Party. It was the message of Al Gore and John Kerry uttered regarding anthropomorphic-caused climate change, as they scooted about the world in their private planes. It was the mandates of blue-state governors during the COVID pandemic, as they ignored their own rules. It is what wealthy, white suburbanites do when they call to defund the police, while they hire extra security for their gated communities, and what the same people do when they demand open borders but remain isolated from any infusion of unvaccinated illegal immigrants. 

 

As a conservative, I believe in our natural rights, the freedom to speak and pray; I believe in the governing principles of property rights, rule of law and limited government, I believe in “we the people,” and I believe in personal responsibility, civility, mutual respect, tolerance and honor – that success is predicated on aspiration, merit and hard work. These, along with free-market capitalism, represent the foundation on which our nation was built, and which has allowed it to thrive. 

 

Today, that foundation is showing cracks. An ever-expanding central government – cheered on by their lackeys in media, universities, schools, the entertainment world and social media – has tentacles that reach deep into our personal lives, diminishing our role as individuals. It is those who issue mandates and who empower bureaucracies who claim the threat to democracy stems from those who wish to diminish government’s influence. As a conservative, I am alarmed at attempts to remove us and our ideas from the public square. 

 

As Florida Governor Ron DeSantis rises in the polls, an NBC opinion column by Dennis Aftergut argues that the governor is a “clearer danger than Trump,” and, seemingly unaware of the hypocrisy of his words, he writes, with the sanctimonious arrogance peculiar to the Left, that his (DeSantis’) decision to protect young children from being taught about gender and sexuality represents “Nazi-like thought control.” Republican campaign messaging is labeled “disinformation” and filled with “false narratives,” all of which justifies the decision to create the DGB, a “department of propaganda,” as former Democrat Representative Tulsi Gabbard described it. It is a bureaucracy that should frighten all freedom loving people. Do the initials remind you of something?

 

In terms of political ideologies, most people cluster toward the center; yet extremism persists, and progressives, with their media allies, have a big bullhorn. The fear is that extremists’ numbers and influence are growing, especially among establishment elitists on the left. The fact that Democrats have created this new Orwellian-like department and have accused Republicans of behavior that they themselves have committed is a manifestation of their hypocrisy. It should be a wake-up call. Our democracy depends on it.