Ah, GOP Hypocrisy

 

If there is one thing humans are good at its being hypocrites. I know I’ve been guilty of it from time to time, though I would qualify that by saying my instances of hypocrisy are relatively minor. It’s not like I’m in charge of governmental policy that affects thousands to millions of people. When it comes to hypocrisy political parties take the cake, especially the GOP.

 

Yes, Democrats are guilty of hypocrisy from time to time – the further-Left elements are all for equality as long as you’re not white – but for the most part Democrats are not malicious when they do their about-faces. Remember that Democrats are merely dumb whereas the GOP is actually mean. For instance, the GOP went into an uproar over SCOTUS nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson’s supposed leniency on pedophiles yet the same people have absolutely nothing to say about Matt Gaetz, Roy Moore, Jim Jordan, Trump being on Epstein’s flight manifests, or the Tennessee bill currently being advanced that would legalize children getting married. As political analyst Brian Tyler Cohen put it on Twitter, "Literally the same week Republicans are desperately trying to label everyone else pedophiles and groomers the Tennessee GOP is advancing a bill that would literally legalize child marriage. Truly beyond parody.” I wish I could say it ends there but it does not.

 

Hunter Biden’s laptop is a hot topic with the GOP right now, the allegations being Hunter Biden used his father’s influence to land a cushy job with a foreign government, sold access to his father, made some questionable tax payments, and had salacious personal material on it. How is any of this a bigger deal than the Trump kids using government influence to rake in almost a billion dollars while government advisors, Trump’s missing tax returns (and proven instances of business and charity fraud), or Trump’s infidelities? “You know what wasn’t on Hunter’s laptop? 15 boxes of classified and top-secret documents. That shit was at Mar-A-Lago,” tweeted Andrea Junker in reference to the documents Trump stole when he left office.

 

The GOP also claims to be the party of ‘law-and-order,’ though that appears to not really mean anything. At last count, at least 11 Trump Administration advisors had been arrested in connection with criminal activity, to say nothing of the hundreds of QAnon supporters arrested during the J6 riot that was incited by the Trump Administration itself. Not coincidently, the father of the woman who stole Nancy Pelosi’s laptop on J6 has been arrested for – you guessed it – child pornography. The GOP doesn’t seem to realize if Joe Biden is guilty by association with his son, then…

 

Oh, and hey, remember when Moscow Mitch McConnell denied Obama a SCOTUS nominee because it was ten months before the next presidential election but then rammed conservative Amy Coney Barrett through less than a month before the 2020 election?

 

To be fair, the GOP isn’t always hypocritical. More and more they’ve been showing their true colors and being outright racist as in the case of Ohio Republican senate candidate JD Vance, the “Do you hate Mexicans?” candidate who apparently blames Mexicans for his mother’s opioid addiction, nevermind that the drugs were prescribed by American doctors. Oh, and remember how much the GOP hates ‘cancel culture’? But what are they doing but calling on Disney to be cancelled for opposing DeSantis’ attack on the LGBTQ community? They also want to cancel workers rights, voting rights, and marriage rights. The GOP also wants to protect children, by not doing anything about school shootings.

 

Again, I’m not going to say I’m not a hypocrite from time to time. We’re all hypocrites. It’s just that some people love it and are better at it than others. Why? The human animal isn’t exactly the most reasonable thing around. So, if you’re going to be a hypocrite, at least admit to it least you be a hypocrite about being a hypocrite. That’s a sign of a mental health problem, meaning you’re bat-shit crazy. It appears the GOP has no problem with that.

Rachel Dolezal, Caitlyn Jenner, and the Double Standard

Of the all memes that plague the Internet these days, one finally caught my attention for not being instantly recognizable for its stupidity.

The question implied by the meme asks why is it socially acceptable that former Olympian Bruce Jenner – a white person – wants to pass himself off as a something he is not but it is not socially acceptable for former NAACP chapter president Rachel Dolezal – another white person – to attempt to pass herself off as something she is not? Is the difference about gender, is it about race, is it about celebrity; what the heck is going on here?

We should all know by now what Dolezal did wrong: She is guilty* of cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation, if you don’t know already, is adopting or using elements of a culture you’re not considered a part of and using them for your own benefit. Moreover, minorities and Caucasians of an extremely guilty conscious will tell intimate to you – if not tell you outright – that this criminal behavior only applies to Caucasians given the historical treatment of everyone else in the world by said Caucasians, or something. Dolezal, during her tenure as a chapter president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was discovered to be Caucasian and not an actual African American, as she portrayed herself as and continues to identify herself as. This outraged pretty much everyone who chiefly identifies themselves as a victim (which is occasionally for a good reason) and/or operates solely on emotion. (Nevermind that there is no bylaw of the NAACP that states that a chapter president must be of ‘colored’ descent. ) Dolezal, being Caucasian, comes from what is considered the upper and more powerful class and that in itself apparently means she is not allowed to identify herself as an African American no matter how much she acts like it or how much tanning she does. Dolezal, being Caucasian, because of her genetics, her race, is not allowed to portray herself as a member of a disadvantaged class in any manner. Why this is the case is not the question right now, but keep in mind that this is the state of ‘social justice’ mentality in the U.S. right now.

[* Guilty in the eyes of those who chose to accept the definition and the negative connotation of ‘cultural appropriation.’]

By comparison, what Bruce Jenner apparently did right was come from the upper and most powerful class of all – white men – and change himself into a member of a disadvantaged class, borrowing all the bells and getting rid of some of the whistles to do so. Bruce (now Caitlyn) Jenner went much further than Dolezal did with his/her cultural appropriation. Yet uber-liberals and every disadvantaged class in the U.S went ga ga for Caitlyn. So, on the face of it, this would seem to be a double standard unless something else is going on. Why is what Ciatlyn did acceptable and what Dolezal did unacceptable?

Is it the case that it is okay to go from being one gender within an ethnicity to another gender within the ethnicity because you’re staying within the ethnicity? Is it the case that it is not okay to identify with one ethnicity because you are not genetically that ethnicity? [For argument’s sake, we will concern ourselves with the genetic component of ethnicity since this appears to be the primary basis for accepting or rejecting people into a wide cultural group.] If both these cases are true they must have some kind of philosophical justification. Otherwise, it would seem up to ‘herd mentality’ to arbitrarily judge what is socially acceptable and what is not, and this would mean there is no rational basis for accepting Caitlyn Jenner for who she thinks she is. And that’s just it; there is no philosophical basis for the cases such as I’ve stated them and possible reasons for rejecting them, mostly on the basis of what is considered an ethnicity.

The reality is that ethnicity is almost as fluid as language and this mightily complicates anyone’s attempt at any sort of identity. Take for example someone like Barak Obama who is half-African and half-Caucasian; should he identify himself as one or the other? Based on what, the dominance of one parent’s genes over the other, what he looks more like, based on how he talks, based on what cultural practices he observes? While Barack Obama looks more African than Caucasian, he definitely acts more Caucasian than African. Maybe both ethnicities should reject him as a strange anomaly or as something less than either (and member of both ethnicities surely do). And what would we make of someone who is equal parts African, Caucasian, Asian and Latino? So, we can’t (or shouldn’t) base the acceptance or rejection of someone within a cultural group based on their genetic constitution. If Rachel Dolezal identifies herself as ‘colored’ because that is what she feels inside, this should be exactly the same as Bruce Jenner wanting to change his identity because of how he feels inside. But if we’re going to bring genetics into the argument, that Bruce is good to go because he’s staying within the same ethnicity, the reality is that one can no more actually become a woman than one can become African. But if changing one’s identity is just a matter of drug therapy and surgery, than anyone can become another gender or ethnicity and the stewards of today’s social justice will have to accept it.

Although I am no fan of Kylie Jenner, the black community should get off her back for putting her hair in cornrows. She’s a 17-year old nitwit who hasn’t formed her own identity yet. But when she does, if forming her identity means she is going to walk, talk and look like she’s black, her identity must be accepted for there to be any consistence to the term ‘social justice.’ On the other hand, if what’s really going on here is that it is okay to be racist if you’re from a disadvantaged class because historical Caucasians haven’t treated your group well, well then, let’s call a spade a spade and recognize today’s ‘social justice’ for what it really is – vengeance.

Michael Shermer, New Atheism and Hypocrisy

[I admit I am late to this topic. I am a busy person with little time to read People magazine. But I am addressing now only having recently found out about the indecent behavior of one of New Atheism’s ‘saints,’ Michael Shermer.]

If there is one thing you can count on people to be, it’s a hypocrite. It doesn’t matter if a person is Black, White, Asian, American, European, theist, agnostic or atheist. At some point, people turn their back on what they say they believe and demonstrate what they really think. Case in point: Noted author and founder of Skeptic magazine, Michael Shermer.

Although Michael Shermer is not one of the Four Horsemen of atheism, he is nonetheless highly respected among (most) New Atheists for his contributions to rational thought. But as any of us know who have ever had more alcohol to drink than we probably should have, rational thought and alcohol do not mix. Since mid-2008, Michael Shermer has been on the receiving end of numerous allegations of sexual misconduct (to put it politely) at several conventions across the U.S. While there is no hard evidence to hold Shermer legally accountable – no pun intended – there is enough testimony from several sources considered reliable to indicate that Michael Shermer has a problem with his libido. Along with the evidence, what is also missing is the outrage from the atheist community.

A timeline of Shermer’s misconduct can be found here on freethoughtblog.com. Note that in September 2008, another well-respect atheist DJ Grothe intervenes to stop Shermer from fondling a woman’s breasts. He had (apparently) recanted this sordid story many times before denying it in 2014. Why? Perhaps he is trying to protect a friend from allegations that didn’t go so far as to be out of hand, in Grothe’s estimation. But then note what the highly respected James Randi said about Shermer in late 2014: “Shermer has been a bad boy on occasion — I do know that[.] I have told him that if I get many more complaints from people I have reason to believe, that I am going to have to limit his attendance at the conference. His reply, […] is he had a bit too much to drink and he doesn’t remember. I don’t know — I’ve never been drunk in my life. It’s an unfortunate thing … I haven’t seen him doing that. But I get the word from people in the organization that he has to be under better control. If he had gotten violent, I’d have him out of there immediately. I’ve just heard that he misbehaved himself with the women, which I guess is what men do when they are drunk.”

There is something very strange about Randi’s statement and I don’t mean that it sounds untruthful; Randi recognizes that there is some kind of problem with Shermer at conferences but fails to ascent to the requisite outrage. Ah, but so does the New Atheist community who for so long has claimed the moral high ground over theistic institutions such as the Catholic Church that has for decades covered up sexual abuse by priests. I’m not drawing an analogy here, I’m making a direct comparison. Why is Shermer getting a pass, because he is ‘one of our own’ to atheists? That’s not rational and it is exactly the kind of behavior atheists have long rebuked the Catholic Church for. In other words, atheists that defend Shermer while believing in any kind of moral objectivity – as many New Atheists do – are hypocrites.

While Shermer has written about the evolutionary roots of our morality, I can’t be in Shermer’s head to know exactly his thoughts on morality. I do highly doubt he believes in moral objectivity himself. If he did, he must acknowledge that this morality becomes faulty in the presence of alcohol or is otherwise somehow able to conveniently justify his behavior. But what’s worse is that the rest of the New Atheist community ignores Shermer’s behavior as well and it’s not hard to tell why; if they do acknowledge Shermer’s conduct, then the argument from atheists about how terribly theists behave is weakened. If the New Atheist community really wants to be the paradigm of virtue and morality for the future, they need to have the strength of their alleged convictions. Shermer’s behavior is not okay. But it’s worse to ignore it altogether.

[Adam Lee wrote about The Wall of Silence Around Michael Shermer quite eloquently. Here is a link to that patheos.com article.]