It’s not that Republicans aren’t hypocrites – it’s more that the label just isn’t an effective dig. First, hypocrite is a fancy foreign Greek word like amnesty, ethics or Europe – how is that going to appeal to Republicans? Second, espousing virtues you don’t personally have to live up is basically the point of being a Republican.
Talker Rush Limbaugh, speaker for Republicans everywhere, famously railed against drug users and called for harsher sentencing for possession when it was fashionable in the ’90s. Then in 2006 Limbaugh was arrested and went to rehab after losing his hearing as a direct result of his long-term drug addiction. Needless to say, he’s cool with hypocrisy. […]
Calling a conservative “hypocrite” is like calling a progressive “liberal”: It stings, but they don’t actually understand why it’s supposed to be offensive. The GOP doesn’t see self-contradiction as a moral shortcoming. They see people who don’t agree with them as a moral shortcoming.
Take closeted homosexual GOP lawmakers who stand with their party and vote against gay rights. […] Take the canard that Republicans are somehow FOR the government getting out of our lives. That’s unless we look like we could be Mexican, or we’re a woman of childbearing capability. Then it’s the government’s job – responsibility – to get up in our business. […] Take Fraction Governor Sarah Palin who spends her free time telling President Obama how to do his job after she quit hers during the greatest economic downturn her state has ever faced. Not to mention her daughter, the unwed teenage mother Bristol Palin, who is now a paid advocate for abstinence.
Do they care if they’re called hypocrites? No.
Fox News rails against the “mainstream media” while bragging about their high ratings and now a front row seat in the White House press briefing room. Republican leadership castigates Democrats for high unemployment rates while stalling the jobs bill. Not to mention Republicans floating the myth that the biggest donor to the Obama campaign was BP when the bumper sticker/rallying cry of the 2008 RNC was “Drill, Baby, Drill.” Does calling them hypocrites somehow stop this? No. Does it make them consider these positions to be flawed? This is about national security! Do you hate America?
No, using the word “hypocrite” should really be stopped altogether. […] Instead of “hypocrite” I recommend the word “fraud.” It sounds bad. Fraud is illegal. Fraud is immoral. And it’s an accurate way of describing hypocrisy without sounding like an irate Justin Bieber fan.
Plus, we’re faced with a GOP who have appointed themselves as deficit hawks, but who are now for renewing the Bush Tax Cuts. These tax cuts added to (wait for it) the deficit – that’s why they’re going to expire. The only way the original bill could pass through reconciliation was for the Congressional Budget Office to have it expire in ten years. Will renewing these tax cuts add to the deficit? Just a couple of trillion dollars. Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan was asked on Meet the Press this week if he agrees with Republican leaders who say that tax cuts pay for themselves. His answer? A curt, “No, I do not.”
What does that mean? It means Republicans are FRAUDS when it comes to being deficit hawks. See how easy that was?
11 Comments
I like the idea of calling many republicans and their tea party brethren “frauds,” but how about a word for the spineless democrats?
To me, this is far more than a republican/democrat kind of problem. Jimmy Carter was castigated for saying the US suffered form a malaise. Today, far too many people would think that “malaise” is something you spread on a ham and cheese sandwich. We are suffering from the worst kind of idiocracy I can imagine. Too many folks – politicians, sycophants, and common folks alike – are not capable of assembling facts, doing rational, logical assessments of those facts, and coming to conclusions to make sense. Our politicians simply reflect that larger societal trend. We do elect the government we deserve and, apparently, we deserve a government of fraudulent republicans and spineless democrats.
Working at a grocery store near my college, I get exposed to the idiocy of the general populace on a daily basis. People have a hard time paying attention to the most simple of things. People are also very impatient (THAT ITEM IS SUPPOSED TO BE BUY ONE, GET ONE FREE AND I DON’T SEE IT COMING OFF YET EVEN THOUGH YOU’RE STILL SCANNING MY GROCERIES) and have a hard time comprehending the most basic instructions.
When someone uses a credit card, they are required (as a safety measure) to show us/tell us their last 4 numbers on the credit card so it matches the magnetic strip. When asked “Can I see the last 4 numbers on the front of your credit card?”, people scramble around looking at the back for the security code or say “I don’t know.” and make no effort to remove the card from their wallet/hand.
The point comes down to this: If people are too stupid to comprehend basic information, I die a little inside every day knowing they’re the ones also voting for our politicians (and trust me, Louisiana is NOT a very liberal place). The stupid people elect a stupid government.
Impatience. Remember the population is geared toward impatience. There is a blurb on television or radio, then a cut for a commercial. For children to learn now, the teachers have to teach along those lines or the children are lost. Tried to sit with my nine year old grandson to read ONE chapter of “Little House on the Prairie”. Their body is actually trained by television to lose the attention span.
Same with person you ask to see front of card. With everything being thrown at them, they are unable to actually think and process what you say. I hear people spout what they have heard on Faux News without a single thought that they may be being lied to. No thoughts, just reaction
Boehner’s new thing is to amend the 14th amendment dying children of illegal immigrants citizenship by birth.
Gosh, and my ancestors came here 400 years ago as “Illegal immigrants”. Good thing there were no Boehners then.
The other problem is that hard core conservatives, when confronted with facts to dispute their dogmatic beliefs, either call the facts “fake” or in some odd twist of illogic, become MORE rooted in their false belief.
I’ve also noted that when confronted with facts regarding the “wingnuttery” of their movement, they pass off birthers, Obama-a-Muslim believers,those who believe the garbage about guns rights being taken away, etc. as crackpots in their midst. I’ve had to point out to some acquaintances that these are not “crackpots” among them. They are the mainstream conservatives, who get much of this garbage from a supposed “legitimate” news channel (Fox).
And one more aside. Which is it? Is Obama a Muslim or not? Because the same people saying the former also complain ad nauseum that he was subject to a black racist Christian preacher for 20 years. Hmmm?
Come on now Sammy and Ebdoug, not all conservative thinkers are wingnuts. I consider myself a conservative democrat and their are alot of liberal republicans. Remember you guys are bashing the fringes. They are the 10% minority of both edges, the majority fall somewhere in the middle. Don’t buy into the “media” hype that comes from both fringes. You’ll find if we stop labeling and start listening that the 2 sides of the majority are not far apart and can compromise. Politicians are in the business of getting reelected and building their power base. They need to spin the information to satisfy their voting base, and as such are about as reliable a source for information as the fringe media’s.
I think perhaps this has something to do with Jesus dying for their sins. Since they are “believers”, Jesus would take care of their shortcomings, while for others not.
The problem, Patriot, is that the “fringes” are now the mainstream among conservatives. When almost half of Republicans still believe Obama is foreign born or probably foreign born, when liars like habitual Rush and Hannity have millions of faithful listeners/viewers, when a “legitimate” news channel gives voice to Orly Taitz, Hal Turner and Andrew Brietbart, it becomes hard to label the movement as “fringe”.
That is not to say ALL conservatives are wingnuts. But it’s hard to deny that the wingnuts now rule that party.
OK, you got me. Wingnuts DO rule the GOP. I’m just not buying yet that the fringe is mainstream. I think it’s still alot of smoke n mirrors to make it look that way. Yes, there are alot of people displeased with congress, and the president. Are they radical fringers, I don’t think so. I think they are common sense folks who have differing philosophies on money management and how to run government. I do think the middle can work out solutions to most problems.
On the Obama birth issue, there are also alot of people who think Elvis and Jim Morrison are alive, and also think that the US Gov’t is responsible for 9/11, and no planes hit anything.
On the Obama birth issue: Those who think Elvis and Morrison are still alive are few and far between and considered nuts. Those who think 9/11 was an inside job are usually ultra leftwingers who are philosophically disowned by regular leftwingers. Those who believe Obama is (or probably is) a foreigner: 41% of “regular” Republicans.
P.S. Patriot, I don’t count you among right wing wackjobs. 🙂