Hypocrites Cannot Be Trusted

(I recently began a post on this topic but found this 12-year-old article from June 04, 2007.  As the site where I had posted it is no longer available, I am re-posting after updating it.  BTW several of the links no longer work, and I will fix them as I have opportunity)

My aunt, just a few months older that I, had a high school gym teacher who told her students, “Do as I say, not as I do.” My Dad struggled with his weight, and our family doctor, who was himself a big man, told him what kind of exercise he should practice: “Just push yourself away from the table.” Ha! Ha! Very funny. What do we say to a doctor who tells a patient to do what he clearly does not? We have a word for people who say one thing but themselves do something else: hypocrite!

What is a hypocrite? 1) a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, esp. a person whose actions belie stated beliefs; a person who professes beliefs and opinions that he or she does not hold in order to conceal his or her real feelings or motives; 2) .  a person who feigns some desirable or publicly approved attitude, esp. one whose private life, opinions, or statements belie his or her public statements.

Synonyms include words like actor, backslider, bigot, bluffer, charlatan, cheat, con man, crook, deceiver, dissembler, fake, faker, fraud, impostor, masquerader, Pharisee, phony, poser, pretender, sham, sophist, swindler, trickster, two-face, two-timer, and whited sepulcher. None of them are exactly complimentary.

Most of us admit that “Nobody’s perfect.” Each of us struggles with being inconsistent with our own, stated values, whatever they are. Some people are far worse that imperfect; they are practiced hypocrites. Being a fake and a phony is normal for most of them. They are people who “pretend to have virtues…they do not actually possess, who feign some…publicly approved attitude…whose private life, opinions, or statements belie their public statements” (see above). We all recognize that some politicians lean in that direction, regardless of their party or ideology; it is hard to support anyone who pretends to be something he or she isn’t. Worse is an entire party or organization that is based on pretense and illusion. I call its members “liberalists”¹ or secular progressives, and they are the main group of people who oppose and seek to replace many of our traditional American values.

Consider Al Gore. He crusades on global warming, made a documentary in an attempt to prove his views, and even won an Academy Award for it. Yet he doesn’t live with the restrictions he urges others to make. Either he doesn’t really believe the highly debatable arguments he makes, or he believes that he is entitled, somehow, not to make the sacrifices that he insists others must make. His so-called “carbon offsets” are a lot like the medieval church’s indulgences; both are methods that only wealthy people may use, and both are totally ineffective, perhaps because both are hypocritical deceptions. Environmentalists have allowed businesses to do the same thing, buying pollution credits from businesses that don’t pollute. Frankly, I think that the environmental movement has succeeded in punishing businesses, often because they do not respect business or capitalism; this kind of system, however, makes a mockery of cleaning the environment or dealing with alleged global warming.

Only morally decent people truly despise hypocrisy. For those who think truth is relative and deny the existence of absolutes, hypocrisy is just another moral value they reject. William Watkins, in his book The New Absolutes, would argue that their over-riding hypocrisy is in creating, de facto, a whole new set of absolutes, while they claim to reject any and all absolutes. For example, they replace the values of traditional marriage and family with gay marriage and reject sexual abstinence outside of marriage with promiscuous sex presumably protected by condoms. In practice, this kind of person can be far more critical and judgmental of others that those with traditional values, as in their nearly religious commitment to political correctness.

However, the evidence suggests that, even with respect to the issues they supposedly value, these folks are often just as hypocritical:

1. Rosie O'Donnell has an armed bodyguard.
2. Hillary is a phony Southerner.
3. PETA loves animals so much they take them from shelters and kill them. They have also sued to euthanize an orphaned polar bear cub, saying dead is better than living among people instead of bears.
4. Supposed advocates of public education put their own children in private schools.
5. Elected officials frequently exempt themselves from laws they impose on everyone else.
6. Barney Frank had illicit relations with a page, yet his party supported him. Last year, his party campaigned against Republicans, accusing one of them for virtually the same thing. Overall, the Democrat Party is the most egregiously promiscuous party, yet they dare to pretend to be morally indignant regarding others. This attitude extends to numerous other issues. They eagerly sent American troops to the Balkans, where there was no direct American interest, but now complain about Iraq, where oil alone represents an important concern and Saddam’s history of WMD use on his own people proved him a threat.
7. Michael Moore wants to be an icon of the hardworking, downtrodden, blue collar guy, but he lives a lifestyle that is anything but. Furthermore, most genuine blue collar guys aren’t such big slobs!

In fact, many secular progressive liberalists use the ideas they espouse primarily to gain money and win votes. Communist leaders have never suffered under the economies they have ruined with their ill-advised ideology, and many of our leaders are cut from the same cloth. In fact, a number of “movers and shakers” seem to prefer big government, socialist approaches in addressing any problem. Since most require money, their “solutions” funnel more and more money through their own hands, much of which never gets back to those who are supposedly being helped. Never doubt that those implementing these schemes know exactly what they’re doing—not solving problems but creating more control of America’s assets and intending to give more Americans a reason to vote for them! Many in the African-American community are beginning to catch on to the generations long promises from those who originally favored slavery and opposed civil rights; their hypocrisy starts with pretending to be the long-time supporters for freedom and equality for those whose people were once slaves and using clever propaganda to convince the ignorant that Republicans were the pro-slavery racists. What garbage!

Wake up, my fellow Americans! You can’t trust a hypocrite, ever! For example, unless or until Al Gore apologizes for his gross inconsistency and demonstrates, seriously, his efforts to change, his leadership regarding the climate is worthless. Even if you agree with him, you are a fool to trust him. Such people like to assure you that they understand and “feel your pain.” They want you to know that they care, but hypocrites don’t care for anything or anyone but themselves, not even the things they say they value. Is Al Gore truly worried about global warming? Then how can his conscience justify his own excessive use of energy? Real leaders are the first to step up and do what they think needs to be done.

Bill Clinton, one of the biggest hypocrites of all, has fooled many and, by doing so, won two Presidential elections. Sadly, many of the interest groups that supported him still don’t realize that he did nothing for them—not the blacks, not the gays, not women (as if that should surprise anyone!), and not middle-of-the-road moderates, on whom he spent so much effort to convince them that he was one of them, in order to gain their votes. Real leaders have values that guide them and define who they are. Clinton’s values were nothing more than the latest poll or focus group results, good only until the next survey indicated a change in public opinion that required a change in his convictions. Did he, does he, care about anything? If he does, it isn’t much more than his own success, reputation, and ability to satisfy his appetites.

Do you think Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton really care about your health care? Do you think Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton care about civil rights? Did Jussie Smollett care so much about hate crimes that he arranged to fake one? Hmmm... Do any of those who support a “fast track” to citizenship for illegal immigrants actually care about illegals or immigrants or any of the displaced American workers? Do you think the Democrats who won control of Congress care about the issues that got them that control, or are they single-mindedly focused on denying President Trump any accomplishment whatever? Do you think Republicans care about cutting spending? Do union leaders really care about workers? Do pro-choice or feminist groups really care about choice or women? Do you think gun-control advocates really believe that banning guns from law-abiding citizens will reduce crime or deaths?

I’m not suggesting that there are no sincere, committed political leaders, but they are rare. The true public servant is not only uncommon; he is an endangered species! Like so much of our modern life and culture, prosperity and material wealth have corrupted the environment. Greater prosperity has allowed taxes to increase the access to money and power for those in government service, whether elected or hired into the bureaucracy. Comfortably prosperous citizens tolerate more taxes, often without realizing the threat they pose to their economic or political freedom. It becomes easy to ignore the empty rhetoric. Like frogs in a kettle, they never realize the danger until their goose is cooked (excuse my mixed metaphors).

Election campaigns are the highest form of hypocrisy. Advertising has become the art of creating fake images, and candidate ads are the highest form of the art. It should surprise no one that Hollywood is so closely linked to the biggest phonies, since theirs is the art of creating believable fiction. In choosing to support a candidate, we have two problems: first, finding genuine candidates who are actually what they seem and will do what they promise; and, second, finding thoughtful candidates who support the ideas and values that have made American great. Some Democrats seem to be sincere socialists, but real or not, I don't trust them or the direction they say they want us to go. The problem among the Republican candidates is finding out if any of them truly support traditional American ideals and support them seriously enough not to wimp out to the Leftist acolytes in the media. All of them want to be seen as another Reagan, but are any of them worthy of it? They may want Reagan’s image, but we need leaders who have Reagan’s insight and integrity. President Trump often seems to be a nearly solitary voice for the traditional American values many of us favor, and that is a tragedy.

This is a pretty sad state of affairs, isn’t it? Are we stuck with it, or can we do something about it? I believe we can begin to demand change, but it won’t be easy. We must begin to challenge the phonies by refusing to support them, give them money, join their campaigns, or vote for them. We must let them know that we know that they are fakes and frauds. We must challenge our friends and neighbors to do the same. We need to recognize that this situation is dangerous, that our future is at stake, and that professional hypocrites are the most treacherous of all.

Again, the formula is simple. Hypocrites are liars. They lie for their own agendas to satisfy their own desires. They do not care about the people to whom they lie; they do not care about their problems. They mislead and misdirect people to manipulate them into doing what they, the phonies, want for their own purposes. They will take everything they can get and return as little as possible to maintain their own fortunes. They care little for the general welfare as long as they can protect their own elite positions and privilege. They will try to sound like your friend, but they are your enemy, the enemy of the American ideal, and the enemy of true freedom.

1 Many on the Left and part of the Democrat Party are called and may call themselves “liberal.” Liberal is clearly related to liberty, but these so-called “liberals” often espouse views or, worse, proclaim liberty while working to limit freedom for people. That isn't real liberalism, so I call them “liberalists”. Libertarians advocate a quite strong position on liberty, and I mostly agree with them. I tend to think of myself as a classic liberal, what the word once most often meant.