My Mother is a Hypocrite!
September 13, 2011
– Comments (13)
One of the greatest quotes I ever read was a simple comment on a blog post "Most people don't think much about what they believe in." I do not remember who posted that comment.
During the flooding in the Northeast my parents lost power and stayed a few days at my home. As long as I can remember, my parents have been Conservative Republicans, even though my Mom is a registered Democrat.
So we talked about government regulations. My Mom thinks "they're strangling the economy."
We talked about government spending. My Mom wants" a balanced budget."
We spoke about welfare. My Mom says "they're all lazy."
We spoke about her neighbors. My Mom says "they're wonderful people. Hard working and helping out everyone. In fact, one of her neighbors went to the local hardware store and even bought a generator and he's moving it a few hours at a time from house to house so no one loses their perishables and can take a hot shower."
We agreed, that's a nice guy. She continued, "He thinks the hardware store jacked up the price on the generator and he's going to go back in a month and see what the REAL price is, then get the Attorney General to sue them if they did that."
What a jerk. We didn't agree. "You do know it's against the law to increase prices during a Hurricane!"
So I asked her a series of questions about who bought and stored the equipment. Who owns the equipment and who has the right to set the price in a free capitalist society. I explained why a high price is GOOD for your neighbor because a lot of people who lost power briefly and had less damage in their neighborhood may have gone to the hardware store to buy a generator for the next disaster but been dissuaded by the higher price, thus allowing your neighbor to get one when he really needed it.
But this blog isn't so much about my Mom as it is about this country. My mother is just a classic microcosm of what so many Americans believe - or better said what so many Americans don't think they believe.
Look at last night's debate on CNN. Ron Paul is asked about foreign policy. If he said, "We're broke and we need to stop wasting taxpayer money to build roads in foreign lands when our roads right here in America need rebuilding.", he would have gotten loud applause. If he said"We're broke and we need France and Germany to stop getting a free ride on the U.S. security train." he would have gotten loud applause. If he said"I'm going to fight terrorism here by increasing our defense spending and secure our border, not the Afghan border." he would have gotten applause.
But that's not Ron Paul. He told the American people that what we're doing is the reason they want to hurt us. He then used a simple hypothetical example, asking the audience how would YOU feel if China did the same to us. He got boos from the audience. Americans perceive themselves as the good guys, and if you want to get elected you can't tell people that we are doing bad things to other people.
And hyprocrites do not know they are hypocrites. We want small government as long as the pieces you cut aren't MY pieces. We want less regulation as long as they aren't regulations I agree with. We want a balanced budget as long as you balance it without my priorities being cut. We want freedom, as long as you keep the Patriot Act. We don't believe in socialized medicine, but do believe in socialized hurricane relief.
We are a hypocritical nation and until we stop being hypocrites, we will continue to deteriorate into a second class nation.
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