3-23-05

Hypocritic Oath

If you're a friend or relative of mine, you can probably get away without reading this column and not miss anything.  You've probably heard it all before.  I could easily have titled it "Brett Continues to Flog a Dead Horse" and not been any less revealing.  Hypocracy in American Society has bothered me for a while—a long while. 

The Hope for the Future
Don't take me the wrong way, I really do believe that the youth of America are our Hope for the Future.  I also believe that most (okay some) of the professional demogogues who spout that phrase like it's spme kind of panacaeic mantra also believe it.  The key phrase her, is "the Future".  Nobody believes that young people are the hope for Today.  Let's be honest, young people are pretty stupid when you get right down to it.  Okay, not stupid, despite the national whining about falling test scores, I happen to believe that Americans are getting smarter every year.  Let's say ignorant.
          There's a difference between stupidity and ignorance.  Stupidity suggests an inability to learn, ignorance suggests a lack of opportunity.  And the truth is, we deny our children more and more opportunities to learn anything of use.  We open up their brains and pour all kinds of useless philosophy into them without any real opportunities to apply them to real life.  We protect and coddle them under the pretense that it would be hypocritical to punish or correct them for bonehead choices like the ones we made.  That's not hypocracy, however:  that's applied knowledge.  "You did it, why can't I?"  Because I was stupid for doing it, and so are you; now stop it.
          That, however is not the hypocracy implicit in the phrase "hope for the future".  The hypocracy lies in the fact that the people who spout the phrase and mean it as "the hope for right now" know for a fact that young people are ignorant and lack the tools necessary to make informed decisions.  The "youth" these people are talking to are not the three or four per cent of young Americans willing to put their beers down long enough to show up at a random protest rally.  They know for a fact what allowing young people any sort of control does to the country:  The America we have is the direct result of the first successful "youthful rebellion".
          And it's these same people, these self-styled Baby-Boomers, to whom they're speaking.  It's a cynical appeal to a bunch of delusional grandparents and middle-aged office drones.  They know that, for some stupid reason, despite all of the obvious evidence that we are not young, we still want to think of ourselves as young.  That's why road yachts have spoilers.  It's why half the radio dial is covered with songs written thirty to fifty years ago.  That's why a minor occupation from almost a half a century ago still has political clout.
          We are not young, however.  We are also not the Hope for the Future any more, except in the sense that everything we do right now has some effect on that future for which we've always wanted to be the hope.  But to do that, we have to get pastour true hypocracies.

The Right to Choose
I am not going to espouse any specific stand on any life or death issue in this column.  I have some very strong views on the subject, but that is not my point.  What I'd like to see here is a little consistency.  What I see right now, are the same people who think that necessary warfare and the death penalty are abhorrent are perfectly happy to cut a baby out of its mother or deny the necessities of life to invalids.  Simultaneously, those who would deny people any choice in the disposition of their own bodies are completely satisfied to dump our children into the meat-grinder of nationalistic pride or line up potentially innocent men and women for the hangman's noose.
          Be realistic here!  Don't you people see a little conflict?  Why is death okay on the one hand but bad on the other?  If killing is bad, it's always bad.  If necessary killing is okay, then it's always okay.  There's not a huge grey area between baby Roe and Ted Bundy.  Dead is still dead.  It's how you live that's important.

Lifestyles
Speaking of which, I think we pay way too much attention to the way other people live their lives.  Self-righteousness is the world's most annoying form of hypocracy.  I'm speaking to both sides, here.  I understand that it's an affront to the God of Israel for "a man to lie with a man as a woman", but you know what?  No one is asking you to do so.  It's also an affront to eat pork and shellfish, or to use a road used by an "unclean" (meaning menstrual) woman, but I don't see anyone lining up to ostracize the sausage industry, Red Lobster, or the "women's freshness" industry.  So if you're not gay, shut the fuck up about it.  As long as it concerns consenting adults in the privacy of their own home, no one has that right to tell them to stop it.
          By the same token, if you are gay, shut up about it.  Nobody cares in any real sense.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, it's not a choice.  Well, you know what?  Maybe the attraction isn't a choice, but it is a choice whether or not you play a meat flute.  And yes, I know there's a lot more to a gay relationship than sex, but the truth is, without the sex, it's not a gay relationship, it's just a friendship.  While I'm on the subject, here, please stop pretending you're an oppressed minority; you're not.  The minute the Supreme Court struck down Blue Laws, the "Gay Rights" battle ended. You can no longer be jailed for your private choices.  So shut the fuck up.
          Speaking of private choices, doesan't it seem odd to anyone else that we're making recreational drug use more and more illegal while allowing un- and minimally-tested new drugs to be advertised on prime time?  Why do we have geriatric hippies doing time in the Fed while the makers of complex chemicals with dubious effectiveness are millionaires?
          I pound my head every time I see those dumbass ONDCP commercials.  "Marijuana--it's worse than we ever thought," my ass.  It's exactly as bad as we thought.  It impairs your judgment and ability to act physically.  It's euphoric effects are semi-addictive to a certain personality type.  Much like heroin.  Or alcohol.  Or chocolate.  And it has longterm health effects, especially a probable causal relationship with emphysema and lung cancer.  Much like tobacco.  So obviously, the correct response to the use of a naturally occurring plant is to put people in jail for blowing a doobage. 
          Meanwhile, it's perfectly okay for the board of directors of MegaHyperCashFlow corporation to advertise their new longchain pain reliever (based loosely on the neurotoxins in cobra venom) during The Simpsons, and when it turns out that, not only does MegaTox not actually relieve any more pain than a placebo, it also kills half the people who use it by making their heads explode, and that the company's idea of "testing" was to ask a focus group if they'd take the pill if they made it a mauve caplet, the rational response is to politely ask MegaHyperCashFlow politely to recall the "medication" until further testing can be accomplished.  (There is no such thing as MegaTox or the MegaHyperCashFlow corporation, so don't bother sending me e-mails asking where you can get it, or how you can get in on the resulting class-action suit.)
          Sorry, I get ranting on some things.  My point is, if no one else is getting hurt (except the consenting adults involved), and nobody is forcing you to indulge in the lifestyle choice—no matter how much your god does or doesn't approve—shut the fuck up.  I have safe money I can find something out about you of which others won't approve.  My whole attitude toward the entire range of moral (or victimless) crimes is "Why the hell should I spend good money to keep someone in jail for doing something that has no effect on me (or anyone else) whatsoever?"
          Seriously, if you can manage not to harm anyone else, do what you want.  But shut the fuck up about what I do.