"A Double Standard Is No Standard at All"
Posted by Doc Farmer
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
Politics is a business. An ugly business. It is not a science (despite universities who pretend that it is). It is not a means to an end (service) but an end unto itself (power). It used to be patriotic, back when patriotism actually meant something inside the Beltway besides a method of hornswoggelling idiots (see also: voters). It has become its own worst enemy. And ours as well.
Perhaps I’ve just become jaded from all the stupidity, lies, and power brokering coming out of the Nation’s Capitol. But I’d bet that most people are becoming more and more disenchanted with the absurdity flowing from Washington, D.C. like so much effluence. Attend:
A lib/dem/soc/commie Senator uses the term ''Neanderthal'' to describe the judicial nominees presented by President Bush. This includes Hispanic lawyer Miguel Estrada and Black judge Janice Rogers Brown. Now, if anybody of a conservative nature had compared a minority group to a precursor of Humans, a sub-Human if you will, the political world and the media would be braying for blood. But the silence has been, to steal a phrase from J. Michael Straczynski, ''a silence as profound as when the Whale swallowed Jonah.''
Now compare and contrast this to another Senator, who stated that his political brethren in the Senate had effectively ''lynched'' the judicial nomination of a Black Judge. The hue and cry from the left was immediate. Bigotry, they proclaimed. How dare he, they declared.
Now, in the news media, the one who made the former statement was a ''champion of the downtrodden, a hero of civil rights,'' while the latter was given the most vile appellation available to the mainstream media. He was called a ''conservative.''
The ''Neanderthal'' comment came from Senator Teddy Kennedy, while the comparison of senate tactics to Judge Brown as her being ''lynched'' came from Senator Zell Miller.
Now, in Teddy’s defense, when he used the new ''N'' word, he was probably tipsy at the time. Besides, if a black or Hispanic man is a rep/con, to a lib/dem/soc/commie he’s also a race traitor, a Neanderthal, an idiot, a womanizer, a liar, a thief, a baby killer, and a bad driver. If he’s white, replace race traitor with slave owner’s ancestor.
Let me give you another example, this time from the not-very-aptly named Senate Intelligence Committee. Some time back, a number of leaks were coming from said committee. They were traced to a particular Senator, who was forced to resign his position. Only from the Committee, mind you, not from the Senate proper. The information released was classified, secret, and top secret. When people are provided with clearances for this kind of information, they must agree to protect it. If they don’t, they can be thrown in jail. For a very long time. Yet this senator didn’t go to jail. He continued to go to work. All because of the magic ''D'' (for Democrat) behind his name.
Now, compare and contrast this to the release of a top secret document, prepared by an under secretary of Defense at the Pentagon. It went to two Senators on the Intell Committee. The Chairman and the Vice Chairman. The former a rep/con, the latter a lib/dem/soc/commie. The latter also one whose office had drafted a memo on using their position in the Committee to undermine the President of the United States. A memo barely reported in the supposedly ''mainstream'' press.
When the person who leaked the memo is found, what will happen? Well, if it’s the Chairman, he’ll be pilloried in the press, forced to resign, and most probably tried and convicted of revealing classified information. Which means he’d be residing at a Federal facility quite different from the Senate, with far different duties. Breaking rocks, primarily. However, I lived in Kansas for a while, and the air there is quite good. Especially near Leavenworth.
If it’s the Vice Chairman, nothing will happen. Nothing at all. Oh, he might have to resign his position on the Intell Committee, but he’ll still have power, position and a pension.
Why is there such a double standard in Washington? Why is there such a double standard in the mainstream (see also: lib/dem/soc/commie) media?
Perhaps it’s our fault.
Americans have become lazy. We used to be an educated people. Not educated by the state, but by ourselves. We knew the Constitution inside and out. We knew that right wasn’t wrong and wrong wasn’t right. We knew that we needed to investigate to find the truth, not just accept ''truth'' as it was handed to us by others.
But now, we have thrown all of that away. We tune in to ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, etc., every day and buy what they’ll sell us as whole cloth. We don’t really confirm. We simply accept. We buy into an interpretation of news, or a half-telling of truth, and think we’ve got the whole story. We take opinion as fact, and ignore truth when it doesn’t fit into preconceived notions of the persons telling us what we should think. Or, more often than not, what we should feel.
And if we try to get a ''fair and balanced'' view of the news, we’re called a host of vile names. If we tell the truth, we’re branded idiots, dittoheads, or members of a ''Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.'' By opposing the ''accepted'' interpretations, the ''accepted'' truth, we’re suddenly traitors. Note to the lib/dem/soc/commies out there – re-read ''1984.'' It wasn’t written about rep/cons. It was written about yourselves.
Americans have accepted the concept of the double standard, by the tacit approval of doing nothing about it. Americans have agreed to allowing what is not permissible for one group to be permissible for another. But a law not applicable to all is a law to none. A standard for only some is not a standard at all, but a tolerable bigotry.
Doc Farmer is a freelance writer who resides now in Indiana. He receives e-mail at: docfarmer9999@yahoo.co.uk
chronwatch.com |
