WEEKLY SOUTHERN ARTS
"Sometime the boogaloo 
  • Home
  • Guns, Faith and Murder
  • The Million Dollar Store
  • Artistic Con-cepts
  • Judy Garland - "Soul Singer"
  • Robert & Jimi and the Twenty Seven Blues
  • The Great Pretenders
  • Imagine
  • Me and Junior Parker
  • The Republican
  • Sweet Home Chicago (The Obama Shakedown)
  • The Ballad of Hunter & Joe
  • The 22-yr-old Bottle Blonde
  • Is It Alright...To Be White?
  • Resist the Devil and He Will Flea
  • Music & Reminiscence
  • Lowell George searching for authenticity
  • A Telling Lie
  • Part One: The Monster Is Summoned
  • Like Billy Eckstein Singing to an Empty Club at 1:00 AM on a Saturday Night in 1975.
  • Bent
  • Kelly Joe Phelps
  • Why The Devil Don't Come Around No More
  • Hearing Junior Wells “On Tap'' one more Time
  • Muddy and Me
  • American Youth: The Rise of The New Media
  • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Talk About Slavery and Shit
  • Just Smoke
  • The Big Maybe
  • The Skinny
  • Florida in Images and More Images
  • "Muthafuckin' Chains!"
  • The Inner Man
  • This is Not a Political Article
  • A Tale of Wine and Murder
  • Jesus Was a Sly Dog
  • The Existential Croûton
  • The Prison Yard Blues
  • Conspiracy Theory
  • 4 More Poems, 4 More Pictures
  • "Are You Freaking People Insane?"
  • 4 Pictures 4 Poems
  • The Ballad of Carlos Slim
  • Pretending What's in Your Head is True
  • The Cognitive Dissonance of a Faithful Democrat
  • The Human Snakepit
  • George Freeman - Unsung Master of the Jazz Guitar
  • The Price of Milk
  • Suspicious Minds
  • Bill O'Reilly Sexual Predator?
  • The New Soldier
  • Orwell Revisited
  • Larry Coryell - The Godfather is Dead
  • A Tiger Beat
  • South Florida - HOT & COOL
  • Jean Paul Sartre & the Existentialist Mojo
  • Culture Matters, Immigration Matters, Sharks Matter
  • Thomas Sowell
  • A Tree Falls In Central Park on a Gay Banker
  • Black Codes From The Underground
  • Man Talk, with Donald Trump pt. 1
  • Man Talk, with Donald Trump pt. 2
  • Brexit Was the Shot Heard Around the World
  • I Love The Dead
  • The Game
  • Goodbye Scotty Moore
  • If a Bluebird Plays the Blues Why Can't it Play Free Jazz
  • When David Slew Goliath
  • Why Cream still Matters 50 Years Later
  • Goodbye Lonnie Mack
  • Black Lies Matter, All Lies Matter
  • The Folly of Foibles
  • The Life of an Imaginary Historian
  • Angel: part 7
  • Wayne Cochran "Going Back to Miami"
  • The Last Damned Healthcare Article You'll Ever Need
  • The Gospel According to Mark
  • Angel: part VI
  • Ted Bundy & The Hunt For The Devil
  • Charlie & Clint: Dead & Deader
  • Trayvon & George : An American Hate Story
  • Jury Duty
  • Little Tommy & The Blues Kings
  • Kayaking "The Big Cypress" with Crocodlies
  • The Birth of The Jazz Guitarist
  • Gay Marriage
  • Garage Band - The 1960's
  • King Arthur, Pelagius and Original Sin
  • The Story of Ricky
  • Hidden Miami
  • I Hate the 60's: A Personal Rock Odyssey
  • Crocodiles and Alligators in Florida: Monsters in our Backyard
  • The Legend of Robert Pete Williams
  • Saturday Night At Big Tinys
  • The Case Of The Infinite Monkeys
  • The American Heritage Series
  • The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
  • Blue And Green

    The Problem of Hypocrites 

Picture
The Problem of Hypocrites

"Hypocrites! Every last, damned one! Why can't Republicans just live and let live?"

That article—that one article—that’s the truth.  This I know, because I know, as does everyone else I know. We all know the same things.  Therefore, these things must be true. It couldn't be that I sought out only that information I agreed with. It couldn't be a case of personal bias. Why? Because everyone I know, who knows me, agree, forming a circle of truth and self-reinforcing knowledge. That's how I know.

We used to call that "Birds of a feather, flocking together." But no more. Tribalism is in. Objectivity is out, if it was ever really in, to begin with. Objectivity requires that I set aside my opinion and listen to alternative points of view. More than anything, it requires that I learn about the subject at hand so I can be armed with something more compelling than another person's opinion.

​"Why do those stupid religious people listen to preachers and rabbis and such? Can't they think, for themselves? Yeah. What a bunch of dummies!"


Then I turn on my favorite news show, pick up my favorite paper, head to my favorite internet site, and intently take in today's dogma. And, like Pavlov's dogma, I consume, then regurgitate the message, which was handed down from on high. Those talking points sure are tasty.
Morality is for suckers who want to regulate your life! More taxes. More regulation, over businesses, is OK, though, because businesses are greedy but never politicians.

Bathroom edicts about boys who think they're girls, showering with my 14-year-old daughter, now that's the kind of legislation that's needed! And if Congress won't do their job and pass said legislation, no problem, a presidential edict will do. Forget the damned Constitution, which was written by racist White men.

"Yep. That seems OK to me."

How about forcing religious institutions to transgress their beliefs in the name of diversity. Christian ones, mainly. You'll notice that all the lawsuits against Christian bakers and candlestick makers were the only lawsuits of their kind. Muslim bakers? No way! That would be bigotry. Orthodox Jews? Nope. Hindus? Nada.

Do I sense a theme here? Oh yeah. Christians are a powerful voting bloc, and they usually don't vote for far-left candidates. That's why the power of the Federal government must be brought bear. To take out my enemies.

How about a rightwing, anti-homosexual activist teaching gay kids that homosexuality is a sin, as was the case in the not-so-distant past, for both liberals and conservatives? That's diversity. But not acceptable diversity. Which is exactly why the federal government shouldn't be in the business of diversity, to begin with.


That, however, moves well beyond the one-dimensional arguments made by disgruntled children of all ages, who just want to drop the hammer on their perceived enemies. In the name of diversity, of course. Because there is never a shortage of hypocrites, regardless of their politics. That was true in the past. It still is. Meaning, opinions may change, but hypocrites remain.  Me, included.

​Claude Hopper
in. Me, included.