Sunday, August 20, 2017

Get your own house in order first

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for July 19, 2017. This one apparently never made it to the website, so here's your first chance to read it.)



Before making a big deal of someone else's actions, it's a good idea to look in the mirror. You might be surprised by what you see.

The national media is currently obsessed with trying to prove the Russian government meddled in the most recent US presidential election. This after using every resource at their disposal to influence the election by mocking, ridiculing, and painting one of the candidates as a clown, before labeling him the next Hitler.

The media elites didn't hide their preference. Theirs was such a heavy-handed effort to manipulate the voters that it likely caused blow-back, resulting in the defeat of their darling. It's almost as if they now realize their clumsy attempt to steer the election drove American voters away from the anointed candidate, and they're desperate to shift the blame. The national media, including the entertainment industry, are more responsible for the election results than the Russian government could ever dream of being. Unless...

To find evidence of Russian meddling, I suggest investigating whether the Russian government tricked national media outlets into making fools of themselves in the lead-up to the election, and laughingstocks ever since.

If it's wrong for someone else to do something, you shouldn't do it either, whether you are an individual, an industry, or a government.

The media might care about electoral honesty, but why would politicians? The US government spends much time, effort, and your money trying to direct foreign governments to be obedient outposts of the US. If they can't get the results they want by influencing elections, they can exercise the option to send in their military. They'll free the foreign population from the troublesome ruler they have, and install a ruler more agreeable to the US government's agenda. Always in the name of democracy and human decency, of course, no matter how many innocent lives must be sacrificed in the process. Meddling in elections is almost honorable by comparison.

The hypocrisy isn't limited to elections. The US government constantly threatens other governments who try to develop nuclear weapons, while stockpiling planet-scouring numbers of the things for themselves. I wonder who is more dangerous; the government wanting what other governments have, or the only government to have actually used nuclear weapons against the civilian population of another country. Twice.

Wrong is wrong, no matter who you are or what excuses you make. Be honest, get your own house in order, then notice whether you do the same thing you're criticizing others for doing.

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