Double Standards

Slow news days get you pointless speculations and inane rambles of a libertarian. This posts is the latter. One thing that has always pissed me off is hypocrisy. Nothing is quite as awesome as somebody who claims to believe one thing and then does the exact opposite but tells everybody else they shouldn’t be allowed to do it. There are more subtle forms of hypocrisy such as that perpetrated by the likes of former Mayor Daley, Mayor Bloomberg, and President Obama.

Let’s take a look at a specific example for which I’ll put the laser on Mayor Bloomberg. Bloomberg is the chief of the purposely deceptively named organizations Mayors Against Illegal Guns. The name is truthful though as the organizations wants nothing more than to make all guns illegal and thus eliminate gun ownership in the United States. Thankfully their success rate has been less than optimal and thus haven’t managed to establish any gun bans.

Bloomberg wants you and me disarmed. He has no exceptions carved out for those who wish to have firearms available for self-defense because we’re just little peasants that don’t deserve to have a fighting chance should somebody with evil intent decide to enter our lives. While he’s spouting how evil guns are and how we need to disarm lawful citizens he stands surrounded by armed body guards. This is certainly a form of hypocrisy, decrying the use of something while in turn using it. Some people fail to see this because they’ve been taught that government officials are better than any of us little people and thus are deserving of special treatment.

This attitude has to end. I strongly believe government shouldn’t be allowed to do anything we the people aren’t allowed to do. If I can’t walk around with hired body guards then my government officials shouldn’t be able to either (depending on the state you’re in you may be able to hire private body guards). If I’m not allowed to own a Glock 17 with 33 round magazines then nobody employed by the government should be allowed to either. The second a law is passed that bars private citizens from something but carves out an exception of military or law enforcement there exists hypocrisy. This is even more apparent when you realize the police force is made up of regular civilians like you and me, they are not somehow elevated above that position because of their uniform.

Another example of government hypocrisy is the debt faced by both our federal government and most (all?) state governments. We’re told time and time again that we need to start living within our means while our governments spend far more money than they have available to them. Why is it OK for them to spend billions of dollars they don’t have without punishment but when we do it there are ramifications?

It would please me greatly if people would open their eyes and demand an end of such hypocrite behavior by government officials.