We Are Being Compromised By Hypocrisy.

We currently find the United States at a painfully deplorable period of time, in which the level of disingenuous hypocrisy from not all, but from many walks of life, socio-economic backgrounds and political perspectives consistently compromises sincere, pragmatic, productive discourses and decisions; thereby compromising the stability, security, safety and serenity of our lives. Therefore, I believe now is a moment of utmost importance and urgency for offering #ThoughtsAndObservations about #Hypocrisy.

“The only thing worse than a liar is a liar that's also a hypocrite!" Tennessee Williams – U.S. playwright and screenwriter.

“An absolutely devastating ridicule of all that is false, primitive, and vicious in current American life: the abuses of power, hero worship, aimless violence, materialistic obsession, intolerance, and every form of hypocrisy." Terry Southern – U.S. novelist, essayist, screenwriter, university lecturer.

“People are beginning to become disturbingly comfortable with a kind of official hypocrisy. Bizarrely, for instance, we've become numb to the idea that rights aren't absolute but are enjoyed on a kind of sliding scale.” Matt Taibbi – U.S. author, journalist/investigative reporter, podcaster, contributing editor for Rolling Stone.

“Hypocrisy is the audacity to preach integrity from a den of corruption.” Wes Fesler – U.S. football, basketball, and baseball player and coach, a three-sport athlete at Ohio State.

“A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation.” Adlai E. Stevenson – U.S. lawyer, politician, and diplomat.

"All bad precedents begin as justifiable measures." Julius Caesar - Roman general, statesman, dictator.

“I think we’re seeing so much hypocrisy, quite frankly, from not only the Supreme Court, of course, but from republicans, because if you truly are pro-life, you cannot be pro-life and also be pro-death penalty and be pro-guns. There’s just no way that that is consistent." Sunny Hostin – U.S. lawyer, journalist, television host (“The View”), Senior Legal Correspondent and Analyst for ABC News.

“Those who fiercely campaigned for their right to decide to wear a face mask or not, or to remain unvaccinated during the pandemic, see no hypocrisy in denying women a fundamental right to make decisions about their bodies and lives. (…) We are living in increasingly dystopian times. The rights of women are not being eroded - they have been brutally severed. Of the 115 Supreme Court justices in US history, only five have been women. The overturning of a hard-won law, by those who have no understanding of what women go through, is galling.” Emma Reed – UK. Journalist. Previously a litigation lawyer.

“Let’s talk about what it means to be pro-life. Universal healthcare, that’s pro-life. Restricting guns, that’s also pro-life. Fighting climate change, that's also pro-life. Listening to doctors during a pandemic, also pro-life. Not forcing women to give birth like livestock, pro-life. But your party opposes all of those things. (…) Calling republicans pro-life is like calling O.J. Simpson pro-wife. (…) (They will) save as many lives as possible just as long as that life doesn’t need baby formula, affordable health care or a place to learn without getting shot.” Chelsea Handler – U.S. comedian, actress, writer, television host, and producer.

“Hypocrisy is a value that I think has been embraced by the Republican Party. We get lectured by people all day long about moral values by people who have their own moral shortcomings.” Howard Dean – U.S. physician, author, lobbyist, politician.

“The Democratic Party says we're inclusive, but it's clear sometimes we are not as inclusive. People see hypocrisy, they don't see alignment and values, and that's why there's a lack of trust. Moving forward, I want to be part of fighting for the heart and soul of the party saying we need to redefine our values and operationalize them.” Sam Rasoul - U.S. politician, member of the Virginia House of Delegates from the 11th district.

“In many states — including California, New York and Illinois — Democrats control all the levers of power. They run the government. They write the laws … (but) they often aren’t living up to their values.?In key respects, many blue states are actually doing worse than red states. It is in the blue states where affordable housing is often hardest to find, there are some of the most acute disparities in education funding and economic inequality is increasing most quickly. Instead of asking, “What’s the matter with Kansas?” Democrats need to spend more time pondering, “What’s the matter with California?" Johnny Harris – U.S. filmmaker, journalist and YouTuber and Binyamin Appelbaum - lead writer on economics and business for the New York Times editorial board.

“I'm annoyed by those who love mankind but are discourteous to people.” John Howard Griffin – U.S. journalist, author.

“We're walking with our eyes on everyone else, ignoring the screams that come from the people buried alive underneath our feet. Yet we say we're here for each other and say we care. And we hypocritically wonder why everyone is walking passed our own screams as though we don't do the same.” Caitlyn Paige – U.S. writer.

“I think if you want to eat more meat you should kill it yourself and eat it raw so that you are not blinded by the hypocrisy of having it processed for you.” Margi Clarke – U.K. actress.

“Hypocrites are those who apply to others the standards that they refuse to accept for themselves.” Noam Chomsky - U.S. linguist, philosopher, historical essayist, social critic, political activist.

“Hypocrite: The man who murdered his parents, and then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.” Abraham Lincoln – U.S. lawyer, statesman was 16th president of the United States.

“There are three signs of a hypocrite: when he speaks he speaks lies, when he makes a promise he breaks it, and when he is trusted he betrays his trust.” Elijah Muhammad – U.S. religious leader.

“Hypocrisy is the scarlet letter in politics.”?Mark McKinnon – U.S. political advisor, reform advocate, media columnist, television producer.

“Is there anyone’s life Ron DeSantis won’t endanger in his anticipated run for the White House? The Republican governor’s mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic hit another low point Tuesday, as Florida became the only state in the union not to preorder COVID-19 vaccines for the nation’s youngest children. The failure by the third-largest state to meet Tuesday’s deadline could delay delivery of the much-awaited vaccines to Florida’s pediatricians, clinics, pharmacies and pediatric hospitals. This is another dumb move by a governor and the unfit surgeon general he appointed that emboldens the COVID quackery that is prolonging this crisis. In a statement late Wednesday, the Florida Department of Health said it didn’t preorder because it doesn’t recommend vaccines for healthy children, a ridiculous position that contradicts federal health guidelines that recommend everyone age 5 and up get vaccinated. (…) The issue is not just smart public health policy but the rights of Floridians to have the tools to make responsible choices. And once again, DeSantis has denied Floridians an opportunity to safeguard their families, while also exposing his rank hypocrisy to boot. It wasn’t enough that the governor fought schools over masks, targeted businesses over vaccines, downplayed immunizations and misrepresented the science. DeSantis did all those things in the name of freedom or parental rights. And now he’s making it harder for parents who want the child vaccines.” Editorial Board of the Tampa Bay Times.

“(Senator Joe) Manchin…has deployed his outsize power to strip and water down progressive plans to fight climate change, expand health coverage and invest in social programs like paid family leave. And he wants us to know it’s about his principles. Last month, Manchin told reporters he “cannot accept our economy, or basically our society, moving towards an entitlement mentality” and called for Democrats’ social welfare proposals to only benefit those in desperate need. Manchin’s concerns about a rising sense of entitlement are hypocritical, and he’d have a better chance of selling his vision for America if his state was in better shape.?West Virginia has one of the highest poverty rates in the country, its most populous county is facing a horrifying HIV outbreak and its infrastructure continues to be battered by the climate crisis. To Manchin, constituents who expect sweeping government fixes to these maladies are asking for too much.?It’s ironic, since Manchin and his family have deep financial ties to the coal industry in West Virginia, a dying industry that’s heavily subsidized by the federal government. He has at least $1 million in holdings in his son's coal brokerage firm, and he’s raised more than $400,000 from oil and gas lobbyists over the last few months alone.” Ja'han Jones – U.S. media producer primarily focused on culture and politics on MSNBC and other outlets.

“Sen. Joe Manchin III criticized President Biden’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Monday, arguing that the White House was pushing “hypocritical” policies on energy imports. Mr. Manchin, West Virginia Democrat, said that the administration needs to curtail its reliance on Russian petroleum if it was serious about holding Russian President Vladimir Putin accountable for his belligerence in Ukraine.?‘The entire world is watching as Vladimir Putin uses energy as a weapon in an attempt to extort and coerce our European allies,’ said Mr. Manchin, who chairs the Senate Energy Committee. ‘While Americans decry what is happening in Ukraine, the United States continues to allow the import of more than half a million barrels per day of crude oil and other petroleum products from Russia during this time of war.’ Continued reliance on Russian oil, according to Mr. Manchin, poses a?‘clear and present danger to our nation’s energy security.’?Instead, the senator urged the White House to incentive domestic energy production and use punitive measures, including tariffs and importation bans, against Russian oil.” Reported by U.S. reporter Haris Alic who covers Congress for the Washington Times. Previously Alic worked at Breitbart News where he was the lead political reporter covering President Joe Biden and the 2020 campaign.

“Hitler lied shamelessly about himself and about his enemies. He convinced millions of men and women that he cared for them deeply when, in fact, he would have willingly sacrificed them all. His murderous ambition, avowed racism, and utter immorality were given the thinnest mask, and yet millions of Germans were drawn to Hitler precisely because he seemed authentic. They screamed, “Sieg Heil” with happiness in their hearts, because they thought they were creating a better world.” Madeleine K. Albright – U.S. diplomat, political scientist, was 64th U.S. secretary of state.

“Step back and see the hypocrisy. The so-called “small government, pro-life” party wants to regulate what books children read, what bathrooms people use and what medical procedures women can have. Instead of “protecting the unborn,” they are forcing them into a life where their rights and interests are only protected until they are born.” Arielle Kane, U.S. director of health care policy for the Progressive Policy Institute, lecturer for Johns Hopkins University Advanced Academic Programs.

“One of the universally despised sins is hypocrisy, falsely pretending to hold beliefs, feelings, standards qualities, opinions, virtues, motivations, or other characteristics that a person does not actually hold. Powerful people tend to be the greatest hypocrites, which accounts for why scandal, false preachers, and mealy-mouthed persons are so prevalent in bastions of reigning political parties. Hypocrisy occurs because some people are too lazy, weak-willed, or stupid to live up to their professed beliefs. It also occurs because of a propensity of people to engage in self-deception and self-ignorance, reliance upon fabricated (“pseudo evidence”) perceived through a self-serving bias, failure to challenge personal beliefs and behavior, and refusal to listen to justified criticism.” Kilroy J. Oldster?- U.S. author, attorney.

“Hypocrisy is the ultimate power move. It is a way of demonstrating that one plays by a different set of rules from the ones adhered to by common people.” Michael Shellenberger – U.S. author.

“The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.” Andre Gide – French author.

"Representative Kevin McCarthy’s denial of disparaging comments he made about President Donald J. Trump after the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, exposed a widely known but seldom seen phenomenon in Washington: the hypocrisy of Republicans who have privately scorned Mr. Trump while publicly defending him.?Mr. McCarthy, the California Republican who is campaigning to be speaker of the House if his party wins the majority in November, had dismissed as “totally false and wrong” a report that he had told fellow G.O.P. he would urge Mr. Trump to resign from office after the riot. But an audio recording?of the conversation revealed Mr. McCarthy’s denial to be a lie."?Annie Karni – U.S. journalist - congressional correspondent for The New York Times.

“Cheats and hypocrites are those who do everything with words and do nothing with actions.” Democritus - Greek philosopher.

“Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.”?Edmund Burke - Anglo-Irish statesman, economist, philosopher.

“Actually, we have mis-defined "hypocrisy." Hypocrisy is not the failure to practice what you preach but the failure to believe it. Hypocrisy is propaganda.” Peter Kreeft – U.S. professor of philosophy.

“Hypocrisy, the lie, is the true sister of evil, intolerance, and cruelty.” Raisa Gorbacheva - Russian activist.

“What! Would you make no distinction between hypocrisy and devotion? Would you give them the same names, and respect the mask as you do the face? Would you equate artifice and sincerity? Confound appearance with truth? Regard the phantom as the very person? Value counterfeit as cash?” Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière - French playwright, actor, poet.

“For a devil, hypocrisy is a parlor game, like charades. Such fun, and when the evening is done we shall be holding our bellies to keep from dying of laughter.” Catherynne M. Valente – U.S. fiction writer, poet, literary critic.

“A hypocrite is like an unprincipled and designing lawyer, who professes to be the particular friend and advocate of virtue, justice, liberty, and humanity, while he exerts his skill and talents to excite and harden vice, defeat justice, and to rivet the shackles of tyranny and oppression upon his fellow men.” Able Brewster

“The legitimacy of the judicial branch rests on the principle that judges are independent and unbiased interpreters of the law. A fair process for nomination and selection is crucial to preserving a public perception of the Justices of the Supreme Court as neutral jurists, rather than pawns of the political process. (…) McConnell’s arbitrary application of rules obliterates any pretense of any justification except the bald pursuit of power. It is flatly inconsistent with the vision of our founders that our government would be made legitimate because it was trusted by and accountable to the people. And if left unchecked, Senator McConnell’s move — and the complicity of every Republican Senator who refused to consider Merrick Garland’s nomination in 2016 but will go along with a vote now — will powerfully testify that the Republicans who control the Senate have no respect for the consistent application of legal rules, but seek only to maximize their own power. (…) Sometimes the rule of law calls for restraint in the exercise of lawful power in order to assure public confidence and respect. Greater comity — or self-restraint in pushing political power to the max — strengthens American democracy and makes our institutions more successful." Donald B. Ayer – U.S. attorney, formerly the U.S. Deputy Attorney General under George H. W. Bush and Alan Charles Raul – U.S. author – U.S. opinion contributors to USA Today.

"When it comes to Supreme Court nominations, Republicans have rarely been troubled by hypocrisy. That much was clear in 2016 when the Republican Senate refused to even hold a hearing for Merrick Garland, Obama’s nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, on the grounds that his February death had occurred too close to a presidential election. That precedent was ditched four years later when they turned around and confirmed Trump nominee Amy Coney Barrett to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg a week before the 2020 presidential election. Fast forward to 2022 and the nomination of Judge Jackson and their professed dismay over how dark money contaminates the process of judicial nominations. (…) The irony of this line of attack is that McConnell has been on a crusade to allow more dark money in politics for decades. His name captions the first Supreme Court case challenging the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform legislation, which attempted to rein in the flood of anonymous corporate donations in politics, and he openly supported the 2010 Citizens United decision that ultimately invalidated that landmark legislation. As Brian Fallon, the executive director of Demand Justice, one of the groups to which McConnell was apparently referring, told the Washington Post, the minority leader’s comments were “a tell that he has no hand to play against Judge Jackson on the merits." Stephanie Menicimer – U.S. journalist, Senior Washington Bureau Reporter for Mother Jones.

“The wolf in sheep's clothing is a fitting emblem of the hypocrite. Every virtuous man would rather meet an open foe than a pretended friend who is a traitor at heart. Among all things and persons to be despised, what is more base or vile than the pretender?” Henry F. Kletzing and Elmer L. Kletzing – U.S. authors.

“Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practiced at spare moments; it is a whole-time job.” W. Somerset Maugham – U.K. playwright, novelist, short-story writer.

“What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.” Hannah Arendt – German-born/U.S. political philosopher, author, Holocaust survivor.

“Hypocrisy is the outward acknowledgment of inward shame.” Norm MacDonald - Canadian comedian, actor, writer.

“A hypocrite despises those whom he deceives but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of himself too, if he could.” William Hazlitt – U.K. essayist, drama/literary critic, painter, social commentator, philosopher.

“It has been the political career of this man, to begin with hypocrisy, proceed with arrogance, and finish with contempt.” Thomas Paine – U.K born/U.S. political activist, philosopher, political theorist.

“Often those that criticize others reveal what he himself lacks.” Shannon L. Alder – U.S. author.

“Whatever you condemn, you have done yourself.” Georg Groddeck – German born/Swiss physician, author.

“When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to [profess] things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.” Thomas Paine - U.K born/U.S. political activist, philosopher, political theorist.

“People that have trust issues only need to look in the mirror. There they will meet the one person that will betray them the most.” Shannon L. Alder – U.S. author

“A hypocrite is a studied cheat--an imposter--a knave--a made fool, and one who generally finds himself the worst cheated, at last.” Able Brewster?

“Those are greatly mistaken who think that they can obtain permanent glory by hypocrisy, vain pretense, and disguised words and looks. True glory strikes its roots deep, and spreads them on all sides; everything false disappears quickly, like spring flowers, nor can anything, that is untrue, be of long duration.” Cicero - Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher.

“The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.” William Hazlitt - U.K. essayist, drama/literary critic, painter, social commentator, philosopher.

“There are three things in the world that deserve no mercy, hypocrisy, fraud, and tyranny.” Frederick William Robertson?-?Scottish historian, minister in the Church of Scotland, and Principal of the University of Edinburgh.

“Avoid the base hypocrisy of condemning in one man what you pass over in silence when committed by another.” Theodore Roosevelt – U.S. politician, statesman, conservationist, naturalist, historian, writer, served as the 26th U.S. president.

“America must begin the struggle for democracy at home. The advocacy of free elections in Europe by American officials is hypocrisy when free elections are not held in great sections of America.” Martin Luther King, Jr. – U.S. minister, activist.

“For me, the most ironic token of [the first human moon landing] is the plaque signed by President Richard M. Nixon that Apollo 11 took to the moon. It reads: "We came in peace for all Mankind." As the United States was dropping 7 ? megatons of conventional explosives on small nations in Southeast Asia, we congratulated ourselves on our humanity. We would harm no one on a lifeless rock.” Carl Sagan – U.S. astronomer, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author.

“It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.” Noel Coward – U.K. playwright, composer, director, actor, singer.

“I think that generally one of the things that--one of the things that I sort of feel like is the meta issue in the type of political commentary that I do is that nobody really cares about hypocrisy--everybody expects hypocrisy from politicians. And so, you tell a politician they are being a hypocrite, and they say, oh, you have such a nasty tune, stop saying those rude things, because they don‘t care about the substance of it.” Rachel Maddow - ?U.S. television news program host/political commentator.

“At least when a mosquito sucks the blood out of you, he doesn't pretend to be doing it "for your own good.” Marty Rubin – U.S. author.

“It is actually more cynical to pretend that politics can ever be completely sincere. We should accept hypocrisy as a fact of politics — the most dangerous form of political hypocrisy is to claim to have a politics without hypocrisy.” David Runciman –U.K. academic, professor of politics at the University of Cambridge.

“I have been called a curmudgeon, which my obsolescent dictionary defines as a “surly, ill-mannered, bad-tempered fellow.” … Nowadays, curmudgeon is likely to refer to anyone who hates hypocrisy, cant, sham, dogmatic ideologies, the pretenses and evasions of euphemism, and has the nerve to point out unpleasant facts and takes the trouble to impale these sins on the skewer of humor and roast them over the fires of empiric fact, common sense, and native intelligence. In this nation of bleating sheep and braying jackasses, it then becomes an honor to be labeled curmudgeon.” Edward Abbey – U.S. author, environmentalist.

“Honesty has a beautiful and refreshing simplicity about it. No ulterior motives. No hidden meanings. An absence of hypocrisy, duplicity, political games, and verbal superficiality. As honesty and real integrity characterize our lives, there will be no need to manipulate others.”?Charles R. Swindoll?- U.S. pastor.

“Liberty is the right of every man to be honest, to think, and to speak without hypocrisy.” Jose Marti - Cuban poet, philosopher.

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