It’s hardly news that modern day Republicans are hypocrites of the first order. Here’s the latest example-actually probably not the latest as it’s some hours old, but it’s illustrative:
Republicans have now decided the tax returns of nominees and people in power matter, as they want to scrutinize Biden’s nominees.
Outgoing Senate Finance Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) wants to examine Biden Treasury nominee Janet Yellen’s tax returns:
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Just a few months ago in September, Grassley complained Trump’s tax returns got out, “That information should have never gotten out, and whoever got it out violated the law…All I’ve got is the president saying he’s paid millions of dollars in taxes, and you’ve got the New York Times printing what they think, and we don’t have the facts to make a judgment. But let me say that I’d be very concerned about how it got out.”
Republicans defended Trump and his nominees hiding their tax returns and brushed off any red flags that were in the financial dealings of Trump and his cabinet nominees.
Lest we forget, hypocrisy has a long and hallowed tradition in this country.
Lately I’ve been reading a lot of history, including some Connecticut history. I just finished a biography of William Williams, who few Connecticans (yes-that’s a word) know was a Connecticut born and bred signer of the Declaration of Independence, and I am now working on a biography of Sam Adams, who did more than make beer. Williams, by the way, was from Lebanon, Connecticut, which was a powerhouse town back in those revolutionary days, and his house still sits near the green, the only commons left in America.
The revolutionary generation did a lot of complaining about English assaults on their liberty, and I am constantly amazed at the frequency with which they claimed that the English were trying to reduce them to slavery, a charge that appears in both of the books I’ve mentioned, and which I’ve seen countless times in other history books. After the revolution, that complaint continued, directed at Northerners by Southerners, who constantly complained that Northerners were trying to reduce them (the white thems) to slavery. This is at the same time they were defending slavery as an institution and maintaining that the slaves just loved being slaves. Give Sam Adams credit, he, at least, refused to own slaves, but you have to wonder how slave holders could make this charge without feeling just a bit hypocritical. Well, not just a bit.
Sam Adams, by the way, had something to say about this sort of hypocrisy that’s still relevant today. This quote could be just as much about the Koch Brothers and their ilk as the libertarians of Adams’ day:
It is not unfrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty, who, if we may judge by the whole tenor of their actions, mean nothing else by it than their own liberty, -to oppress without control or the restraint of laws all those who are poorer or weaker than themselves.
Notice: Not that many are likely to care, but comments are not working on this blog at the moment. I’ll be putting this notice on posts until I get the problem cleared up. That will involve attempting to contact someone at my web hosting service, which is both time consuming and aggravating in the extreme, so I’ve been putting it off until I have a few hours I can spend on hold waiting for someone to talk to me.
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