Face it. We have our biases. We have our convictions. And we all have our contradictions. Not just Leftists, mind you, Rightists and Centrists, too.
Ah! Agendists. Their concerns have no limits when they can fault their political opponents for egregious behavior, real or fake.
On the Left Side of the Chain Link Prisons
Take those unaccompanied border children, for example, more than 100,000 of them, way more under Biden than under Trump. Recall the hissy fit Left-leaning commentators took on TV during the Trump years when they released photos of the Obama-Biden chainlink “prisons” and ascribed the conditions to Trump-Pence. And their cry of feigned desperation? “There are children for whom we can find no parents or guardians. Thousands of them.” Feigned, I am convinced, because they emitted no such cries during the eight previous years.
Ever lose a child for a minute or see a parent who has momentarily lost track of his kid in a grocery store or department store? Heart-dropping moment, that. So, what did you or that parent do? Ask the government to reunite parent and kid? Or, frantically look till you found the lost one. At the reunion with the kid: “Stay by my side. You gave me a heart attack.” During the Trump years, the Left’s agendists—who must never have momentarily lost track of their children— wanted to blame Trump for parents who made no efforts to ask, “Where’s my kid?” Followed by, “I sent her with some very trustworthy human smugglers to cross the border, and now strangely, she’s missing.”
Nope, no phone calls. No letters to Mayorkas. If tens of thousands of migrant children were unconnected, could it be that tens of thousands of parents didn’t want to be connected? But the narrative of an uncaring President fit the agenda during the Trump years though the situation is far worse now under Biden-Harris than it was under the previous administration.
Agendists are more often hypocrites than not. Think of Bill Clinton’s wanton abuse of women just as feminists were becoming highly vocal and their cause was morphing into “Me, too.” No feminist, including his “believe-the-victim” spouting wife, came to the aid of the abused. And now, agendists on the Left can’t admit that the Biden family has some very suspicious financial dealings with foreign entities, dealings that verge on criminal activity, such as bribery for foreign money by the “Big Guy” now sitting in the White House.
Back to the Left’s concern for children during the Trump era: There’s Grandpa Biden refusing to acknowledge one of his grandchildren, a little girl who is demonstrably his son’s offspring. What’s that the Left says about caring for THE children?
Are the Right’s Agendists as Bad as the Left’s?
It might have been justifiable to censure Adam Schiff for promoting lies about Russian Collusion, but shouldn’t the Right’s agendists also censure George Santos for promoting lies about himself?
Could there be a discernible difference between two liars? Santos’s lies centered on his own fictional life as a basis for being elected. Schiff’s lies lay at the heart of an attempted coup by impeachment. Yet, lying is lying. And once a liar…How can one trust a “Santos” to run the government?
Or consider Alabama Supreme Court Justice, Republican, and Senate candidate Roy Moore, accused of preying on teenage girls. The guy ran for office, and he had his backers even though he was twice removed from office by the Alabama Court of the Judiciary. What’a little sexual predation among Party members? Can anyone say Clintonesque?
Whatever motive keeps the Left’s agendists from acting against their own seems to be the same motive that keeps the Right’s agendists from acting similarly. Power backed by hypocrisy all around: January 6’s defenders and Trump classified papers' defenders are testimony * to the unflinching support of agendists on the Right.
Ubiquitous and Historical
Aren’t you tired of it all? I admit I am, but I won’t let it depress me because there’s never been a time when agendists haven’t run their hypocrisy to the ruin of their opponents in an effort to achieve or maintain power. The forced suicide of Socrates makes that case; and even Pericles, under whom Greece achieved a “Golden Age,” crossed the wrong political agendists. As then, so now: Agendists nag like little kids desiring ice cream or toys. Could CNN, MSNBC, NBC, or CBS have said “Russian Collusion” more than they said it? Could Fox News have said “laptop” and “corrupt FBI” more than they said it?
Two Methods of Support: Yapping and Silence
Could Leftists have avoided saying “Biden family corruption” or even “alleged Biden family corruption” more than they have avoided it? Could both Left and Right have made arguments so similar that at times not only the logic but also the wording is precisely the same? Hypocrisy’s echos reverberate across not just America, but across all nations divided by parties. In Serbia, protestors recently swarmed to object to Pink TV’s slanted coverage of Vucic’s government after two mass shootings. Seems that agendists like those who defend the government on Pink TV in Serbia are everywhere there are news outlets. The Press (Pravda) in the former Soviet Union, today’s Russian pundits, and commentators in other countries under dictators make the argument for the ubiquity and history of agendists.
Agendists use two methods to support their politicians: Nagging repetition of the sins of their opponents and censure of their own sins. Nothing speaks more as testimony to the latter than the recent social media closures of conservative sites on Twitter and FaceBook. Remember, no one was allowed to question or contradict Fauci, no one was allowed to say Wuhan Lab, and no one was allowed to question the need for six-foot distancing, arrows on grocery store aisles, vaccinating children, masks, store closures, and the efficacy vaccines in preventing the spread of COVID. Censure pure and simple: It’s the agendists’ tool that works. Go back to the last election and the regret some voters (some polls show 6%) have because they didn’t know about the Biden family history. (How could they? The silence in the media dampened the noise that might have hurt the eardrums of the electorate)
Spitting and Caning: What You Do Really Doesn’t Matter to Your Party as long as You Support Your Party’s Agenda and Serve That Agenda Productively
Now here’s a twist. During the term of John Adams in the 1790s, Congressman Matthew Lyon, a Democratic-Republican from Kentucky narrowly escaped censure after he spit on Federalist Ralph Griswold of Connecticut. And then Lyon, convicted of violating the Alien and Sedition Acts, was imprisoned for four months. Yet, his constituents, true to their agenda, re-elected him --while he was in prison. Will this be a foreshadowing of the 2024 election?
Basically, you could assault your political opponent and escape serious consequences as long as you stick to the Party’s agenda. Democrat Preston Brooks of South Carolina beat Republican Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with his cane until it broke. Congress couldn’t muster the votes to expel him, and he received a very light sentence in a criminal trial. He then resigned his seat, but his constituents, all opposed to abolition as he was, re-elected him to the seat he had relinquished. The lesson lies in the sentence I repeatedly typed to teach my fingers a QWERTY keyboard: “Every good man comes to the aid of his party.” My father, a skilled linotypist and diehard member of the Democratic Party taught me that line when he surprised me with my first typewriter.
And speaking of caning without consequences to the Congressman wielding the cane, an even better example is Republican Lovell Harrison Rousseau of Kentucky. In 1866 he used his metal-headed cane to beat abolitionist Republican Josiah Bushnell Grinnell from Iowa until his cane broke. Rousseau resigned only to be elected to his vacated seat. Even intra-party sins can be forgiven in defense of the AGENDA.
Bouncing off the Wall of Self-Contradiction
Throw a rubber ball against a wall. What happens? Well, an analogy lies in self-contradictory stances taken by agendists. Agendists don’t play catch with “other teams”; they play against a wall off which the ball rebounds. They play catch with themselves, often without realizing the nature of their game.
All agendists play off the wall of self-contradiction. If I examine my own motives, I see that I, too, am at times and on certain topics a self-contradicting agendist. I oppose socialism and its corollaries Marxism and Big Bureaucracy. But that wall of self-contradiction stands firm at reasonable public health care and Social Security, both of which I support as long as neither becomes excessively intrusive on individualism. Because both health care and SS require me to support some big bureaucracy, I am a hypocrite. Aren’t all social programs a slip away from a slippery slope into the pit of Marxism? If I want to avoid the label agendist, I must acknowledge some grey and oppose a purely black-and-white stance on social programs.
However contradictory I might seem, I have accepted some ethical reasoning that can justify my support for aiding the indigent and the abandoned. I’ve seen too many people suffer in trying to care for family members with Alzheimer’s. I’ve seen too many aged veterans who struggle to pay for necessities. And I have seen the burden that personally caring for the elderly places on the young and how it strains their ability to tend to their own needs. So, my opposition to social programs is self-contradictory on the surface, but in retrospect, it seems to be rooted in the reality of the third most populous nation with citizens in various stages of need.
I also oppose abortion, but I hypocritically favor capital punishment for terrorists and serial killers. Go figure. Pro-life, yet pro state-sponsored killing. Yes, I confess to having supported agendas that end in self-contradiction.
And, if you’ve read my blogs, such as the recent blog on the government plan to inject aerosols into the atmosphere to block sunlight, you’ll know that I object to climate alarmism and consider that agenda a foolish degradation of economic growth and an ultimate threat to public health based on plans that will do little to curb worldwide temperatures from rising—or even from falling. On its own, Earth has warmed and cooled significantly more than the estimated and unproven temperature predictions pushed by climate change agendists. I’ve written about this elsewhere, noting the folly I see in climate alarmists, even though all my research for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the US EPA centered on identifying and solving environmental problems—both real and exaggerated. Sure, “Conserve,” I argue, “but give me my air conditioning, my gasoline, my plastic, occasional antibiotics, and my lighted city streets. And please look the other way when I use insecticides to protect my house from carpenter ants.”
If the Ball Bounces Back to You, You Are an Agendist
After a recent decision by U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty that blocks agents of HHS, CDC, DOJ, State Dept., and FBI from contacting social media companies, a number of Left-leaning TV and news-outlet pundits criticized the temporary injunction. Thus, people in the media whose very livelihood and purpose depend on freedom from government interference in speech, argued against free speech. It wasn’t a surprise response, however, because the criticism originated from the Left, whose speech was never censored by social media platforms. The pundits believe it is all right for the government to interfere, even in light of the evidence that the speech that was censored proved largely to be true, such as that vaccines were not foolproof aids that stopped the spread of contagious COVID or that masks and closures caused more damage than good.
Just a reminder: Many on the Left called those who refused to wear masks and to be vaccinated as well as those who balked at closing businesses and spending time in lockdowns "murderers." (Gavin Newsome's and Nancy Pelosi's going maskless to a restaurant and to a beauty salon notwithstanding).
In “A Literature Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Lockdowns on COV:ID-19 Mortality,” by Jonas Herby, Lars Joining, and Steve H. Hanke of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise, the researchers found that little evidence exists that “lockdowns had a noticeable impact on COVID-19 mortality” (32). ** They also found “no clear evidence that SIPOs (shelter in place had a noticeable impact on COVID-19 mortality” (35). In fact, the researchers seem to think that sheltering in a home seemed to result in an infected person’s “causing more severe illness” (35). Yet, the Left-leaning pundits on CNN and in other media platforms criticized the injunction instead of acknowledging that the actual censorship as perpetuated by government officials acting through social media was not only an affront to the freedom of speech in America but was also an affront to the actual health practices that might have saved lives and prevented the degradation of the economy. I’ll go Kamala Harris here with redundancy: Left-leaning pundits infused by an agenda that includes hate for all things Right-leaning, criticized a court ruling that favored free speech, the very condition on which their jobs depend.
Can anyone say, “I wonder why the ball keeps bouncing back to me.”
Are You an Agendist?
Come on, be honest, and ‘fess up. Do you have an agenda that you cannot relinquish, regardless of apparent contradictions? Do you favor caring for children in a family setting while supporting Grandpa Joe who will not acknowledge his granddaughter who recently had to fight for child support? Do you favor imprisoning Joe Biden for having classified documents in his garage while you disfavor imprisoning Donald Trump for having classified documents in his home? Did you vote for a confused stroke victim like John Fetterman in support of the Party rather than for a popular doctor with all his mental faculties fully intact and the ability to articulate an argument? Did you vote for a lying George Santos regardless of his accumulating lies or for Eric Swalwell who dated a Chinese spy? Will you re-elect an Adam Schiff, or had you lived in the nineteenth century, would you have re-elected Matthew Lyon or Lovell Harrison Rousseau, all congressmen of the Democratic, Democratic-Republican, or Republican parties?
Are you the model agendist? Are you a modern example of the line I repeatedly typed to learn QWERTY? “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their Party.”
*Just have to comment about the word testimony: I’ve heard too many people use testament (a “contract,” thus, New Testament) for testimony (“a witness statement”).
**Herby, Jonas & Jonung, Lars & Hanke, Steve, 2022. "A Literature Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Lockdowns on COVID-19 Mortality," Studies in Applied Economics 200, The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise.