Why calling out conservative hypocrisy is a waste of time

Hypocrisy doesn't matter to conservatives, only obedience does

A friend of mine posted the above meme this morning, and it got under my skin. Not because I necessarily disagree with the sentiment of the post, but because it’s a weak scarecrow (formerly straw man) argument that fundamentally misunderstands the values of the people that support the regime. Understanding the values of contemporary conservatives explains how they can continue to be a part of what amounts to an apocalyptic white nationalist death cult in the face of obvious intellectual contradiction that drives the rest of us crazy.

There’s no hypocrisy or double standard for cultists in believing that everyone should have a right to carry a firearm and that Alex Pretti was executed for having one. The reason that it’s not a double standard for them is because critical thinking is not a value of cultists, obedience is. Their leaders have told them what to believe, and it doesn’t matter that it may directly contradict what the leaders told them to believe yesterday.

Cultists can’t decide one way or the other whether owning a gun is right or wrong, because doing so would compromise their obedience, and endanger their place in the hierarchy. Their rigidly hierarchical social structure means that they’ll wait to be told what to believe and obediently following that decision from their superior IS the best moral outcome.

There are two things that make this difficult to perceive in the US right now. First is that free and independent thought is central to the liberal identity (whether it’s practiced is a different story), and as such liberals believe that it is central to every identity, which it is not.

Second, and more crucial to our American flavor of cultish populism, is the central tenant that members of the cult are ‘mavericks’. Cultists believe that they are rogue cowboys who go against the grain to find the real truth, hence the popularity of “doing my own research.”

Renée Good’s killer Jonathan Ross is a perfect example of this. A murderous cultist working for the American government as a gestapo enforcer who allegedly had a Gadsden flag (representing freedom from government tyranny) flying at his house .

Anyone with an iota of critical thinking ability would blanche at the hypocrisy of a government employee violently infringing on individual American’s right flying a flag that says the government shouldn’t do that. But the hypocrisy is invisible to cultists like Ross because he continues to be obedient, and his obedience allows him to indulge other appetites that are far more important to him than intellectual consistency.

Thinking for themselves and displaying consistent beliefs is vilified in conservative social circles bc independent thought leads to disobedience, disrupting the social hierarchy. Even at the highest levels of the government, the Supreme Court, obedience is primary. It’s the job of cultist judges to find a way to follow orders, not to prove that the orders make sense or are consistent with what the orders were yesterday, or 250 years ago.

Mitch McConnell et al didn’t choose these justices because they were intelligent, free-thinkers who would advance American values through intellectually consistent jurisprudence, but because they were obedient people who would use their intelligence to reinforce the hierarchy (and conveniently their place in it) in any way possible, even through sheer numbers. The 6 conservative Supreme Court justices (at least 2 of whom are illegitimate) gang up on the history of American jurisprudence like ICE thugs on helpless women, justifying their judicial violence about as convincingly as Greg Bovino justified the killing of Alex Pretti. But it doesn’t matter if it’s convincing. It just has to send the message to the cult, and they’ll take it from there.

So if these calls to conservatives are genuine, they’re are a waste of time, because they challenge a value that non-cultists highly prize, but that cultists spurn. If they’re preaching to choir (which has great value!) about the intellectual dishonesty of cultists and conservatives (who can tell the difference anymore?), then there are better ways to do it.