Picking Your Hypocrisy Spots

You have to hand it to the left.  Even as high up as governors' offices, they figure they can just do whatever they want and not worry about being held to some kind of standard of ethics, or consistency, or pretty much anything.  A lapdog press will do that for you.

So this week, the Honorable Governor Andrew Cuomo of the once-great State of New York, decided to ban official "non-essential" travel to the still-great State of North Carolina by New York state employees.  That would be in response to North Carolina's just-passed law essentially overturning (or preventing future) local ordinances allowing people to use bathrooms of the gender they identify with (as opposed to that associated with their actual biology).

In Cuomo's view, this discriminates against North Carolinians who are transgendered, and therefore conflicts with a concept of "equal rights" that one of these days is going to find itself in a Supreme Court case we'll all view with the interest we showed in the OJ Simpson case.

So first -- on the record, and this is not the first time I've written this -- this piece is not about whether transgendered people are good or bad, or whether their rights are more or less than anyone else's rights.  Transgendered people, and I have friends who are, are some good and some bad, because their innate "goodness" is not associated with their gender view, but is defined by their view of others -- just like the rest of us.

And while their rights as citizens are the same as everyone else's, their rights as far as gender-specific things have yet to be settled in court.  So we can't really say what those are.  I can't just declare myself to be Asian-American and start a small-disadvantaged contracting firm based on being Asian-American and compete -- preferentially -- for Federal business because I "feel" like I'm Asian.  So the courts have to decide just how much "Rachel Dolezaling" people can do as far as gender goes.

That's not the point.  No, the point is that by participating in a trade mission last year to the paradise of the Caribbean known as Cuba, Gov. Cuomo effectively sacrificed his right to scream and yell about how transgendered people are treated anywhere, let alone in another state.

Yes, Cuba can do whatever it wants to people who are transgendered, and certainly does.  That's fine; Cuba is an island of heroes in the eyes of the Obamists and the left in general.  Have at, Fidel, abuse them all you want.  We'll come right down and kiss your butt.

But God forbid that a state recognize the discomfiture of, say a woman in a ladies room when a person with all male parts but women's attire walks in.  How terrible that the rights of one group -- not even yet recognized as being "rights" at all by the courts -- have been declared by the Hon. Andrew Cuomo as being superior to the rights of others, and that is so important to him that he further declares that he will "punish" the state that sees it differently from his own self-righteous perspective.

Now, it should be pointed out at this juncture that Gov. Cuomo has made his state so unattractive that it ranks in the top 3 (actually second, I believe) in percentage of moves being people moving away, according to the annual United Van Lines data.  North Carolina, on the other hand, is the third most attractive destination, i.e., the third-highest percentage of moves involving North Carolina were into the state as opposed to leaving it.  Just saying.

I loved the response from the Cuomoistas after the hypocrisy of the governor was exposed -- i.e., that Cuba abuses transgendered people but is OK, North Carolina passes a bathroom law, of all things, and travel there is banned.  Check this out from the Cuomo "spokesman":  "... there is a fundamental difference between legislative action that strips LGBT people of their rights [sic] and taking affirmative steps to help change long-standing practices in a foreign country.”

How's this, Andy -- you could have said "Instead of going to Cuba and having a couple pina coladas with the Castros, I will point out -- by declining to go on this trip -- that the regime there abuses transgender Cubans and we will not stand for it."

That wouldn't have sounded like a Democrat, sure.  But it would have sounded like a principled governor.  And it would have given Cuomo a whole lot more standing to pop off and say and do stupid things relative to North Carolina.

Because now, he has no standing to say anything whatsoever.


Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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