I have always found hypocrisy to be hilarious.  How can you criticize somebody else for doing something you yourself do all the time?!  For example, hearing a notoriously selfish person call somebody else selfish is shocking but funny.  Yet nearly everybody is hypocritical at times, including me.  Perhaps hypocrisy is biology (I don’t know, I’m not a scientist).  Perhaps it’s a result of how society is structured (again, I don’t know, I’m not a sociologist).  It doesn’t really matter; this is another stupid nature vs. nurture argument.  My point is that most humans are hypocritical at times, and there is no better example of this than in American politics.  Putting my own beliefs to the side, I will attempt to equally “roast” each side of the aisle- conservatives and liberals- for their hypocrisy.  Please understand that I am poking fun at each side in general; I am not suggesting that ALL conservatives and ALL liberals act these ways.

Let’s start with conservatives.  The GOP website flouts the Republican party as the “Party of Freedom.”  Yet many conservatives hold extreme anti-freedom stances.  Some suggest that NFL players who kneel for the National Anthem should be benched or cut from their teams.  How can you call yourself a defender of freedom if you argue that people should be punished for doing something you don’t like, even though it is legal and doing no harm to anybody? 

Another example of hypocrisy is that most conservatives argue that the government wastes money on pointless projects, yet many support the construction of a wall on our Southern border.  Fiction: A border wall will eliminate all illegal immigration.  Fact: A huge chunk of illegal immigrants, more than 50%, come to the United States by plane or overstay their visas.  The border wall is a very expensive project that will not even accomplish its goal.  I would argue that the entire fight against illegal immigration is a waste of money; let’s just make the legal immigration process quicker and easier! 

A third example of conservative hypocrisy is arguing that anybody, regardless of the circumstances they were born into, can achieve success through education and hard work.  Yet these same people vote against increases to education spending and the minimum wage.  Without good education and decent-paying starting jobs, is it really true that the poor “can achieve success through education and hard work”?

Liberals are not off the hook, either.  Most liberals argue that making certain things illegal is ineffective, since it is hard to enforce certain laws, and it distracts the police force away from more serious crimes.  This is a good point!  Legalizing birth control made life a lot safer.  Why can liberals not apply this great logic to gun control?  If guns are made illegal, especially in the United States (where people seem to be more passionate about their guns than anywhere else), people who really want them will still get them.  I hate guns, and wish they weren’t legal, but in my opinion, it’s a lost cause.  Move on! 

Another example is how many liberals complain about media bias, and point to Fox News in particular.  Yet most cable news networks seem to lean left.  Also, if you read Buzzfeed or Huffington Post, I better not hear a peep from you about Fox News being biased. 

A final example is that many liberals claim that Democrats are the true “freedom of speech” party, yet they can be very harsh to those who slip up and say something that isn’t “politically correct” or that doesn’t match their views.  Liberal college students seem to have the most trouble with this: on February 1, 2017, students at University of California, Berkeley rioted when a conservative speaker, Milo Yiannopoulos, came to campus; he was forced to cancel his speech.  Come on, Berkeley kids!  You may take offense to what Milo says, but this doesn’t warrant rioting.

While the worst cases of hypocrisy occur among regular citizens, the most damaging cases occur in the government, between politicians.  Hypocrisy is part of the reason Congress has been so unproductive.  Both sides of the aisle call for bipartisanship when they are the minority group, but when they hold a majority, they don’t give a damn about bipartisanship!  It is funny to see how oblivious some people are to their own hypocrisy, and it deserves to be called out.  In fact, it needs to be called out, because although it is funny, it can be a huge problem.