A couple of years before I retired from the Air Force, I had the honor of being the deputy commander of what the AF Academy calls “Basic Cadet Training.” It’s quite likely you have heard of this event or similar training, as it often makes the news as brand new cadet candidates arrive for their first military training. Shots of really short haircuts and getting yelled out usually make the local news. 

I recall one evening when I was sitting out of sight in the HQ and an enraged military member (who was not part of the BCT cadre) entered the room and began screaming at the cadet commander about some perceived wrongdoing by the cadets. As a fundamental part of leadership is taking care of your troops, I immediately stood and entered the angry man’s field of view. I told him that if he intended to yell, he can yell at me. The individual noticed my active duty lieutenant colonel rank — roughly a light year above his — and instantly his tone changed to one of conciliation and respect about what was actually a fairly minor problem. I then quietly but quite firmly expressed my unhappiness with him, in that he would be selectively outraged at cadets he felt he could dominate but was all meek and respectful to a superior officer. If he wanted to yell at the cadets, he better be ready to yell at me, too. Or, perhaps, he would prefer the route of being professional and not yelling at all?

Which, of course, brings me to Facebook…

Over the past nearly 300 columns I’ve scribed, a theme that I seem to constantly touch on is the issue of hypocrisy and how deeply offended I am by that deeply repugnant character trait. And if you are looking for amazing examples of political hypocrisy, you need look no farther, like I said, than Facebook.

Political hypocrisy has been with us since, well, forever. But we can thank Donald Trump for bringing the current GOP’s level of duplicity to all-time high levels. Recall that once GOP U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham stated that a president who doesn’t comply with congressional requests for information should be impeached. But of course, that was under some guy named Obama. Recently he has been quite content with Trump defying a number of congressional subpoenas and requests.

Here in Colorado, we have seen a multi-term congressman — Scott Tipton — lose to a far-right candidate in the Republican primary. Did we see any GOPers reject the QAnon-loving candidate who beat him? Not so much. 

But if you want really remarkable political hypocrisy, you need go no further than social media in general and Facebook in particular. Until very recently, I have prided myself on having friends from the left and right (both center and far) on Facebook. I hardly ever make any political comments, as I am not sure the world is made a better place by online assertions. But in the past couple of weeks, I have unfriended and/or blocked several people, nearly all from the far-right. Their assertions about Black Lives Matter (which they very much do) as well as claims about the 17-year-old accused of manslaughter in the deaths of two people at a recent protest (and FYI, as a former military cop, let me assure you that the last thing real cops want is an untrained 17 year-old with an assault rifle running around and popping off rounds, but I digress..).

Yet some of my former FB friends have been posting a variety of easily checkable and false statements about the “rioters” and other BLM “troublemakers.” Most recently, a fake quote from Larry Bird, of all people, has been making the rounds in which the basketball legend supposedly asserted that all athletes should respect the commander-in-chief, among other far-right tropes. Quite frequently, these folks post a lot of revisionist history. They post assertions that unemployment actually went up under Obama, when it actually dropped dramatically. And they repost Trump’s false claim that the economy is doing better under him than it did under Obama.

Another bogus assertion that often graces the pages of FB is the idea that the media is fundamentally biased, and that only the president’s tweets can be trusted. Here the hypocrisy is particularly ripe, in that Trump has spoken over 20,000 documented lies. Yet from the right we only hear “respect the office” (as they supposedly did during the Obama years) and that they don’t trust the fake media. 

Here in Colorado, we see TV spots from various mysterious organizations (thanks a lot, Citizens United v. FEC) that seem to be asserting that there were dozens and dozens of illegal actions taken by now-Senate candidate John Hickenlooper. But if you investigate it, you find that he was, in fact, found to have done two things wrong. He apparently ate a meal or two that someone else paid for and took a flight he shouldn’t have. Sure, those are mistakes. Hickenlooper has paid the fine and certainly won’t make that mistake again. Meanwhile, our president has had his own company bill the U.S. taxpayers millions when Trump stays at his own hotels and golf courses. He defrauded a veteran’s groups and others for millions. Selective outrage anyone?

Look, if you are going to be outraged, be sure that you are equally outraged when someone you agree with does the same thing. After all, you don’t want to be a hypocrite do you?