The Hypocritic Oath

No, you aren’t reading it incorrectly and I didn’t misspell anything. Well, ok, I did misspell because it isn’t really a word, but it should be. We learn early on in our education that doctors, that is real doctors, not the pretend kind of EdD or PhD doctors, take an oath to do no harm and to put their patients first. After a great deal of observation and experience in the real world I have become convinced that politicians also take an oath. It’s the kind of oath taken in a closed room where only other politicians are present. It’s the kind of oath one takes when they join a secret society that hides in the shadows avoiding both the light of the sun and the lights of truth seekers. This oath contains within it the rationalization that it is ok to lie, cheat and steal as long as it allows you to remain in power, for you are the only thing standing between your constituents and chaos. It is an oath based on the assumption that people do not know the truth, aren’t interested in the truth and will do what they are told to do. Therefore, it is right and proper that they be told to act in a manner that will accomplish the goals the politicians have agreed upon in other rooms hidden from the eyes of the public.

Oh yes, the Hypocritic Oath is the ticket for a trip from well-meaning citizen to manipulating denizen of the underworld of politics. Promise them anything to get elected. Certainly promise them things you know, because you actually had a civics class, cannot be delivered by a single member of the city council or one of 435 representatives in the House or one in a 100 of senators. Promise them a return to honest government; promise them you’ll not be taken in by the slick long-term professionals in the capital city or remind them that you have become one of those very slick long-term professionals and seniority means everything in the capital so that if they don’t elect you they get nothing. Yes, promise to represent their views to the lawmakers and members of the administration. You know you don’t mean it; you know you can’t mean it because of the way the power structure is built. But, you say it anyway.

You don’t have to be a politician to take the Hypocritic Oath. There are many others, maybe even you have taken it without realizing you’ve sworn allegiance to the dark side. There are religious people who don’t love their neighbors as themselves but they do put something in the collection plate on Sundays. There are plenty of people who complain about the government but don’t actively do something about changing out the politicians they complain about. There are lots and lots of people who in private decry the cancel culture campaign but publicly remain silent, fearful they will become targets if they speak out. There are those who will video an attack on someone else but will not take action to stop that attack. I daresay you witness more than one example of hypocrisy on a daily basis and that you have come to expect such behavior from certain people.

So, then, how should we consider this situation? I cannot tell you what to do, that is not my purpose. I observe and report, but In the words of John Stuart Mill: “Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.” Something to ponder upon when next you observe a display of someone who has subscribed to the Hypocritic Oath.