Rules For Thee But Not For Me

Corona virus has revealed something very scary and very old in the world - that is that those who see themselves as the elite in the world - be they news anchors, politicians, scientists, etc - generate rules for all of us to live by but when they are exposed to those same rules we quickly learn that in reality they believe in "rules for thee but not for me"

It would be one thing if this was limited to just one country - or even better - just one person but unfortunately we are seeing this narcissistic attitude time and time again from scientist, politicians, and news reporters even.  They think that they have made it to such a position of influence that they can start calling for and creating policies to impact everyone else who is not them.  There are so many examples of this in the news right now that this cannot just be called a coincidence.

From the very beginning we were told we had to follow the orders from government and keep in line with the suggestions and data provided by the WHO as well in order to keep as many people from dying as possible.  Now there are some parts of that that are true - since this is a new virus there are defiantly concerns about this virus especially for those that are immuno compromised, older, etc.  To be fair at the very start of this when we had no information on the true strength and abilities of the virus, lockdowns were reasonable and I was all for taking a very metered approach to the virus.  I am not going to get into everything regarding that right now - maybe another time.

It is one thing to create and impose policies/laws on people - and the validity and constitutionality of those laws can be discussed/debated/and challenged in the court of law (at least in the United States) but is a whole other thing when these laws/policies are implemented and enforced on everyone and then the ones who created/implement/enforce the policy say "Nah - I'll do what I want".

Case in point - close to home to me is the city of Chicago.  The mayor there - Mayor Lori Lightfoot - had a little bit of a controversy in early April.  After shutting down all salons and barbershops in the city as part of the state's stay-at-home order Lightfoot was caught getting her hair cut.  No she was not seen entering a salon - instead the person who cut her hair posted photos of her and the mayor (and the mayor getting a hair cut) on social media.  Thankfully this was not just swept under the rug by the media and she was called out on this behavior.  What makes this even worse is before this incident happened - Mayor Lightfoot released a series of videos on twitter promoting the stay at home orders.  In fact - in one of the videos she is telling someone the phone "Debbie getting your roots done is not essential".  This makes it more comedic because of the fact that shortly afterward was the hair cutting incident.  Now it would be one thing if she turned around and apologized saying that the optics were bad and that she should not have gotten her hair cut - but instead we were given this wonderful response:

“I’m a person who, I take my personal hygiene very seriously. As I said, I felt like I needed to have a haircut,” Lightfoot said. “I’m not able to do that myself, so I got a haircut. You want to Talk more about that?”

I'm sorry - and the rest of us are slobs who don't care about our hygiene?  Now I know that is not what she was getting at but that defense was along the same lines of Pelosi saying that the sexual assault allegations against Biden were nothing because "Biden is Biden".  In other words they were nonsense and said absolutely nothing about the topic at hand.

I would loose all hope for America but thankfully other Democrats (in Chicago no less) criticized her for doing this and breaking the state's stay at home orders just to get a haircut.

Over in New York, Bill De Blasio traveled to a park twelve miles from his house to go for a walk/jog.  It would be one thing if he traveled just him and his wife during a time when people in the city were told to stop any unnecessary travel - but he took his staff with him as well on this trip.  Now I should also point out that his house is actually in the middle of another park - so the fact that he traveled to this park for the walk/jog is the clear definition of unessential travel.  De Blasio's own aid that traveled with him to the park got right into the face of a person who was recording De Blasio asking him why he had to travel to another part of town and couldn't follow the orders in place to avoide unessential travel - and the aide stayed in the person's face until they were reminded that they were on video and not social distancing.

I wish I could make this stuff up at times.

Now this is not just relegated to politicians here in the United States - politicians in Canada and Brittan have been criticized as well for breaking social distancing rules as well.

Doug Ford - Canada's Premier - has been accused (and admitted to) breaking the rules surrounding social distancing twice after putting them into effect.  One time was he had his daughters over to his house for Mother's day shortly after saying that social gatherings should be no more than five people and also they should be immediate family from the same household as well.  His daughters live in other houses on their own.  Now he did this shortly after telling people in Canada that they should forgo big family meals/plans and maybe do everything virtually.

The second time was to travel to his cabin - but that time was for a more practical reason - he went to check on the plumbing and he went alone.  After the trip when people criticized him about it he said he was deserving of all criticism he deserved - so I will give him credit for that - he is at least acknowledging that the optics around it are bad and for that he deserves some credit....unlike

Justin Trudeau.

Now the Prime minister is an even more egregious case then Doug Ford - and I would argue maybe more then Lightfoot.  In Canada there is a ban on nonessential travel, with several checkpoints setup between providences.  You are questioned when attempting to move between the providences and the Canadian government has said you should not do this.  Trudeau said screw it - I'll do it anyways.  Over Easter Trudeau posted a photo of him and his family at their summer retreat - 30 minutes away from his home.  His excuse he gave the media was that one was his work and the other was his home - and therefore he was excluded from the non essential travel ban as he was going between work and home.

Dr. Catherine Calderwood was the Chief Medical officer for Scotland from 2015 to 2020 - and would still be the chief medical officer had she not been caught traveling from her primary residence to her family's second home twice.  She was doing this why telling everyone in news briefings to stay home - and that by staying home lives are being saved.

Rules for thee but not for me.  It honestly makes my blood boil that people try to get away with this crap with flimsy excuses just because they think they are above the laws that they create.

Of course this doesn't stop at just politicians.  If you are a fan of CNN you are aware that Chris Cuomo was diagnosed with Covid-19 and then self isolated in the basement of his house.  Or at least that is the official story.  While telling everyone on his CNN and Sirius XM show that they should follow what the authorities say and social distance/isolate/etc - Chris was caught on Easter (what is with easter?) outside with other people not social distancing at the site of his new home being built.  It would be one thing (and still inexcusable) if it was just down the street from his current home but this was a good thirty minutes away.  The only reason we know of this is that the biker who caught Chris out and about came forward and also filled a police report on his altercation with Chris after Cuomo was confronted on why he was out and about with Covid-19.

People have tried to say this did not happen - wanting to believe that the video of Chris emerging from his basement on CNN was indeed the first time he had left the basement since he was put into quarantine due to testing positive for Covid-19.  Unfortunately Chris revealed that this was true on Sirius radio program:

Cuomo then launched into a tale about a “loser biker” who confronted him on Easter Sunday for being outside his property with his family despite his coronavirus diagnosis.

“I don’t want some jackass, loser, fat tire biker being able to pull over and get in my space and talk bulls–t to me, I don’t want to hear it,” he said.

This fits in with the account from the biker who said that after confronting Cuomo he was told:

“Who the hell are you?! I can do what I want!”

And we wonder why there is a debate about fake news in the country.  Combine fake news with rules for thee and not for me - and we got ourselves a problem larger then either one of those components alone.

Now here is the thing - the examples above are bad enough - but when the person who created the model predicting the number of infected and dead, and pushed for the UK to abandon their herd immunity strategy and instead go with a social distancing/quarantine route breaks social distancing rules/guidelines that takes everything to another level.

Neil Ferguson is the person responsible for creating the computer model that predicted the large casualty numbers from Covid-19 if no social distancing was done - and during the time when he was preaching to the public that they needed to social distance and shut down things he was in fact not following these rules.  He invited his mistress over to his residence twice.  Now (at least right now) - I'm not going to comment on him having a mistress other then the fact that he had one.  Now after Neil was caught he did resign from the government board he was a part of - but honestly the damage has already been done.  His excuse for why he invited her over?

"I acted in the belief that I was immune, having tested positive for coronavirus and completely isolated myself for almost two weeks after developing symptoms,"

As we are being told repeatedly that there is no assurance that once we have been infected once we are immune to the virus from subsequent infections.  This was less a sure then back then - which makes the whole excuse a little crazy.

We can no longer let those in power just do what they want - we have to hold them accountable and let them know that in this modern world where information is able to be easily spread and verified - it is no longer acceptable for them to say "Rules for thee, but not for me peasant"

-Paul