Search as I may I've been unable to pinpoint the origin of the expression "rules for thee but not for me." Most agree that it's about 20 years old. Kevin McCarthy used it several times during a speech on the House floor. But it came into wider use during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the lockdown period in California, Governor Gavin Newsom was spotted with a group of wealthy constituents in the extravagantly expensive Napa Valley restaurant, the French Laundry. That November 6, 2020 event was a birthday dinner with a group of 12, including some top lobbyists from the California Medical Association. The covid rules for California required that large groups had to wear masks and must gather outdoors. The photos showed that no guests were wearing masks, and the group was indoors. But the fourth wall of the room in which they met had sliding glass doors which qualified it as "outdoors" when they were open. However, those doors were shut in the cool November evening in which they met because, according to them, "the group was too loud!" Following severe criticism Newsom was finally forced to admit that he probably should not have attended. He broke his own rules for the people of California.
Another event in California involved then Speaker of the House--Nancy Pelosi. In late August 2020 Pelosi was seen entering a hair salon in San Francisco without a mask and proceeding indoors, both of which violated the state's covid rules. She had apparently made a private arrangement with her hairdresser for an appointment. The store owner was livid because his business had been virtually shut down by the California rules. But Pelosi considered those rules did not apply to her.
John Kerry is the poster child of "rules for thee but not for me." He is Biden's climate czar, advocating that we lowly citizens should cut back our use of fossil fuels. Yet in the first 18 months of his appointment, he used his private Gulfstream jet on 43 trips lasting more than 60 hours. Those travels produced an estimated 325 metric tons of carbon. Last January Kerry flew to the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland to discuss ways to combat climate change. The local airport was jam packed with private jets. One observer said that "this annual private jet bonanza is a distasteful master class in hypocrisy." It was estimated that for the same time period the extra jets caused CO2 emissions equal to about 350,000 gasoline-powered cars. Besides his fuel consuming private jet, Kerry also owns 5 houses. I assume that at least some of them use natural gas for heating and cooling, and perhaps several have those evil gas ranges for cooking. One is a seven-bedroom mansion on the beach in Martha's Vineyard. For his sake I hope that Kerry's property does not suffer from the ocean rise that his climate associates predict. I do not begrudge Kerry for his possessions, but I do think he should live by the same rules that he expects others to follow.
As an aside, I should comment that the high temperatures we have experienced in Jackson in early March failed by a degree or two to break the all-time records. The high record one day was set in 1910. In other words, on that day it was warmer over one hundred years ago than it was a few days ago. Reminds me of a time back in 2009 when a global warming activist in Colorado bemoaned the fact that the October temperatures in Boulder were breaking low temperature records. He wrote his colleagues that "we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it's a travesty that we can't." Soon afterwards the climate alarmists changed their rhetoric from "global warming" to "climate change."
Back to the subject at hand: Piers Morgan says that when it comes to "rules for thee and not for me Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the queen bee." AOC attended the super extravagant New York Met Gala event in 2019 at the invitation of Vogue Magazine. The two tickets for her and her boyfriend cost $70,000, and she paid large amounts for her dress, makeup, and limousine. In spite of her extravagant spending and gifts, AOC's famous white dress had the words "Tax the Rich" clearly displayed in bright red lettering on the back. She claims to stand up for the poor and impoverished, but in this event she certainly lived up to her "queen bee" status!
Our President, Joe Biden, and his Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have said that the partially completed wall on the southern border is ineffective in holding back illegals. Mayorkas has used the excuse that it should not be completed because of all the high, rocky terrain that would be encountered. And yet the White House has a surrounding fence, and the president has a wall around his beach house which has been paid for by our country's taxpayers. That wall is effective in keeping out unwanted intruders, but his Homeland Security Secretary says the country's southern wall would not. Walls for me but not for thee!
People in so many walks of life are guilty of practices which do not follow what they believe and state to be true. The bible teaches us about religious hypocrites. Jesus said of the false religious leaders of his day: "they do not practice what they preach." (Matt 23 v 2,3.) That's another way of saying they have "rules for thee but not for me." The challenge before us, including me, is to be consistent between what we say and what we do.
Peter Gilderson, Madison.
