Wanting It Both Ways

You have to hand it to Rosie O’Donnell. She had to have been one of the biggest supporters of the Million-Mom March (MMM) in Washington this past Mother’s Day. Throughout the period during and for a few days afterwards, Rosie was saying how wonderful these women were in taking a stand over what Rosie sees as the biggest threat of our time.

One need not have a Master’s degree to realize that Rosie is a hypocrite of the first order. After the Columbine massacre, she said on her television show that anyone who owns a gun "should be doing time". With her extremist views and total inflexibility on this issue, she fails to see her own hypocrisy. In one breath, she says only cops should have guns. In the next, she has her bodyguard apply for a concealed carry permit in Connecticut for her five-year old son as he begins school. What a hypocrite!

During the period of the Million-Mom March, there was a counter-demonstration taking place in Washington as well. Some of these people had their displays torn apart and some of their informational paperwork tossed into nearby trashcans. Such action on the part of the anti-gun crowd is clearly indicative of their own intolerance of any view other than their own. These people don’t want to listen to reason – their minds are made up – they don’t want to be confused with the facts.

Well, it now seems that the Million-Mom March crowd has had one of their own come back to haunt them. It has come to light that one of the Million Moms in Washington DC was charged in July with the shooting of a kid in the District who she believed had killed her son and wound up shooting the wrong guy, paralyzing him in the process.

Judge Michael Rankin ordered that Barbara Lipscomb be held without bail because he could not be sure that "the volatile atmosphere that led to whatever happened . . . would not resurface." One of the contributing factors in the judge’s decision to deny bail stemmed from the fact that upon searching the suspect’s home, they found several pistols, including a .44 magnum, a .357 magnum, a 9 mm and a MAC-11 semiautomatic. This woman was armed to the teeth for some kind of invasion the likes of which I will never know. The judge also kept her locked up because he wanted to ensure that "the volatile atmosphere that led to whatever happened . . . would not resurface."

So here we have the one of the leading supporters of one of the emerging anti-gun groups such as the MMM up on attempted murder as well as weapons charges. I find the irony delicious. These people espouse one set of rules for everyone else and another for themselves – much like Rosie O’Donnell and many others of the liberal left.

It’s not only in the gun debate, but in so many other areas, one can find that the double standard is alive and well in so many areas of America today. The White House is one of the most flagrant places of double standards. We have a President who pushes for the ratification of the UN-sponsored Kyoto Protocol – a document that although designed to benefit the world, would only serve to lower the standard of living for first-world nations. Canada and the United States and other industrialized countries would be forced to lower their greenhouse gas emissions, which would be reasonable if the other countries were held to the same standards. The fact of the matter is that China, India and Mexico (among others) are far worse polluters than many of the industrialized nations, yet they are exempt from the terms of the treaty.

To make matters more complicated, we have the nation’s number one tree hugger and sitting Vice-President Al Gore as a major force in backing this measure, just as he is in about every environmental measure that he can lend his name to. While it is important to respect the environment and provide a legacy to our children, we need to balance that need with reason and do it in a manner that will not hinder progress.

As a nation, we need to fully explore and utilize our hidden treasures, such as potential oil reserves that could well exist off the coasts of both California and Florida. A significant find of oil in these areas could help reduce our dependence on foreign oil and in turn, lower the price of fuel, whether it be gasoline, home heating oil or whatever other form of oil we may have need of. It would also send a message to OPEC that we will not be held hostage to their arbitrary decisions. After all, those OPEC ministers know that if they were within the reach of US law, that they would all be doing time for price fixing.

If there is a lesson for both the left and the right to learn, it is that they need to be consistent with their beliefs and practice what they preach, and from what I have seen, it seems to be those on the left that are having this consistency problem.

Perhaps this is what we are seeing in the true colors of the "compassionate left".

You can e-mail your comments to Timothy at trollins@idirect.com.

Copyright © 2000 by Timothy Rollins.
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-Published with permission