Flawed binary choices suck: 2017 hard pass edition

I think I’m starting to hate everyone, and there are two reasons why.

The first reason is entirely my own fault.

I just turned 44. I’ve got some salt in the hair, which is receding. I’m getting AARP solicitations in the mail. I’m telling the same jokes and anecdotes over and over again. I’m no longer instantly changing the channel when erectile dysfunction medication ads appear on the screen. I feel this compulsion to scream “get off my lawn” in the middle of the night — in snowy January.

The second reason is the fault of everybody else.

It seems with each passing day, adulthood is tolerated less frequently in our politics. Instead, we have replaced it with a childhood, but stripped of all its innocence and fun so that all we have is the bullying and inability to fit in. We are like the community of Derry in Stephen King’s “It.” Willfully or forcefully blinded to the monster in the catacombs sucking the life-force out of us, we turn on anyone who would dare to alert us to the danger or save us from it.

Nowhere is that more painfully obvious than in the intellectually dishonest and corrupt exercise we daily indulge called flawed binary choices.

Since adulthood isn’t tolerated, distinctions and discernment no longer are either. You must choose which cancer. You must accept the Indecent Proposal, or the Lady or the Tiger. Every problematic paradigm that put us in this pit must be honored rather than defied. One side wonders why King George doesn’t tax us more, because gubment always knows best. And the other side repeatedly dumps the tea in the harbor with no follow-up rebellion, so it’s effectively just a recurring tantrum.

Oh, and if you refuse to take the rat poison, it can’t be out of integrity or maturity, but only because you self-righteously think you’re better than everybody else.

Here are five flawed binary choices that exemplify our self-loathing:

If you don’t want to re-invade Afghanistan, or wonder why our national security adviser doesn’t want to name the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, you’re a Russian twitterbot who hates America or something.

As a conservative, my default setting tends to side with red-blooded American institutions like the military. And history has shown that generals have often been among our greatest heroes on the battlefield against our Constitution’s enemies — both foreign and domestic. However, that doesn’t mean the title of general grants infallibility.

Anybody doubting General McMaster’s patriotism is a moron, but those claiming we can’t have serious policy questions for the president’s national security adviser are equally morons. After all, if McMaster is as good as they say, then he ought to have solid answers for substantive questions, correct? And wanting to ask them doesn’t mean Putin controls my Twitter account.

?????, ?????

(According to Google Translate, that’s “come on, man” in Russian.)

You must choose between a craven, grandstanding hacktivist masquerading as a fake news reporter and a president who has frequently re-tweeted fake news/conspiracy websites/trolls.

Even by today’s pitiful standards, CNN’s Jim Acosta is not practicing journalism but grandstanding hacktivism. Every time my brain encounters his “work,” this legendary moment from “Billy Madison” comes to mind.

But you’ll pardon me if I’m just as insulted when the president of the United States combats fake news with, well, fake news. Or in this most recent case of his besmirching of an American hero — General John “Blackjack” Pershing.

If you really believe either Acosta or Trump is a purveyor of truth, you really suck at truth. And probably a lot of other things important to mankind, too.

You must choose between Antifa and white supremacists.

If you’re a racist, you are a terrible person who should be shunned by civilized society.

If you murder those you politically disagree with, you are a terrible person who deserves the death penalty.

If you attempt to murder those you politically disagree with, you should be locked in a hole, and then we throw away the hole. Provided police don’t justifiably put you down in the line of fire.

If you assault those you politically disagree with, you are a terrible person who deserves to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

There are no moral equivalencies. There is no “he/she had it coming.” There are no excuses. This behavior is sub-human and should be treated as such — regardless of the race, gender, or ideology from whence it came.

Oh, and because “the media” may have overlooked it or even advocated it when it came from one side doesn’t justify letting the other side doing it now off the hook in any way. Your mama should’ve taught you two wrongs don’t make a right.

Which brings me to the next one …

You must choose between What Aboutism and hypocrisy.

I recently did an entire episode on CRTV panning the moral relativism known as “What Aboutism” that is plaguing the fake conservative media these days. So I’m already on the record with a protest against that disgusting trend.

Yet that doesn’t mean we don’t get to call out hypocrisy altogether.

What Aboutism is a substitute for holding your side accountable by pointing out the hypocrisy of the other side. However, if you’re willing to hold both sides accountable to the same standard, then by all means you have the moral wherewithal to single out either one’s hypocrisy when it’s warranted.

That’s called accountability, not What Aboutism.

So pointing out the frequent hypocrisy of the Left in the age of Trump isn’t What Aboutism. Not holding Trump to the same standard you used to hold Obama to while doing so is.

I must be willing to be as dumb and soulless as you; otherwise I want the progressives to win.

I’ll start listening to this one when Obamacare gets repealed, the wall gets built, my taxes get cut, the embassy is moved to Jerusalem, the war on religious liberty is won, and Planned Parenthood is defunded.

Until then, I leave you with this.

Editor's note: An unedited version of this piece was accidentally published. We have replaced it with the correct version and apologize for the error.