CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, February 10, 2003

The Hollywood Left’s Hypocritical Oath

I swear on my honor as a hypocrite that:

I will cuss cows but eat beef; blast miners but wear gold jewelry, and drive a car but condemn oil companies. I do not want trees cut for any purpose other than to provide the lumber for my next house.

As a Hollywood celebrity, I assert my God-given right to sire at least four children by three different wives and then protest about overpopulation in the world.

I will put fish first by saving the sucker and salmon, but not the farmers and ranchers who feed me. I demand politicians and federal judges in Washington, DC, save all endangered species, except the small businessman. I feel government is imminently qualified to micromanage nature.

As a self-righteous Hollywood Left hypocrite, it is my duty to celebrate Earth Day with barbecues and parades, while leaving tons of trash behind.

I want to relocate grizzly bears and wolves to the West but not in my big city backyard. After all, people live here! I give my permission for mountains lions to eat lambs, but if a lion eats my dog or cat, I demand the abominable beast be shot on sight.

I will cuss oil companies on talk radio and stand in the way of their drilling more wells, while I am sitting in my gas-guzzling limousine with the engine running. I will write letters to the editor on my computer, as I castigate utility companies for not providing enough electricity. At the same time, I will send money to green groups who want to tear down hydroelectric dams and stand in the way of any new power producing projects.

I avow that, at the next cocktail party I attend while I am smoking a cigarette and sipping a martini, I will sue the tobacco companies for causing my lung cancer.

Although I have never personally milked a cow or even grown vegetables in a garden, I demand to have a say on how farmers and ranchers do it.

As a pompous hypocrite, I demand water, herbicides, and pesticides be taken away from farmers immediately, but I do not want it to effect the price, quantity, nor quality of the food I buy in the store. It is my strongly held conviction we should ban all pesticides, except the can of bug spray I use to kill ants and other unwanted bugs in my home.

As a mealy-mouthed hypocrite, I vow to help stop global warming by watching PBS on my giant-sized television in my air-conditioned house.

I assert that cattle pooping on our nation’s grasslands is a national disgrace; however, I fertilize my urban lawn with steer manure because it is simply good ecology. I will complain about fertilizer runoff from farms but not from golf courses, because I happen to be a golfer.

I will hound hunters in the woods because they use guns, despite the fact that habitat and wildlife numbers have increased. I demand the government stop all timber cutting or recovery in our national forests, but I will cry like a singed coyote if the government allows wildfires to burn near my house.

As a card-carrying hypocrite, I disavow the use of fur, leather, wool, and all animal byproducts, except the ones used in medicines to save my life. I demand labels be placed on all food products but not on rock albums endorsing the killing of police officers.

Finally, as an arrogant and self-serving hypocrite, I firmly believe rural folks have done a terrible job of taking care of the countryside. They must do a better job because that’s where I want to live or visit the day when I escape the pollution, crime, and insanity of the barren big city in which I currently reside.

William Hamilton, a nationally syndicated columnist and featured commentator for USA Today, is the co-author of The Grand Conspiracy by William Penn – a novel about a terrorist attack on Colorado’s high country.

©2003. William Hamilton

Dr. Hamilton can be contacted at:

Email: william@central-view.com