The Democrats plan to use environmentalist sleight-of-hand at their convention.

If you listened to the mainstream media, you’d think conservatives have a monopoly on hypocrisy. If a figure has espoused traditional morality even just once at some point in the past and then falls from grace, our press will descend on him like vultures. You can be a Barney Frank, Ted Kennedy or Gerry Studds, but woe betide the Larry Craigs, Mark Foleys, and Ted Haggards of the world, for justice is mine, saith the New York Times.

Many claim this is only just, as a person’s dirt becomes especially conspicuous when he lifts high his mop and pail. Yet everyone has a standard of cleanliness; the only difference is whether he supposes it’s next to godliness or humanness, whether his focus is on purity of the soul or something else. And some Mr. Cleans just aren’t held to the same standard as others, such as those who would “feign green.”

A good example of this is the upcoming Democratic National Convention. Writes the Valley Morning Star: “To appear green at their convention in Denver, Democratic Party officials bought into a wind turbine owned by the Wray School District on the rural plains of eastern Colorado.”

Thus, we’ll likely be inundated with pictures of and stories about the windmill, to convince us that the convention is “as green and clean as it gets.” Yet it will be nothing but environmentalist artifice. How do we know? 

Because the turbine is broken. The Star explains:

The windmill generates nothing – not even enough energy to power a child's nightlight. It may or may not be working in time for the convention. Either way, it will generate nothing more than an illusion for the Democrats' fiesta. It will not reduce the convention's carbon footprint in the least.

. . . When it finally works, all of the electricity it generates will help power the village of Wray, not the convention. Wray City Manager Stan Holmes told The Gazette his city plans to buy 100 percent of the electricity, under an agreement with the school district.

So it will be just smoke and mirrors, a whole lot of wind. What it won’t be is unusual for environmentalists. Let’s consider some examples. 

Environmentalists have effectively lobbied against drilling, a practice they hate under all but two circumstances. One is when the government is drilling into taxpayers’ pocketbooks. Can you guess the other? When they can make money off the drilling.

That’s right. As senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis Sterling Burnett pointed out, “Two leading environmental groups, the Audubon Society and the Nature Conservancy, have allowed oil and gas production on several of their most important and unique nature preserves.”

Ah, sometimes money really does have a way of dispelling illusions, doesn’t it?

Then we have the oh-so-compassionate People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), an organization famous for throwing paint on fur-coat wearing voluptuaries and for liberating minks. While it’s adamantly opposed to eating meat, it came to light that that group kills more than 90 percent of the animals it “rescues.” Taking care of all those pets costs cash.

Now we come to NBC, the “Green is Universal” network. Well, maybe not quite universal, as it has decided to air condition an outdoor television set at the Olympics because, well, that Beijing weather is just too bloody hot. Even I, a man who could live in a meat locker (steak and cool temperatures; how can you beat it?), never thought of air conditioning the troposphere.

There are many other examples, as rationalization is the left’s forte. It’s like a very liberal man who, for a brief time, was a co-worker of mine at a former place of employment. After catching him doing something wrong, he knowingly chuckled and quipped about having “situational values.” The Valley Morning Star also alluded to this rationalization, citing a state senator named Greg Brophy:

He compares carbon credits to the indulgences Christians bought in the Middle Ages to offset their sins and assuage their consciences.

. . . Carbon offsets work the same way. Some wealthy environmentalists pollute far more seriously than ordinary average folks, but they feel bad about it. Al Gore, for example, wears eco-vangelism on his sleeve and tells the little people how they should live. Yet, he's among the worst environmental stewards roaming the earth. His 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom mansion consumes enough energy each year to supply 20 average American households.

In all fairness to the medieval Christians, though, there is a difference. Many of those people were sincere, enduring onerous penances and engaging in self-denial. But leftists deny themselves nothing; they preach about conservation and carbon footprints while justifying their own consumption. Their mission is so great and they’re so special that the end justifies the means. Even when they do try to walk the walk – like Gore and his yacht Bio-Solar One (which may not be as green as it’s cracked up to be) – there’s no sacrifice. Rich leftists can easily afford to spend five times as much green to be green. Can you? 

Getting back to hypocrisy, we also have to understand the meaning of the word. It isn’t simply saying one thing but doing another – that could just be human weakness – it’s saying one thing while intending to do another. This is why there’s really no equivalence between some sexual indiscretions and these enviro-sins. Not only is sexual temptation no respecter of party lines, it has been regarded by the ages’ great thinkers to be a uniquely alluring snare. Why do you think sex is everywhere in media and entertainment today? Yet, I’ve never heard anyone say, “I don’t know, pastor, I just got drunk. Then, the next morning I woke up with an SUV and Gulf Stream jet lying next to me.”

I've heard you preaching, Goracles, now I want to see the eco-asceticism.

Selwyn Duke is a columnist and public speaker whose work has been published widely online and in print, on both the local and national levels. He has been featured on the Rush Limbaugh Show, at WorldNetDaily.com, in American Conservative magazine, is a contributor to AmericanThinker.com and appears regularly as a guest on the award-winning, nationally-syndicated Michael Savage Show. Visit his Website.

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