Robert Cairns: Texas governor an example of hypocrisy

Oct. 15—I think what bothers me most about the political right is its naked hypocrisy.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is the latest glaring example.

More than 68,500 Texans had died of COVID-19 at the time of this writing. New cases were being reported at a rate of about 10,000 per day after reaching quadruple that number a month ago. But Abbott actively abets the spread of disease because he sees it as a good political move.

He's not wrong about that. It's pretty much the only thing he gets right.

Abbott not only won't promote vaccine mandates, he's doing all he can to stop others from mandating them because ... freedom.

Except Abbott does not care about the freedom of those who disagree with him and the anti-information crowd to whom he caters

He issued an executive order this week, prohibiting governmental entities and "certain others" from imposing COVID- 19 vaccine mandates or requiring vaccine passports.

Abbott's order made no pretense of being anything but political.

He called recent mandates imposed by President Joe Biden "yet another instance of federal overreach," and said "the Biden Administration is now bullying many private entities into imposing COVID-19 vaccine mandates ..."

Abbott certainly has authority over the governmental entities he was elected to oversee. But those "certain others" include private companies that want to provide safe environments for their customers and employees.

What about their freedom? Why is governmental overreach OK when it accomplishes what extremists want, but wrong when exercised by the other side?

Abbott threatened "the maximum fine allowed" under Texas law for businesses that do not toe his line. It's fair to point out that Democratic governors have done the same for businesses that refuse mandates, but aren't Republicans supposed to be the party of freedom and small government?

As a particularly right-wing practitioner of Republicanism, shouldn't Abbott be the first to defend the right of those businesses to make those decisions for themselves, free of government interference?

Clearly not. As I said, naked hypocrisy. He calls Biden a bully, but uses his own office to bully others into accepting disease and death because it's good for his political ambitions.

I was glad to see some Texas companies stand up to Abbott's buffoonery.

Southwest Airlines and American Airlines — both headquartered in the state — refused to comply, as did computer makers IBM and Dell, and oil giants Exxon Mobil and Chevron.

It's a strange day, indeed, when business giants stand stronger for health and safety than the government of one of our states does. But here we are.

It's fair to have a debate over mandates for vaccines, masks and other measures that protect public health. While it's sad that people would reject reality because it counters the foolishness they've been force fed by political opportunists, they've got a right to do so, at least up to the point where they threaten the health of the rest of us.

But you can't have it both ways, as Abbott and his ilk are trying to do. If mandates and fines are bad when they threaten what you want, they're bad when you use them to threaten someone else.

Hypocrisy should be called out. Especially in people who wield as much authority as Abbott does.

Abbott is hardly the only hypocrite exercising executive power and bad judgment. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, dubbed "Gov. DeathSentence" by critics, tried to stop cruise lines from requiring proof of vaccination before they allowed passengers aboard their floating petri dishes. The cruise lines, already badly stung by COVID, sued and won the right to do whatever they can to keep people from bringing a deadly disease onto their property.

It's nice to see commonsense win, once in a while.

Robert Cairns is the managing editor of The Daily Star. He can be reached at rcairns@thedailystar.com or 607-441-7217.