Celebrities tell us we should wear masks, but they don’t. Politicians tell us people individuals shouldn’t be rich, but many of them are rich! Why do these “elites” think their own rules apply to everyone except themselves?

Here’s a transcript of our conversation:

Brittany: Hi, Emma.

Emma: Hi, Brittany.

Brittany: So there’s something that really bothers me that I wanted to talk about today. Well, a lot of things really bother me, especially when we talk about topics that are on this show, cuz there’s a lot of very silly things. But one thing that bothers me is how there’s this group of people called the Elites and they have a lot of problematic behavior. And by problematic behavior, I mean, they like to tell everybody else what to do, but so many times they get caught not doing what they’re telling other people to do. And it really reminds me of, I know some of the older listeners and the parents may have seen Hunger Games and there is, it called the Capitol? Is that what it is? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So the Capitol, there’s one, I think it’s the second or third where there’s this big party in the Capitol. Everybody else is starving. And there’s, is it Panam or something like that? I think it’s called, it’s Been a While. Wow.

Emma: Something like that. Yeah.

Brittany: So it’s capital. There’s all these rich people and they’re, you know, everybody else is poor and they’re sitting there eating, they’re eating so much that they have to like throw up to eat more and they’re dressed all fancy. And it’s, this idea that there are these people that are the ruling elite and sometimes they’re not the government, sometimes these is powerful celebrities that are always telling everyone else how to live their life. And just a couple, I guess it’ll be a couple of months ago, by the time this one airs, there was something called the Met Gala. The Met Gala is this really big event in New York where all these actors and actresses and, and artists come and it’s a very big deal. It used to be, there’s like themes and you’d have to like, follow the theme. Well, so the funny thing that happened this year that I wanna touch on, there’s a couple of things and we’ll go on to this is just one example. Emma and I will talk about a few, but the thing that was really funny to me this year is, you know, celebrities have probably been the most vocal about you have to wear masks. If you don’t wear masks, you’re killing grandma and you’re killing your neighbor. And we hear this over and over again. I mean, I think celebrities have just turned into complete nut jobs. If you look at their social media account, they’re just constantly telling everybody else what to do. What’s funny about this Yes, exactly. And what’s funny about this is all these pictures from the Met Gala show all these celebrities without masks on, but that’s not the worst part of it. The worst part of it is all the servers, all the weight staff, including the ones that are like holding their dresses, cuz the dresses have the long train in the back, they’re all wearing masks. And so you get this really just stark image. And Glen Greenwald, who we’ve talked about before who’s a great journalist and great anti-war commentator, he was saying like, this is the perfect picture of, the problem we have with, you know, the elites and the celebrities who are millionaires. You know, all of ’em are always trying to say like, oh, we need to tax the rich. Oh, we need to you know, fix income and equality. And here you have them using the working class to hold their dresses to serve them. And granted, those are jobs. We’re happy that they have those jobs. Absolutely. Happy. Yes. But the way that they treated them where they had to wear masks and, and the celebrities weren’t, was so like, ridiculous to me. Because I think especially in this day and age, there’s so much hypocrisy and hypocrisy is when you say one thing and then do another, there’s so much of this going on that it’s becoming almost laughable, you know? So, I and we’ve seen politicians do that. Governor knew some of California who’s just terrible. And unfortunately, he was not recalled. So he’ll be in for a while, he has had some of, you know, California said some of the strictest shutdown rules, and then he was out to dinner without a mask on. Yes. And then same with gov, I said, Governor Obama, former President Obama, he had a birthday party with tons of celebrities. Guess what? No one was wearing masks. Yep. And it’s so funny to me, in fact, the DC mayor got, I think she’s Mayor Bowser. Yeah. She had something and she wasn’t wearing a mask. And people called her out and she goes, well, I was having fun. So it’s like, okay. And you’re like, wait for a second. Yep. So what If we have fun and I, oh, go on.

Emma: On. Yeah, I was gonna say, that also happened in San Francisco, which is a city that had some of the worst lockdowns in the whole country. Yes. And the mayor was at this party, she was celebrating some sort of, you know, fun thing. She, you know, people should be allowed to have fun, people should be able to go out. And she’s the exact person that has put in this indoor mask mandate in San Francisco, and she had no mask on. And she got called out for it and set in a press conference that she didn’t have her mask on because she was feeling the spirit and wasn’t thinking about a mask. Boy, babe, and you know, great, good for her. We should all be able to feel the spirit and not wear a mask. But that was just another little piece of hypocrisy that we’ve seen.

Brittany: You reminded me of another big one that just happened during COVID, which was Nancy Pelosi, which is also in San Francisco, I believe. Yeah. so she went in, you know, she has been one of the largest advocates of we all need to, you know, do get, get our vaccines and postpone or prolonged, the lockdowns. So this was at the height, this wasn’t even like in the last couple of months. This was when everything was shut down. This is when you couldn’t even get your haircut. I don’t know if you remember those times. I’m trying to block them out, but my hair was terrible. Oh, yes. You couldn’t go anywhere. Like, this was the height of the lockdowns. So everyone else is suffering. And then this video, this really brave Salon, owner leaked this video where Nancy Pelosi went into a salon and without a mask on was like walking around the salon. And what, really gets me about this is, it’s not surprising to me, you know, we’ve talked about government being liars and being hypocrites all the time, but what really got me about this is she didn’t even say, sorry, none of these,  politicians were saying like, oh yeah, okay, I probably messed up. No. And said they, and instead they continued enforcing these bad laws or calling people out for not wearing masks. And they always had a reason. There was always a reason why it was okay for them to do it, but it’s not okay for us to do it. And that kind of hits it. The theme I, you know, I really wanna touch on that today, on this episode is at all too often we have this happen. We have these elites, whether they’re celebrities or the government telling us that we need to do this, but Oh, that doesn’t apply to them because, you know, they’re better than us. They’re the ruling class. So it’s just nuts to me.

Emma: It is. It’s, due, as I say, not as I do, I don’t exactly if you guys have ever heard that phrase before, but that seems to be the phrase of this whole pandemic is absolutely, like you said, Brittany, there’s, the celebrities at the Met Gala and they’re all dressed up and they’re having fun. And again, I think we should be able to have fun. We should be able to gather with people. But when you see them mask less enjoying their life, and then everyone who works for them being miserable, wearing these masks or the politicians and all of these different examples of basically there’s two different, Americas right now and there’s one that’s able to do what they want, they’re able to have fun and live their lives, and the rest of us have to abide by these crazy rules. And, yeah, it’s completely unfair and it’s hypocrisy at the end of the day, the fact that you know, certain people who are deemed important enough or a big deal enough or rich enough or whatever, there are all different kinds of ways that we’re separated into those two groups of people who can live and people who can’t. And at the end of the day, when you have a different set of rules that’s enforced selectively for one group of people versus another that is super unfair. And it’s total hypocrisy.

Brittany: Total hypocrisy. And it’s, it just shocks me. I don’t know if you, I have a couple of other examples, but if you have any, you wanna throw in them, I’ve been talking a lot this episode.

Emma: Sorry, there, I had myself muted. Someone was vacuuming in the room over for me. I was like so funny trying not to have it leak into this podcast. But yeah, I mean, I think you see the politicians, especially there’s churches have been completely shut down during this pandemic. And even some of them right now still in these liberal cities and states have been not allowed to have their full, congregation meet where there are these capacity limits. Yet at the same time, there are concerts, there are rallies for politicians, there are events that are happening.

Brittany: Riots or protests, whatever you call them.

Emma: Protests. Yeah. Go and burn down an Apple store, that’s fine. But if you wanna go to church, you can’t.

Brittany: COVID can’t come to protests. It all, it only comes to church.

Emma: No, exactly. Yeah. So I think, the religious element of this has been really disturbing, seeing how churches have been targeted and basically been scapegoated for spreading COVID when, you know, people gathering together in any capacity is, gonna have pretty much the same effects no matter what kind of gathering it is. But, yeah, it’s been really crazy to me even like this idea of hypocrisy and like the elites having different sets of rules. I think it even applies to money when you talk about how, how politicians talk about money. Like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and AOC, they’re some of the most famous anti-rich anti-wealth politicians, and they all live very comfortable lives. Like Bernie Sanders owns three houses, he’s a millionaire. He’s sold a bunch of books and become a millionaire. And when someone called him out for this, he actually said, well, if you wanna write a book and make a million dollars off of it, then you can too. Which is so funny to me because I actually agree with what he’s saying there. If someone writes a book and sells a bunch of copies of it, they should get the rewards of their hard work. Yes. The funny thing is Bernie Sanders is a socialist, which means he believes in Marxism and basically this idea that people who, you know, work hard and have a product that’s of value shouldn’t be able to fully reap the benefits of their hard work. That’s basically what Marxism is at its core is, you know, meritocracy is not a good thing. Being rewarded for your work and your talents is not a good thing. Everyone needs to be equal and it all needs to be fair. So that to me is really interesting. The other one, since we were talking about AOC earlier and her met gala dress that said tax the rich.

Brittany: I think I might dress up like her for Halloween and you should do a fun thing.

Emma: Yes. You even have like the same hair color, you could do that.

Brittany: And that’s what I was thinking you are doing now, putting red lipstick on and getting like a white dress from a thrift store.

Emma: Do it. Oh, I would love to see that. you gotta let us know if you do that, but I will, I am also, AOC lives in a super nice building in DC I’ve actually, Brittany lives in the DC area.

Brittany: Yeah, I’ve run into her in the Navy yard or my friends did. Yeah.

Emma: No way. Yeah. So that’s a really nice area. She lives in a super nice luxury apartment and she drives a Tesla. And the fact that she, you know, again, I am not mad about people living comfortable lives if they’re successful to me, I do have a problem when AOC has only ever worked a job that is, you know, paid by taxpayers. I think that’s a problem when you can become wealthy off of that. And even when you look at someone like Nancy Pelosi or Elizabeth Warren, who basically their whole lives have, have been taxing people and saying, oh, we don’t need to have wealthy people, blah, blah, blah. And then they actually have like a very high net worth from that. That to me is very interesting and hypocritical.

Brittany: It’s so hypocritical. Yeah.

Emma: Yeah, But then, you know, AOC is out, you know, saying that we need to punish businesses and nobody should be a billionaire. But then she buys a Tesla and she’s driving a Tesla around and it’s like, well, Elon Musk, the inventor of Tesla seems, seems to be profiting very nicely off of you. So the whole message here, the overall, what we’re trying to get at is that hypocrisy is a very real thing. And if you wanna see what it looks like, just pay attention to what celebrities are saying and lefty politicians are saying because they will give you plenty and plenty of examples to what that looks like.

Brittany: Absolutely. And it’s just a reminder again, that there’s like these memes, you see that it’s like, you do this, I do this. We are not the same. And I did a bad job of explaining, but it just kinda reminds me of this is, it’s, you know, you get to do whatever you want, not wear a mask in public. And then I, you know, let’s say you’re a churchgoer, you get arrested for doing the same thing. We are not the same. So it’s just a reminder that the elites exist, that it’s just, it’s a nuts, you know, situation, but to be vigilant and recognizing the hypocrisy when you see it.

Emma: Exactly. And one more note too, a lot of people that you know, don’t believe in freedom, don’t believe in capitalism. Use the word elite to basically just mean a rich person. And I think there’s an important distinction to make between, you know, wealth and being elite because there are plenty of people in America that are wealthy. You know, they don’t rely on the government to pay their bills or to keep them alive, yet they are not one of the elite. They are not well connected. The government actually goes after them and tries to take away their money. Yep. you don’t necessarily have to be wealthy to be elite, and you don’t have to be elite to be wealthy. That’s a good point. And I think there’s this thing where people demonize people who are successful or who have made money because they’ve offered something of value to the world. And that’s not what we’re trying to do here today. you know, we’re, again, we’re very pro-people making money and finding a way to be an entrepreneur that’s awesome. Like Elon Musk is a great example. We’ve talked about him before. but when you use your power and your connections to keep other people down while you enjoy, you know, the fruits of your labor or the fruits of other people’s labor, if you’re Elizabeth Warren, that’s what makes you a corrupt elite person. So we’ll leave it there, we’ll wrap it up here today. Thank you guys for listening, and we will talk to you all again soon.

Brittany: Talk to you soon.