In October 2019, Daryl Morey was the successful general manager of the Houston Rockets. By October of 2020, he had resigned. During the Hong Kong freedom protests and subsequent Chinese crackdown, he tweeted support for the protestors. tweeting:

“Fight for Freedom stand with Hong Kong”

Within hours if not minutes, all hell broke loose across the NBA. China threatened the NBA with cancelations, and the league stepped up, not to defend Morey’s support of freedom, or the rights of people getting clubbed in Hong Kong no, the league issued a milquetoast statement that Morey was entitled to his own opinion. LeBron James, the league’s biggest star and biggest mouth, took China’s side, calling Morey “misinformed“.

The NBA was terrified that it would lose the China market so it turned the heat down. Morey issued an apology and resigned after enough time had passed, so the NBA didn’t look like China’s lapdog. A good and decent man was criticized, forced to apologize, then quit his job, for telling the truth.

A few days ago another man named Chamath Palihpitiya told the truth too, but this truth-teller is neither good nor decent – he’s a craven asshat. Give credit to Palihpitiya for being honest. It’s something the left seems to have in short supply lately. The left is all about themselves. They care about signaling their virtue and lecturing you about yours. They don’t really care about others — unless it impacts them.

Chamath Palihpitiya is an example of that in full flower. He’s one of the first officers of Facebook and became a billionaire putting Facebook’s garbage, addictive app into the hands of nearly a billion users. He also co-hosts a podcast titled “All-In,” on which he told the audience and his co-host that he doesn’t care about human-rights abuses in China, most particularly the slavery of a million human beings.

“Nobody cares” about the Uyghur genocide and forced labor in China, said Palihpitiya. He also said he doesn’t have “moral absolutism to judge China…that these might be small data points being extrapolated in a way to create a narrative that may or may not be true.”

Palihpitiya later issued a “clarification”. He (or his lawyer) wrote:

“In re-listening to this week’s podcast, I recognize that I come across as lacking empathy. I acknowledge that entirely. As a refugee, my family fled a country with its own set of human rights issues so this is something that is very much a part of my lived experience. To be clear, my belief is that human rights matter, whether in China, the United States, or elsewhere. Full stop.”

Nah. Not buying it. Hypocrites don’t care about being hypocrites, but they deeply care about being caught. Palihpitiya’s statement is completely devoid of any Uyghur reference equating China with the USA. His empathy stopped at his bank account. He isn’t sorry. He is sorry he got caught telling the truth.

China wins again. Full Stop.