Refusing to attend Congressional hearings on adversarial meddling in the 2016 elections, Google executives are showing disdain for the people alongside a distinct absence of patriotism.

While the CEO of Twitter and the COO of Facebook are both in attendance at Wednesday's hearings, neither Alphabet CEO Larry Page nor Google CEO Sundar Pichai could be bothered to show up. Their arrogance deserves much criticism. And we should be clear that this is arrogance. With foreign adversaries using Google's platforms for hostile purposes, both Page and Pichai should have at least explained what they're doing to address these threats. In offering only to send a senior counsel, they instead showed an interest only in keeping their names out of the news.

Sorry, that isn't going to happen.

Google is a great company at the center of efforts to build our better technological future. But with great power comes great responsibility, and this neglect certainly isn't that. But there's also the issue of moral hypocrisy here. Pichai has shown he has no qualms about taking a robust stand on issues when he thinks the public relations reaction will be positive. Nor does the Google CEO apparently have any qualms about supporting the demands of other governments. After all, Google is believed to be involved in a collaborative effort with China in order to provide censored search engines — search engines that allow the Chinese government to prevent its people from seeing that which it does not want them to see.

The contrast thus becomes striking: While Google is ignoring the democratic interests of the American people, it is simultaneously serving the authoritarian interests of communist China. This is especially alarming in the context of Google's refusal to continue providing support to the U.S. military in its efforts to keep the nation safe.

So, yes, Google's homepage might often be decorated with fashionable salutes to American history and society. But on Wednesday, the tech giant chose to betray the most important of all our principles: the people's right to scrutinize the powerful.