The Hypocrisy Shotgun Rant (Where I take inaccurate aim at Society in general. This was originally written in response to a book review of "In Defense of Hypocrisy", by Jeremy Lott.)
Cliché = truth. Glass houses, two wrongs don’t, actions speak louder, etc....
You can spin anything, if you can afford a good writer and have an audience (check out any Faux News program) that wants or needs to believe you.
Hypocrisy is word thrown about a lot, with all the descretion of landmine explosions and accuracy of North Korean missles.
Actions do speak louder, which is why anyone who wants to lecture should be held to example. However, sometimes well-meaning folk with high morals who should be talking about the issues are afraid to speak up, simply because of the intense scrutiny anyone undergoes who takes any kind of public stand. If they have ever made any missteps, have even the skinniest skeleton in the closet, they will be accused of hypocrisy. So, relativism reigns, Jerry Springer becomes the (lack of) national conscience, the Carlyle Group runs the nation, Ann Coulter becomes the voice of reason (ok, reaching a bit there) and passing lies off as political spin becomes the norm. Something to fight and die for. But maybe only after lookin' at the alternatives.
There’s always room for another accusation of personal "hypocrisy", but few people want to talk about "sin nature", which is really where it all starts. But if the only people who can call us to account are those that have no visible or obvious faults, then there won’t be any call. At least not until it’s too late.
Is it hypocrisy to hold your Pastor, Priest, President, Rabbi, Imam, or even your favorite “talking head” (or candidates for President and Vice President) to standards you don't apply to your own life? Definitely. Is it hypocrisy on their part to dare to occupy positions where they expound or direct or lead in word but possibly not in practice? You betcha. Gonna market a t-shirt that says “Hypocrisy = Human”. Should sell. Won’t.
Is tolerating hypocrisy (whether it’s “little white lies” or big, fat, global-effecting whoppers) just the same as endorsing the back room, good ol' boy, business as usual, need to know practices that mark practically every “necessary evil”, end justifying use of power and human rights violation in the history of man?
Seems to me that there’s a humanity-wide referendum in favor of white lies -- and whoppers. So we get what we voted for. Either way.
Do I care whether Rush is tumescent (Them thar little blue pills are evidently a dirtier secret than "momma's little yeller pills".) as well as "right”? Not really. But I do care to know that Enron execs have been one of the largest group of contributors to our President over his political life, and that the past head of the DNC recieved and sold stocks worth who-knows-what from Global Crossing before their crash, which ended up hurting many more investors and causing much more long-term damage than the Enron collapse.
Do I care that John McCain has changed positions like he was editing a new version of The Karma Sutra? Or that Obama's speeches and declarations are filled with exaggerations and "little white lies"?
Sure, I do.
I care that the Mays family (Woo-Hoo, from Texas), who basically own Clear Channel Communications (where a lot of you lemmings get your talking head fix), run a successful deregulation PAC (to which all their employees must donate) and give huge amounts of money to elected officials who effectively decide how many sources of news you get.
When a man who preaches morals to the rest of the nation on a radio show loses hundreds of thousands of dollars gambling, should that not be public? Sure, and here's why: It wasn’t hypocrisy until he got paid to soap-box.
If pedophile priests are put on trial by a blowhard news reader (O'Reilly) who turns out to be an office predator, shouldn't you know about both? After all, they’re out lookin’ for little boys and he’s "lookin’ out for you".
Is hypocrisy a problem? Should you care? Is there a right way and a wrong way and not just expediency? Of course there is.
But it's too hard.
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