A democrat who held himself up as anti-gay and morally superior would certainly be a hypocrite.
If someone is a fervently pro-life, and inveighs strongly against the death penalty, and it turns out they killed their wife for the insurance money, I’d say they’d be a hypocrite as well as a murderer.
If someone who doesn’t hold those values, I’d fail to see the hypocrisy, just the murder.
I think the unfairness you’re seeing, is the result of the fact that the people you vote for are courting religious ignoramuses, so they have to take positions about how Godly they are.
You’re not understanding this “hypocrisy” thing, are you? Let me try to make this as simple as possible: Idiot makes loud braying noises about not doing something over and over again in order to garner power and votes, then gets caught doing that thing he was braying like a jackass about. Result? Hypocrisy.
Now, nobody is saying “BUT DEMOCRATS NEVER DO THAT!”, and you are perfectly welcome to point out specific examples of Democrats in power doing just that in the thread with their name on it, and I pinky swear not to threadshit your post with anything like “Are you claiming that Republicans NEVER do anything like that?? Huh? Huh?”
Here’s a hypothetical example of a Democratic politician who would be a huge hypocrite:
A leading member of the party has historically railed against those in the “1%” who do not pay their fair share of taxes. They have lobbied for increased taxes on the wealthy, and talk frequently about how tax loopholes should be closed.
Then it is revealed that this hypothetical Democratic politician has offshore accounts in Panama that are specifically designed to avoid tax. All above board, all legal.
But this politician would be a huge hypocritical douche, and I would certainly not hesitate to call them out.
A politician of any stripe who had never said a word against sexual crime, immorality or homosexuality and had never styled themselves as a champion of morality or a protector of children could do what Hastert did and NOT be a hypocrite, whilst still being a criminal and monster.
Being a hypocrite means you don’t practice what you preach.
NOT being a hypocrite does not require you to advocate for your vices.
Bricker. At the risk of being pedantic, here’s a hypothetical scenario that should explain what it means to NOT be a hypocrite.
Tom, Dick and Harry are all closeted line dancers.
Tom has a history of publicly railing against the evils of line dancing.
Dick has a history of publicly praising the virtues of line dancing.
And Harry doesn’t say squat about line dancing in public.
In this scenario, how many NON-hypocrites are there?
What in tarnation is the purpose of these stupid questions?
And yes, Bricker, we are waiting to see if you’ll condemn Hastert. It’s not enough to know that your immoral idols, Karl Rove, Ann Coulter etc., are wise enough to condemn the child rapist. You’re the one with the badly programmed human-emotion emulation module: It amuses us to watch it in action.
Its almost like you think that child molesting is more common among Republicans than Democrats. I don’t think child molesting is an anti-family values thing any more than murder, aside from the fact that the child molesting was homosexual. Is that what you are talking about?
It’s almost like you can’t respond to the actual words written in the post, so you have to resort to a cheap-ass mindreading shtick and respond to what you imagine the post actually means.
Which is why myself and others are suggesting your earlier comment was off the mark.
From the context of your comment (following on from SenorBeef’s bizarre arguments) it seemed like you were trying to set up some kind of logical argument against those who say that Hastert’s crime constitutes an act of hypocrisy, albeit an argument based on the flawed premise that someone could only NOT be a hypocrite if they actually advocate for their own vices.
I’m guessing you probably intended to point out that people shouldn’t be pointing at Hastert’s crime and saying “see, he’s a hypocrite because *he’s a REPUBLICAN *who committed child molestation.”
If so, fair enough. But I don’t think that’s what most folks are suggesting here.
I was talking to a guy who was mainly indignant that, since the victims of Hastert’s sexual abuse were over 13, they weren’t “children” and everyone was only calling it “child molestation” to make it sound worse than it really was because Hastert is Republican. He said that really it wasn’t worse than statutory rape, something that happens all the time.
So, in fact you wanted to know how far some people could go in trying to make a defense of this…
I am a contrarian, so I’ll be the first to say it: child molestation is wrong, and people who do it should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
I find it highly suspicious that septimus has not given us his take on cannibalism.
What about it, septimus? Why haven’t you forthrightly condemned the eating of human flesh by humans? Are we to conclude that you actually favor this horrible practice?
I find Republicans to be a bit on the fatty side. Democrats, especially progressives, have that more delicate, free range taste. Libertarians are usually on the gamey side. My GF has been pretty much a vegetarian for about 10 years now, and she’s sticks to Greens.
Yes, I am a devout Catholic. But no, it’s not exactly cannibalism. Cannibalism involves humans eating the substance and the accidents of human flesh. At the sacrifice of Mass, the bread and wine change their substance to the Body and Blood of Christ, but retain their accidents – their outward physical appearance and nature.