Hypocrisy defense suicide for Liberalism (and Secularism)

Logic applied to the hypocrisy defense:  "Well so and so did such and such but at least  he wasn't hypocritical about it".  Really interesting perspective.  It also applies to critiques of Christians who fail to live up to their professed standards.  It really gets at the fundamental nature of hypocrisy and how all of us are inevitably hypocrites unless we are amoral monsters.

Sleight-of-mind

What liberals really really love about this stance is its climactic declaration: Our opponents are hypocrites!

Here is how the liberals present their case:

But what they don’t want you to think about — and what they themselves don’t even want to acknowledge — is that this “hypocrites” howl is the second half of a two-part argument. And in that second half, they are the victors. But in the first half….

Well, for the “at least we’re not hypocrites” sentiment to make sense, there must be an agreed-upon starting point — one which the liberals themselves are confirming each time they make this argument. And what must that starting point necessarily be? For conservatives to be hypocrites when they do something immoral, then that means they must profess a moral ideology in the first place. And — here’s the key — for the liberals to be let off the hook when they do something immoral, then that means they must profess an ideology with no moral claims whatsoever.

Thus, the diagram above only showed you the climactic second half of the liberals’ sleight-of-mind trick. The fullstatement — including the first half which you’re not supposed to think about — would be diagrammed like this:

For the record:  I am a hypocrite.  Thank God.

Really worth a read.