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Saturday, March 01, 2014

Outlaw hypocrisy!


Opponents of religious liberty take a twofold position: They accuse Christians who refuse to sell wedding cakes to homosexuals or photograph homosexual weddings of hypocrisy. They are hypocritical because they allegedly single out homosexuals. They apply a double standard by discriminating against homosexual sinners rather than heterosexual sinners.
Because such Christians are allegedly hypocritical, their hypocritical behavior should be illegal. They should be put out of business through fines, lawsuits, &c. 
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the Christians in question are hypocritical. Very well, then. Let's extend the principle to other cases. Let's just pass a law against hypocrisy. Anyone convicted of hypocrisy should lose his job or livelihood. Maybe face incarceration. 
Failure to apply the principle would, itself, be hypocritical. It would be hypocritical to single out Christian or Jewish vendors while giving other hypocrites a pass. That would be discriminating against Christian or Jewish vendors, but refusing to apply the same standard to other hypocrites. If only some hypocritical behaviors are against the law, then the law hypocritically discriminates against some hypocrites to the exclusion of other hypocrites. How inequitable! How unfair! 
Nothing is worse than exempting a protected class of hypocrites from the general principle. That would be an egregious double standard. So, in the interests of moral consistency–and avoidance of hypocrisy is all about moral consistency–it's imperative that we criminalize hypocritical behavior across the board. To prosecute some hypocrites while exempting other hypocrites would be…hypocritical. No hypocrite should be immune to prosecution. That's the essence of hypocrisy. Failure to apply a universal standard to each and every individual. Under the law, all hypocrites should be treated equally.
This will, of course, require a massive expansion of the prison system. A massive building project to house all the hypocrites who hitherto eluded justice. 
Unfortunately, this also generates a bit of a logistical dilemma. If every hypocrite is jobless or jailed, there will be a dire shortage of morally qualified prosecutors, judges, policemen, prison guards, and prison wardens to enforce the law. Sadly, the recruiting pool for non-hypocrites is vanishingly small. 
Perhaps we can finesse this dilemma by rotating hypocrites. You're a hypocritical prison guard Monday through Thursday, but a hypocritical inmate Friday through Sunday. Admittedly, even that's a moral compromise.
I suppose the only morally consistent procedure would be to turn the whole ting over to computers. Computers would charge us and convict us. Computers would run automated prisons for convicted hypocrites. 

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