[QUOTE=Peter_Spaeth;2229946]So Bob, is a pro-life individual being a hypocrite if he or she signs up for military or police service knowing that could involve the taking of a human life?
Personally I see no inconsistency between being pro-life and supporting the appropriate (and hopefully very limited) use of the death penalty.[/QUOT
Go ask a true Amish person, or maybe you could have asked Muhammad Ali when he was still with us, if they are/were hypocrites. Or how about having asked someone like Desmond Doss what his thoughts would have been as well, when he was still with us, as far as someone being a hypocrite for being a pro-life, anti-war person.
It would seem to me that if someone is saying they are pro-something, there shouldn't be any exceptions, or do you disagree Peter? For example, if I tell you I'm a dyed-in-the-wool vegetarian/vegan, but on my birthdays and maybe a special holiday or two every year I cheat and have a burger, then I'm really not a true vegetarian/vegan after all, am I? And please don't give me some crap answer that I'm allowed to veer every once and a while and still maintain I'm a vegetarian/vegan. I either am or I am not. Trying to make minor exceptions to make myself happy or feel good about myself is simply lying to myself then, period!
And one would think the same could be said for something like being pro-life. Saying to oneself that they are pro-life, but then rationalizing and making exceptions for the death penalty in certain instances, or allowing for abortions if the Mother's life is at stake, and so on, are simply drawing different lines in the sand as to where a certain individual is comfortable with how they may feel. That is just rationalizing their position, but at the same time trying to make it look and sound like they are something they really may not be. In this case, truly pro-life. In other words they are lying to others, and especially themselves. The sad truth is that probably a vast majority of the people in this world say and live this this kind of crap day in and day out, just to make themselves feel good and tell themselves what a truly good person they are, and rationalize their feelings to better fit in with whatever group they want to position themselves with. And I'm not just talking about pro-life or pro-abortion, or pro-gun or anti-gun, questions and issues.
In the end, many people are mostly lying to themselves about a myriad of things, but then complicating life even further by politicizing such thoughts and feelings and trying to project (force) them onto others. They are basically telling others they have to think like they do, or they are wrong and possibly should be arrested and punished as such for not believing exactly as they believe in many cases.
I don't know about you, but lying to oneself to rationalize one's feelings and thoughts seems like the ultimate form of hypocrisy to me.
|