Hypocrisy

While I am on the subject of debating tactics I dislike, allow me to bring up the American obsession with hypocrisy. Instead of arguing against someone's moral principles, we prefer to undermine them by pointing out that he can't really live up to them either. E.g., homophobia is wrong because some anti-gay preachers are hiring rent boys on the side. I despise this way of thinking. True, all of us have trouble living up to our moral principles. That does not mean our moral principles are somehow invalid; that we sometimes fall short of our principles is the inevitable consequence of having them. I might even say that if you find it easy to live up to your own moral code all the time, your code probably isn't strict enough.