Chapter 63 of the Quran

Virtually every english translation of the Quran titles chapter 63 as "The Hypocrites".

This site gives about a half dozen translations: http://www.geocities.com/infoquran/

Here is one translation by Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, 1930

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THE HYPOCRITES, CHAPTER NO. 063In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.063.001 When the hypocrites come unto thee (O Muhammad), they say: We bear witness that thou art indeed Allah's messenger. And Allah knoweth that thou art indeed His messenger, and Allah beareth witness that the hypocrites indeed are speaking falsely.063.002 They make their faith a pretext so that they may turn (men) from the way of Allah. Verily evil is that which they are wont to do,063.003 That is because they believed, then disbelieved, therefore their hearts are sealed so that they understand not.063.004 And when thou seest them their figures please thee; and if they speak thou givest ear unto their speech. (They are) as though they were blocks of wood in striped cloaks. They deem every shout to be against them. They are the enemy, so beware of them. Allah confound them! How they are perverted!063.005 And when it is said unto them: Come! The messenger of Allah will ask forgiveness for you! they avert their faces and thou seest them turning away, disdainful.063.006 Whether thou ask forgiveness for them or ask not forgiveness for them is all one for them; Allah will not forgive them. Lo! Allah guideth not the evil-living folk.063.007 They it is who say: Spend not on behalf of those (who dwell) with Allah's messenger that they may disperse (and go away from you); when Allah's are the treasures of the heavens and the earth; but the hypocrites comprehend not.063.008 They say: Surely, if we return to Al-Madinah the mightier will soon drive out the weaker; when might belongeth to Allah and to His messenger and to the believers; but the hypocrites know not.063.009 O ye who believe! Let not your wealth nor your children distract you from remembrance of Allah. Those who do so, they are the losers.063.010 And spend of that wherewith We have provided you before death cometh unto one of you and he saith: My Lord! If only thou wouldst reprieve me for a little while, then I would give alms and be among the righteous.063.011 But Allah reprieveth no soul when its term cometh, and Allah is Informed of what ye do.
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Let's ignore the theological problems here (e.g. that Allah only sometimes is informed in verse 11, or that Allah here says in verse 6 'this can't be forgiven' and says elsewhere [e.g. 4-110] that anything can be forgive or that Allah asked Allah to curse them in verse 4, etc.).

Instead let's try to figure out what Allah thinks is hypocrisy. It could be someone who once believed but now does not believe (as verse 3 says) or is could be someone who pretends to believe but does so in order to mislead other believers (as verse 2 says) but where such pretenders are all former believers who no longer believe or they could be people who tried to mislead Muhammad (as verse 1 says) who did so by pretending to believe but who also once believed and no longer do so.

Confused yet?

Like many other portions of the Quran, this section is the subject of extensive commentary and and this section supports many legal rulings.

However, let me summarize a few possibilities.

If the Quran is defining a hypocrite as someone who changes their mind, it is simply a bad definition.

If the Quran is defining a hypocrite as someone who pretends to believe in order to deceive, that would be a decent example of a hypocrite.

From the viewpoint of the Quran, someone trying to deceive Mohammad must have been hypocrisy on a six alarm level.

Political Fundraising Letters - Obvious Hypocrisy
Hillary's Letters - Obnoxious Hypocrisy

Senator Hillary Clinton has been fund raising. Almost every U.S. Senator does this. However, her fundraising is a particularly humorous example of non sensical alarmism.

DailyKos is not amused (I am). His commentary is at:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/25/205749/182

DailyKos (aka Mr. Markos Moulitsas) points out that,

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"... the emails are full of alarmist crap like:

The 2006 elections are right around the corner, and the GOP is in full swing to throw everything they can at Hillary. And the worst thing we can do is sit on our hands [...]

Let's not kid ourselves, Hillary is in for a fight. Team Hillary Supporters will enable her to be prepared for whatever they throw at her.

Hillary is in a fight? For 2008, perhaps. But it's absolutely clear that the GOP is not throwing everything at her. In fact, their efforts to find a candidate to challenge Clinton border on pathetic.

Perhaps it's time for her to use some of that fundraising prowess to help out other Democrats? She's got $17 million and no real prospect of being seriously challenged.

If she wants to fundraise for 2008, all the power to her. But she could be honest about it. Pretending to raise this money for a non-existent Senate contest is simply obnoxious."

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Since Senator Clinton surely realizes that what Kos says is correct and since the letter is obviously alarmist, this is definitely hypocrisy. Since it is surely unnecessary it is also at least level 2. However, the only deleterious effects, other than getting people to contribute to her who can't afford to do so, are minimal (e.g., annoyed left wingers), I don't see it getting to level 3.

Of course Senator Clinton is surely not the only politician who has ever done this. The example above however, is particularly egregious (and amusing to poke fun at).

Another hypocrisy accusation re: the Cartoons

This time it is Mansoor Ijaz, who writes frequently about being an American and a Muslim.

Here is a portion of a recent column:

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"...The first truth is that most Muslim ideologues are hypocrites. What has Osama bin Laden done for the victims of the 2004 tsunami or the shattered families who lost everything in the Pakistani earthquake last year? He did not build one school, offer one loaf of bread or pay for one vaccination. And yet he, not the devout Muslim doctors from California and Iowa who repair broken limbs and lives in the snowy peaks of Kashmir, speaks the loudest for what Muslims allegedly stand for. He has succeeded in presenting himself as the defender of Islam's poor, and the Western media has taken his jihadist message all the way to the bank..."
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I can't find the hypocrisy. In fact I can't even figure out who is being accused of being a hypocrite. Is it some Muslim ideologue that the author knows or some group of them. The author doesn't name them nor does he name their organization. Or is Osama bin Laden the hypocrite. If so, when did Osama say he was going to do something for the victims of the Pakistani earthquake? Mansoor is an articulate fellow and obviously he is disturbed by the cartoon riots and the other failures of the Islamic world. However, he has badly misused the word 'hypocrite'.

The column is viewable at: http://www.latimes.com/news/
opinion/commentary/la-oe-ijaz18feb18,0,6492979.
story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

A Hypocrisy Kerffufle Applebaum vs. captain ed

A number of blogging pages have been posted on a hypocrisy charge by Ann Applebaum.

This is discussed in detail at: http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/006307.php

The chronology is thus:

Feb 8 Ann Applebaum has column in the Washington Post. She discusses the cartoon hypocrisy. She charges the political left with certain hypocrisies. She charges the right wing blog community with hypocrisy with respect to the Newsweek 'flushed Koran' story; specifically that the RWBcommunity accused Newsweek of insufficient understanding of Moslem sensitivities.

Feb 8 (later in the day), Captain Ed writes that Anne didn't understand history and that the criticism of Newsweek was based on their inaccuracy and their inaccuracy based upon Newsweek's belief in the validity of the charges of terrorist suspects over the military spokespersons.

Feb 10 Anne replies that she was criticizing the RWBcommunity's "Newsweek lied, people died" meme.

Feb 11 Captain Ed writes that Anne didn't cite a single example of someone writing that and that if she had followed the debate at the time she would have realized that although some people may have said, "newsweek lied, people died", that this was an incidental meme and not the main meme.

Cartoon hypocrisy

Several papers, authors, bloggers, etc. have accused the moslem cartoon rioters of hypocrisy because they riot when Mohammad is depicted as a bad guy but are gleeful when Jews and Christians are so depicted.

A quote from a German newspaper is noted in this post:

http://www.natashatynes.org/newswire/2006/02/papers_across_e.html

The weight of evidence suggests that this is not hypocrisy at all. The moslem rioters do not feel that nasty depictions of Jews and Christians are wrong. The rioters clearly feel that Islam should not be criticized but other religions should be. Thus, I don't see the hypocrisy.

There are however two forms of hypocrisy that may be going on.

1. Some media are not publishing the 12 Danish cartoons and saying that they aren't publishing it because they are offensive even though they have published other offensive things. If the people in the media making the claim also know that they have published offensive things in the past, that is hypocrisy. If not, not (but in that case they should shortly find out the truth). Assuming this is hypocrisy it would rise to about the 3 level because when media intentionally use double standards it debases the public debate.

2. Some media say they are not publishing the cartoons because they consider the cartoons offensive when it seems the actual reason is that they are scared that they will be harmed by Islamic mobs. If this is so, it is hypocritical. In this case the hypocrisy would also be about level 3 because the problem of intimidation needs to be vetted.

The Great Google cave-in to the PRC- was it hypocrisy

Up until a month or so ago, Google's corporate slogan was "Don't be Evil." This corporate slogan has been withdrawn contemporaneously with Google's provision of a PRC compatible version that is blocked for certain search terms that the PRC doesn't like.

Here is an article on it:


http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1138404334789&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795

a section of this article is below:

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Internet searches via the Chinese website to be established by Google will be censored by the company itself. They will, therefore, exclude results on such sensitive topics as democratic reform, Taiwanese independence and the banned Falun Gong movement.

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Google admits that this policy is inconsistent with its corporate ideals but defends its action by noting that Chinese will still be able to search millions of sites that they would otherwise not easily find. Although Google doesn't use this as a defense, the fact is that other search engines affiliated with MSN, Yahoo, etc. also allow a form of search censorship.

I actually find Google's defense somewhat reasonable. It seems to me that it is quite likely a Chinese iternet search might well find acticles on, say, Democracy or Falun Gong by slightly circuitous paths (in fact once they discover Wikipedia, the censorship becomes very difficult for the PRC govt.).

But the reasonableness of Google's defense isn't the question. Hypocrisy is. Here, again, however, if we look closely we find Google has changed its mind as witness its deletion of its old corporate slogan. That is to say, since they've changed their mind, they can't be accused of doing what they say not to do. In addition, the corporate slogan was "Don't do Evil" and they could reasonably say they haven't done evil, they've merely caved in to evil's request which is similar but not exactly the same thing.

BTW, I certainly don't approve of everything Google does and I suspect they do a lot of stuff I don't like but don't even know about.

Is the Hypocrisy in the Sunday Comics?

A letter to the editor:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/27/AR2006012701354.html

accuses the cartoonist Aaron McGruder of developing a rascist comic strip and accuses the Washington Post of hypocrisy in running it; at least I think that is what the letter writer says. Here is an excerp of the letter to the editor:
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In the Dec. 28 "Boondocks," the grandfather compares black slaves to the title character in the remake of "King Kong": "A giant black jungle monkey put in chains, brought to America, and killed for lovin' a white woman!" Of course, we are supposed to laugh and chuckle, but I'd like to know how many letters of outrage The Post would get if word got out that a white supremacist had written the strip.
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Unfortunately for me I am not sure if the cartoonist is making fun of a fictional (black) character in his comic strip or making fun of the movie or what. Thus I can't tell if he is really being rascist or merely being ironic or being sarcastic.

As far as the Washington Post running the comic strip, they were, I think, faced with the same problem as I am. Thus I don't see how they can be called hypocrites for running the strip. Indeed, I think I have heard academics state their theory that the movie King Kong appeals to the white fear of black sexuality. My opinion of such theories is basically: Its a movie! Chill.

Bottom line: no opinion can be rendered on hypocrisy.

Slate author accuses Supreme Court Justice Scalia of Hypocrisy

Slate author William Saletan says that the priciples used by Scalia in abortion cases is at odds with the principles used by Scalia in a recent assisted suicide case.

The Slate post is a long one. I found it difficult to read. It is at: http://www.slate.com/id/2134452/?nav=tap3

As I understand it, the gist is that Scalia assets that Roe v Wade was wrongfully decided because abortion isn't in the constitution (a strict constructionist approach) and requires value judgement whereas his opinion in the recently decided Oregon assisted suicide case (Scalia was in the minority) takes an expansive view of a 1970s era federal law, requires a value judgement and would overturn a twice enacted State law (approved by voters in two referenda).

One problem with this thesis is that I think you can be a strict constructionist regarding the constitution while having a more expansive view of legislation passed by Congress. Similarly, one can have a strict constructionist viewpoint on what rights are and are not in the constitution while having a expansive view of how to construe phrases found in legislation passed by Congress.

I'm not familiar with the 1970s era law (Saletan says it was about recreational drugs) that was the basis for the Oregon SCOTUS decision and I don't want to read up on it, so I'm not going to be able to comment further on this.

Another Wrinkle or two in Type 1 Hypocrisies

Julian Silk has pointed out to me that, while most people do not mean "How are you?" when they say "How are you", some people do (e.g., in the case where the questioner already has some detailed knowledge of an ailment in the person being addressed). For this person (the questioner), the widespread practise of the "How are you" type 1 hypocrisy is actually somewhat annoying.

I would grant this, but since the vast majority of people use the phrase "How are you?" when they mean "Good to see you." and since the phrase "How are you?" is so embedded in culture, I consider the relatively small number of people discomforted to be unimportant. In fact, I would think the small number of people who want medical details would replace the "How are you?" greeting with something that more readily implies deeper inquiry, e.g., "How's your hernia today?", or "Still battling that nagging cold?".

Julian also notes that in the dating world, the proliferation of stock phrases to replace actual thought is annoying. For example, one person will say, after a date, "Can I see you again?" (lets ignore the logic and grammar problems with this) and the other person will say "Sure" even if that other person intends to always have another commitment whenever the first person has a date idea. Is this hypocrisy?

Obviously, it is hypocrisy to say "I like you." when one thinks "I don't like you."

However before judging the hypocrite you have to wonder how it came about that this hypocrisy became a dating template. Not being knowledgeable in this area my guess is that over time, people found the cost of triggering an incident by being brutally honest, although it occurred seldom, was too high to risk. If this is true, this hypocrisy, while being annoying to many is, nonetheless a type 1 hypocrisy.

Julian also points out that in rare conditions, e.g., when you are a doctor and you can diagnose a condition by listening to a verbal report of symptoms, it might be a good idea to ask for a better description of health than the standard, "doing OK" and it might be a good idea for the person being asked, "How are you?" to provide the verbal description of symptoms.

OK but that is a rare case indeed.

GPS for Child Molesters but not Murderers

My brother asked me if this was a case of hypocrisy and whether I approved of it. Apparently Florida has, since May 05, had a law requiring bracelet GPS for molesters (see - http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0504/p02s02-usju.html) Here is some of the story:

------------The state will require those released from prison to wear GPS bracelets for life.

By Richard Luscombe | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor [May 4 ,2005 edition]

MIAMI – When convicted sex offender John Couey fled to Georgia in February after allegedly kidnapping, raping, and killing nine-year-old Jessica Lunsford in northern Florida, it took authorities almost a month to track him down.

Mr. Couey, a pedophile with a long history of abusing children, was one of almost 60 sex offenders whose whereabouts were unknown to authorities in Citrus County after he failed to comply with the requirement to inform them of a new address. He simply disappeared from the state's logs....

Satellite tracking, using the Global Positioning System (GPS) originally developed for the military, is not a new tool in the fight against crime. Many states routinely use ankle bracelets and similar devices to keep tabs on parolees.

But Florida, which has about 30,000 registered sex offenders, is one of a growing number of states to embrace the technology to track their every move. A number of states already require some form of lifetime supervision of sex offenders, including GPS tracking.

But Florida is believed to be the first to mandate lifetime satellite monitoring for an entire group of people who commit a certain crime.

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My brother's point was if monitoring is a good idea for molesters (or sex offenders generally), why not for murderers.

First of all, I am astounded that Florida has 30,000 registered sex offenders (although its population is about 16,000,000 many of its citizens are retired non criminals - probably close to 2 million) .

Perhaps the reason to monitor sex offenders but not murderers is that, as the article implies, murderers are easier to reform. However, I doubt that is the reason. I suspect the real reason is that we want to believe that murderers will not be released. If that is the case, the hypocrisy is that we know murderers will be released but can't bring ourselves to admit it.

Furthermore, it is hard to believe there are more than a few dozen ex murderers in Florida and given the kind of sentences that murderers get, the ones released to society may be in their 60s or 70s by the time they get out.

Finally, there are plenty of car thieves, etc. who are released. Perhaps the reason not to place GPS bracelets on them is due to the thought that car theft and other crimes are thwarted by reasonable steps ordinary people can take while sex offenders look just like normal people and easily entrap new victims who are vulnerable simply by being friendly to someone who is friendly to them.

Of course, I'm speculating on all this. It may be simply that sex offense crimes are 'icky' and the public outrage (certainly in the case of Florida) made the legislature pass a law and made the governor sign it.

If the 'outrage' was the only operative fact, then that would have been hypocrisy assuming the legislature, governor, didn't convince themselves otherwise.

Some Hypocrisy that I favor

My friend Julian Silk asked me today if I really favor hypocrisy (beyond the highly technical hypocrisy that I noted back in August 2003 about the worker trying to get a new spec approved by an egomaniac boss who developed the current spec).

Here are some other hypocrisies I favor.

1. When a person says "How are you?", they are being hypocrites because they really aren't interested in your blood pressure, white cell count, respiration rate, etc. They are just being friendly. In fact the term "How are you?" means something like, "glad to see you". I don't mind this hypocrisy. Its what I would term type 1 (see the Aug 2003 typology).

2. A person gives lots of $ to a charity or Univ and who says something like "I'm not doing this to make myself liked or to get into heaven but I'm doing it for the greater good." This statement sometimes is immediately followed by information that the]] charity is naming a program for the giver or the University is naming a building. OK the giver is a hypocrite but if the charity is a good one or the University does good things, the hypocrisy is essentially a cost of doing business and so minor compared to the action that it is unimportant. In fact, in some cases, I would advocate the hypocrisy if it is a way to get the money to a worthwhile charity.

3. Say a State legislator sees a problem that can't be addressed except by a bill that is unconstitutional. Say that he believe passing a law that will be quickly overturned by the courts will nevertheless be a good thing. The legislature is to vote. He pretends to think the bill is constitutional because admitting it is unconstitutional is too hard to explain to constituents. I can't blame the guy for being a hypocrit in this case. By the way, I can't think of a case that goes with this set of hypotheticals but that's mostly because I can't see into the mind of the legislators.

Possible baseball Hypocrisy by this blog's author

I realize that major league baseball is somewhere between a bad deal and a barely positive deal economically for Washington D.C.

Yet, I'm ticked off at the city's incompetent handling of the lease situation here which has made the National's deal here on the balance of failing. Is it because I have such a high emotional stake in it that I'm oblivious to the economics of the situation or am I just going along with the local majority.

Arrgg.

Are both President Bush and Senator McCain pro- hypocrisy re: torture

Senator McCain recently sponsored a bill that passed the Senate 90-7. The bill, among other things, prohibits torture. President Bush had opposed the bill.

McCain postition seems to be that we should have clear language saying that under no circumstance do we torture anyone, even unlawful combatants, even terrorists. However, if we have reason to believe that a given terrorist has information that would be vital in defending against an imminent terrorist attact, the persons holding him should use torture to extract the information and await a Presidential pardon. Hmmm.

Bush's position seems to be that the US has a no torture policy but we don't need legislation to prohibit torture.

It seems to me that the word that defines these positions is "contradictory" or "partly contradictory". The problem with calling it 'hypocrisy' is that I am not sure we really know what the Senator and the President are thinking (you can't compare thinking and advocacy without knowing the first of these).

Professor Pete Singer's Mother

Princetown University has a bioethics professor named Peter Singer. He is somewhat famous for carrying certain ethics beliefs to harsh conclusions. For example, he believes every rich person should give 80+% of their wealth to charity. For another, he believes that people have a moral responsibility to commit euthansia to infants with severe handicaps and elderly patients with incurable diseases (I think the reason is because the resources that are required to care for the latter could, in his calculation, be used to vastly improve the lives of the poor).

Well it turns out the Professor's mother has Alzheimer's disease. Rather than euthanize her, the professor arranged for her to receive care. I read this at: http://www.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/schweizer200510250827.asp

This is pretty obvious hypocrisy. It is also hypocrisy that isn't very harmful and maybe is beneficial. The hypocrisy also has to be judged in the context that if he euthanized his mother or helped her commit suicide it would be crime.

Ariana's SUV

Arianna Huffington is a political activist who once wrote a book declaring SUVs to be a tool of terrorism (because they consume so much gasoline).

A number of websites have declared 'hypocrisy' because, Ms Huffington, after a speech at a Sierra Club function, was shuttled back to the airport via a extra large SUV.

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/003562.htm

is a website which has an image and lots of documentation.

It turns out that Arianna did not order the SUV; a contractor for the Sierra Club did.

Thus it is a bit difficult to declare that Arianna was 'acting contrary to what she says others should do'. One could declared her careless for not assuring that her ride to the airport would be an non-SUV. One could declare the Sierra Club similarly careless. It is also possible that Arianna secretly lusts for a ride in an SUV but we don't know that.

Given the above, we can't really call Arianna a true hypocrite; although maybe some lesser charge would be appropriate.

'Hypocrisy! He Cried

The above is an article in theNational Review by Ramesh Ponnuru. It is available partially at: http://www.nationalreview.com/ponnuru/ponnuru200506140806.asp

The article begins,

EDITOR'S NOTE: This piece appears in the June 20th, 2005, issue of National Review.
[I]t is galling to Democrats — 48 percent of us who did not support the president — it is galling to be lectured to about moral values by folks who have their own problems. Hypocrisy is a value that I think has been embraced by the Republican party. We get lectured by people all day long about moral values by people who have their own moral shortcomings. I don’t think we ought to give a whole lot of lectures to people — I think the Bible says something to the effect that, Be careful when you talk about the shortcomings of somebody else when you haven’t removed the mote from your own eye. And I don’t think we ought to be lectured to by Republicans who have got all these problems themselves. . . . Everybody has ethical shortcomings. We ought not to lecture each other about our ethical shortcomings. . . . I will use whatever position I have in order to root out hypocrisy. — Howard Dean, Meet the Press, May 22
Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, made so many provocative comments during his recent interview with Tim Russert that his comments about Republican hypocrisy attracted relatively little notice. Republicans were keen to point out that Dean had confused Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. (Isn’t that what Democrats accuse President Bush of doing?) Newspapers, to the extent they mentioned the above exchange at all, noted only that Dean, having been questioned by Russert about the propriety of “mimicking a drug-snorting Rush Limbaugh,” had defended himself. That was the context in which Dean delivered the above soliloquy.
Now it would be easy to criticize these comments — and it would not be wrong. Immediately following his denunciation of Republicans for “lecturing” about “moral values,” Dean explained that Democrats had moral values, too: “Our moral values, in contradiction to the Republicans’, is we don’t think kids ought to go to bed hungry at night. Our moral values say that people who work hard all their lives ought be able to retire with dignity.” And on it went: There was Dean, lecturing about moral values, and in extravagant terms.
You could call that hypocritical, since Dean was failing to live up to a moral norm that he had (one minute before) made a big point of supporting, the norm that we should not lecture one another. But this temptation we should resist: The word “hypocrisy” is thrown around too easily in American political life. The search for hypocrisy in politics is generally misconceived, and in ways that tend to hurt conservatives more than liberals. . . .

In general, the article makes a political argument that conservatives should accuse democrats of hypocrisy because the latter are better at it. This is, in some ways, the mirror image of articles on the left that claim that the right has an advantage in the charge of hypocrisy. The quoted article makes some of the points that I frequently make about trying hard to figure out exactly what the hypocrisy is and allowing for the fact that some people can simply hold contradictory or nearly contradictory positions and believe sincerely in both of them.

I, however, am struck by the fact that these very intelligent and very articulate people still haven't realized that you simply need a typology to address the subject at all.

The Koran 'Abuse' Hypocisy (aka Hypocrisy Most Holy)

My cousin sent me an email containing an op ed published in the Wall Street Journal. The op ed was written by a reformer in the Saudi Institute. The article is available at: http://209.197.233.93/content/view/270//

This is the beginning of the article:

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Wall Street Journal - Hypocrisy Most Holy

Friday, 20 May 2005 by Ali Al-Ahmed Director of The Saudi Institute With the revelation that a copy of the Quran may have been desecrated by U.S. military personnel at Guantanamo Bay, Muslims and their governments -- including that of Saudi Arabia -- reacted angrily. This anger would have been understandable if the U.S. government's adopted policy was to desecrate our Quran. But even before the Newsweek report was discredited, that was never part of the allegations. As a Muslim, I am able to purchase copies of the Quran in any bookstore in any American city, and study its contents in countless American universities. American museums spend millions to exhibit and celebrate Muslim arts and heritage. On the other hand, my Christian and other non-Muslim brothers and sisters in Saudi Arabia -- where I come from -- are not even allowed to own a copy of their holy books. Indeed, the Saudi government desecrates and burns Bibles that its security forces confiscate at immigration points into the kingdom or during raids on Christian expatriates worshiping privately....

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It turns out that the Saudis also confiscate Korans from pilgrims during the annual event if the Korans have illustrations, if the printing is too fancy, etc. They then burn these Korans. Also many Korans have been damaged in Muslim suicide bomb attacks on other Muslims at mosques. Also Saddam Hussein once had a Koran written in blood - a singularly blasphemous act that was completely overlooked in the Islamic world.

The article never actually says what the hypocrisy is. The hypocrisy could be: Saying that Korans are holy but not thinking that but I suspect the people making the charge actually don't know that the Saudis confiscate Korans. They may also not get the news about the Muslim on Muslim violence. If this is so, there is no hypocrisy. However, the leaders of the rioters probably do realize something close to the actual situation.

The hypocrisy could be however, saying that all bibles and korans are both holy but not meaning it in the case of bibles. However, that's not what the charge is.

I think the core belief of the people rioting and demanding punishment for the abusers of a single Koran at Gitmo are actually saying, "Infidels should be oppressed." and they mean exactly that.

The hypocrisy here is that the media don't reach the obvious conclusion when they are probably thinking exactly that. I'd rate this at least a level 4 hypocrisy because if it goes on long enough it does damage the chance of civilization reacting intelligently to the threat of Islamic terrorism.

Hypocrisy on Federal Judges

Both Democrats and Republicans agree on something. They agree the other side are hypocrites on the issue of filibustering Presidential appointees to federal courts. However, just because they both agree does not mean they are right.

First of all, the Democrats are using a somewhat different 'filibuster' technique now than the Republicans used in the Clinton Administration. This is basically because other legislative rules were changed to make it harder to block appointments in subcommittees.

Second, this filibustering is currently limited to Federal Judgeships.

Third, even if Senator X was against filibustering in year Y and for filibustering in year Y+ 12 it doesn't necessarily mean that Senator X is a hypocrite if Senator X has genuinely changed his mind. Furthermore a lot of Democratic and Republican Senators were not Senators 12 years ago.

So lets look at a single case, Senator Robert Byrd. He was for the filibuster back in the mid 60s when it was to oppose the 1964 Civil Right Bill (he has been a Senator since 1958). He was against the filibuster in the 1993-1994 Congress when the Democrats were the majority in the Senate. He now supports the filibuster and made a somewhat famous speech comparing opponents of the filibuster to Hitler's supporters.

Now, given that Senator Byrd is known to be an expert on Senate procedures and Senate history and given that he has not stated why he changed his mind and he has not said 'well the filibuster was bad back in the 90s because nominees could be blocked in subcommittee but now that they can't filibustering is good', we are forced to admit that there is a strong likelihood that at sometime in his career he must have been saying something he didn't believe. The question is whether that time is in the 60s and now or was that time in the 90s. Now what kind of hypocrisy is it. I don't think it is more than a type 3 minimal damage hypocrisy.

This is because the public, or at least most of the public, expects politicians to act on the greater principle that 'my values must win' and that lesser principles (e.g., filibustering is bad, filibustering is good), simply must be sacrificed for the greater principle.

Fishing for Hypocrisy

Here is a letter to the editor in today's newspaper

it is on line at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/06/AR2005050601223.html?sub=AR

Fishing for Hypocrisy

Saturday, May 7, 2005; Page A15

Angus Phillips ["Floridians' Philosophy Is Live and Let Live," Sports, May 1] lambasted everyone and anyone who would ever catch and keep ("kill" in his terms) a spawning rockfish during the spring trophy season. He says, "When big rockfish come into the Chesapeake Bay from the sea to spawn in April, the last thing I want to do is kill them."

Well, that's odd, given the fact that one year ago, Phillips wrote an article for the Sports section [May 2, 2004] in which he describes in great detail his incredible Chesapeake Bay fishing adventure; he and his 66 cohorts caught, kept and "killed" a total of 67 large, spawning rockfish during the spring trophy season of April 2004. He not only describes the excitement of this activity, he actively promotes it, writing, "If ever there was a time to try for a big rockfish in the Bay, this seems like it." He then lists the available charter operators who will take people out to do so.

I have no problem with people changing their minds and deciding to make different choices for themselves. But Phillips's diatribe, in which he demonized everyone who participates in such activity without mentioning that he has participated in and promoted such activity, is hypocritical.

-- Larry Freed

Annapolis

Actually if the columnist simply changed his mind, he is not guilty of hypocrisy. However, he is guilty of not fully disclosing his earlier opinions that were 180 degrees from his current opinion which is pretty serious for a opinion journalist.

Is Theodicy a Form of Hypocrisy?

We had a visiting scholar at Synagogue today. One of his lectures was on Rabbi Joel Soloveichik’s position on theodicy. Apparently, the Rav’s position evolved over time to a point where he felt the entire study of theodicy should be abandoned. This was done because he came to the realization that the conventional theories for the existence of evil don’t fit well with the human response to suffering.

For example, there are 4 well-developed theories of evil:

suffering is for sin

suffering makes you stronger and/or better

suffering makes you appreciate good

suffering lets you have a quicker entrance into paradise

In each case, if one really believed this, the response to seeing someone suffer would be to do nothing because to relieve the suffering would be to interfere with punishment for sin, strengthening, etc.

Evidently, the Rav didn’t have the appreciation for hypocrisy. Of course, the Rav is pretty much the only Jewish philosopher (or other philosopher) who feels this way and also is a devout believer in God. In this case the hypocrisy (doing that which you feel is wrong) is pretty much a necessary one, simply because the theory of theodicy is so dicy. Philosophers have frequently been guilty of not practising what they believe. Russell pointed out that at the end of David Hume's tretise, he abandons his all pervasive skepticism and preaches conventional ethics. Hobbs was also, apparently a pretty nice person who failed to live down to his own philosophy.

Btw, the site for perpetuation of the Rav’s teaching is: http://rav.org/

A good site for understanding theodicy is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodicy