There is a venom that runs deep in the veins of my country. The United States is poisoned by hypocrisy.

Now, I may be unfairly singling out my own nation here, but what can I say? It’s the only one I live in, and thus the only one that I know from the inside, and from what I have seen in other nations, we seem to have a more childish insistence than most on clinging to hypocritical notions no matter how foolish or dangerous they are.

Jesus railed at times about how much he hated hypocrisy. How much it galled him to see the priests of his nation holding people to standards they didn’t themselves follow. How wrong it was for people to pray loudly and publicly (when they should be doing so quietly and privately) to show their piety, even though they were eager to commit adultery, lie to others and cheat people. How his fellow Jews claimed to be the children of Abraham even though through their sins they showed themselves to be, spiritually at least, the children of Satan.

We live in a nation where people will decry how “minorities” are always popping out babies and draining the nation’s resources, while saying virtually nothing about how many young white kids get knocked up outside of marriage and before they’ve finished high school.

We live in a nation where a presidential candidate can accuse another of being too fluffy because he seems like a “celebrity” while rolling out a vice presidential candidate based on the fact she’s young, cute and very conservative, and then try to “celebritize” her.

We live in a nation where we say, “How dare Russian invade a sovereign nation like Georgia for its personal agenda” and then blithely allow our leaders to continue to do the exact same thing in Iraq.

We live in a nation where we claim to be the shining example of freedom of speech, and then try to shut up anyone and everyone who disagrees with us, internally and externally.

We say we are the beacon of how to treat people, while filling our prisons to overflowing like pretty much no other developed nation and leaving the homeless and mentally ill to die in the streets.

We are hypocrites. And I don’t just mean you. I’m a hypocrite at times, too. That’s not the point.

The point is: Will we try to recognize our hypocrisy? I try to make note of when I do it, and try not to repeat the mistake. I hope you will too.

Even if you don’t think Jesus is the son of God, listen to his words on the evils of hypocrisy. Even if you don’t think he freaking ever existed at all, realize that his words are still words of wisdom.

We only have one head each. Let’s strive not to put two faces on it.