Hipocrites

It has been logically asserted that we're all hipocrites and hipocrisy is an essential basis of civilization, as a lubricant for the smooth running of private and public life. I don't disagree, however it should be considered that there are degrees of hipocrisy and the consequences of the different forms vary greatly from beneficial to extremely damaging.
There are probably numerous times every day when I conceal my real thoughts and emotions in the interests of tact and good manners. In so doing I maintain good relations with other people including family, friends and neighbours. Call it diplomacy or common sense, but without it I'd quickly become odious, obnoxious and objectionable to those around me, and therefore counterproductive. A bit like brother Jod on a bad day.
Now I don't say that to criticize Jod. Readers who have known Jod will understand me clearly, others may not, but I was discussing this very thing with my alter ego, sister Meredith, during the week. Bear in mind that for all of our respective 55 and 53 years we have shared Jod as older brother. For the first almost 20 years of our lives we lived in the same family home and for much of this time he was the archetype tyrranical bully.
Meredith's first husband was a local policeman. The marriage lasted ten years before Meredith left and, after some more years, a divorce was finalized. There was pain and trauma in that block of years and we, i.e. Meredith and me, have an insightful if somewhat cynical view of the police force. We discussed briefly last week the front page controversy raging in the Victorian Police Force, which has resulted in the resignation of two assistant commissioners and the suspension from the force of the head of the police association, amidst allegations of corruption and tipping off murder suspects.
Meredith told me that in the early 1980's she remembers one of the leading characters in the present controversy being awarded a police valour medal for shooting a dangerous criminal. His partner in the car at the time was the 'Toff'. The 'Toff', later to go on to the special operations group, was an Arnie Shwarzeneger body builder type and a gun freak. He was ultimately sacked from the force over a serious sexual indiscretion but he's in this story because he was married to a policewoman who worked at the same local station as Meredith's husband. (They are now divorced and to complete the musical chairs the 'Toff's ex wife is now married to Meredith's ex husband.)
Meredith, on the subject of hipocrisy, asked me did I remember the time in the early 80's when the new sergeant at the police station where Meredith's husband and 'Toff's wife worked was trying to find them during one night shift. The sergeant was straight, and therefore hated by the less than straight staff under him. He tried his best to get Meredith's husband and 'Toff's wife to do some work but hit the proverbial brick wall. There was a prevailing notion at the station, not shared by the sergeant, that if you were a 'twenty year man' you didn't have to actually do anything.
On this occasion, the sergeant became so frustrated, and worried, that he couldn't contact his senior constables on the car radio, he organized a car from another station to look for them. They were found inside the home of another policeman, who was off duty, where they couldn't be contacted on the radio because the car was unattended. This enraged the sergeant, who ordered 'Toff's wife to be breathalyzed, her being the listed driver that night. She was well over .05 and was charged internally with misconduct. There was a hell of a hullabulloo at the station but the sergeant stood his ground and proceeded, but somehow at the subsequent internal hearing there was no penalty.
We might all be hipocrits, but there's hipocrisy, and there's hipocrisy. Another contrast with the harmless type is that in recent times of Richard Pratt and Steve Vizard, found guilty of price fixing and insider trading, to skim hundreds of millions of dollars, while shining in the glow of philanthropy.