"Hypocrisy is a tribute that vice pays to virtue". (Rochefoucauld, though it often gets credited to others, notably Oscar Wilde).

Maybe there's less hypocrisy about these things these days - but the downside of that is, it makes it easier for the tolerated exceptions to become the openly acknowledged norm. Remember the open justifications of torture we have been presented with in recent years by respectable academics and politicians?

Dirty tricks cease to be embarrassing things we don't talk about, they become something to boast about. Not just in relation to war, in just about every walk of life - business, sport, personal relationships. "Winning isn't the most important thing, it's the only thing."

I sometimes think maybe we could use a little more hypocrisy.