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Notes -
Certainly I've encountered it. I'm sure you've also encountered army-fetishists who aren't particularly brave or self-sacrificing when push comes to shove, priests who aren't very godly, etc. etc. I don't regard it as an argument against any position or movement or value to point out that a great number, perhaps even a plurality or majority, of the people who profess to support it fall short of the ideal. Humans are flawed, messy, unreliable creatures.
And so am I - but nevertheless I choose to be a humanist in the truest sense; to extend kindness/etc. to the whole sorry lot of us, including myself. The ostensibly-'unkind' included. I think too many people claim to want to be kind, but take the easy road and revoke kindness-privileges to those who they think fall egregiously short of the principle themselves. This may or may not be sound game-theory when it comes to tolerance, the paradox of which is of course is what they'll cite if pressed; but it's bad moral philosophy when it comes to kindness, and too many of my fellow progressives have allowed themselves to confuse the two because it makes the whole ethos a good deal easier to practice… at the cost of making it a lot hollower in effect.
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