"It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. He takes up the trade of a priest for the sake of gain, and, in order to qualify himsel for that trade, he begins with a perjury. Can we conceive anything more destructive to morality than this?"

Thomas Paine
The Age of Reason
(from the opening passage)

Paine's road was not easy, and seeing how he suffered in the end does not make it less difficult to follow in his footsteps (not to presume I could fill his shoes). Although speaking out against your ideological enemies takes some courage, particularly when they have power or numbers, I find it far harder to confront my friends and colleagues. I'm not talking about corrective advice, that's simply a matter of tact. I mean when I think they are engaged in the kind of ass-hattery that Paine is talking about above. It's not a "Hey, I think there's a better way to do what you are trying to do," but a "Hey, you are entering the full-of-shit realm in an obvious attempt to suck up to people who can make your life easier, and everyone can see it."
I'm a union rep at the school that I teach at, and a few days ago I had to publicly confront our admin team on a practice that is both counterproductive and a violation of the contract--a public declaration made necessary because they refused to abide by a settled grievance. Nearly a dozen teachers (from a faculty of 136) saw it as an opportunity to line up for a nose browning session. They felt the need to publicly declare how pleasant their experience was, in contradistinction to the experience of others, and that they deeply appreciated the wonderful work the administration was doing. Since their personal experience doesn't negate that of others, the only possible reason to make a public declaration is to distance themselves from those who had fallen out of favor with the crown.
I've always felt that public praise should be reserved for those from whom you have nothing to gain, otherwise it cannot escape the pall of insincerity, but this was such buffoonery that the insincerity was more than just a pall.

But, for all my ranting, I could not bring myself to do what my conscience prodded me to; I couldn't call them out on it.

If I willingly call out the poor practices of my self-declared antagonistic administrator, but I bite my tongue rather than offend my friends, aren't I denying them the help I am providing my (for lack of a better term) "enemy"?

And then to add one piece of cowardice to another, I vent on a blog they'll likely never read...