TL;DW: the people to whom you are making this argument don't care that it's hypocritical. They see you as the enemy and deserving of what you get, and the fact that they can get away with it is an assertion of power over you and feature of the system rather than a bug.

Edit: IOW "They can't do that to our pledges! Only we can do that to our pledges!"

TL;DW: the people to whom you are making this argument don't care that it's hypocritical. They see you as the enemy and deserving of what you get, and the fact that they can get away with it is an assertion of power over you and feature of the system rather than a bug.