MSNBC's Chris Hayes has lost faith that America truly is a nation of laws and has asked to be spared any sermons regarding the matter.

On Tuesday night's All In, Hayes thumbed through a variety of recent news events that have led him to the conclusion that the United States may be starting to resemble the foreign regimes it so condemns.

"When praising our country, presidents love to invoke that we are a nation of laws," said Hayes. But having courts, statutes, and lawyers don't make us different than any other country, Hayes surmises, because "basically every country has that."

"So a nation of laws can't simply be a nation with laws," Hayes furthers. "It must enforce those laws without fear of favor -- apply them equally to the powerful and the powerless alike, to the connected and the unconnected." The law should act as "a great equalizer," he says. And up until now, he believed it:

For a long time, I have believed the U.S. is such a place. Sure, it's flawed and sure there are places that justice is miscarried, but fundamentally, I have long thought that the U.S. really is a nation of laws. I have to say, it is getting harder and harder to hold on to that faith. 

Hayes meandered through corruption in Wall Street, the housing market, police departments and government torture, naming each as yet another reason to lose faith in the system the nation is built upon. Add to that the fact that many will never be prosecuted for their crimes, and that is a combo too tough for Hayes to handle.

Here is the rest of his monologue:

First, we've all watched Wall Street engage in massive and widespread fraud and predation. And virtually no one went to jail for doing the kinds of things that, say, would almost certainly get you locked up if you were just a guy from the neighborhood.

And last week, we all watched as a police officer, who put a man in a chokehold, who died shortly after and whose death was later ruled a homicide, walked away from a grand jury with no indictment, no charges whatsoever. We don't even know if he's going to be fired.

And today? Well, today we have 600 pages documenting the torture carried out and authorized by a wide variety of government officials -- up to and including the president and vice president -- documenting activities that are on their face a violation of Section 2340 of the U.S. criminal code which outlaws torture, specifically mentioning acts committed outside the U.S. by a U.S. national. 

And no one -- no one -- will face prosecution for those crimes. I mean, think about this, Michael Vick did more time for what he did to dogs than anyone will face for what they did to human beings. Many of whom, we learned today, shouldn't even have been in custody in the first place.

Can you sell people worthless trash that you know is worthless without telling them? Well, it depends on who's doing it. Can you choke a man to death? It depends on who's doing it. Can you anally rape someone with a tube, threaten to kill his children, and threaten to rape his mother all without legal consequence? Well, you see, it depends on who's doing it. 

I mean, think about this: One of the authors of the legal justification for this entire sick chapter currently serves as a federal judge, rendering opinions and interpretations on the law. 

Does that sound like a nation of laws? Or does it sound more like the cynical machinations of one of those regimes we so eagerly, and rightly, condemn? 

If you want to defend torture, by all means, go ahead. But please, I am begging you, spare me any sermons about the law ever, ever again.