“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” ~Edmond Burke
“The way for evil to triumph is for good men to enlist evil men as a means to achieve good ends.” ~Loren M. Lambert.
Yesterday, while listening to National Public Radio (NPR), I heard a number of President Trump supporters express their views regarding President Donald Trump. One of them (who, I’m sure, speaks on behalf of many [who I have heard say similar things about President Donald Trump]), said that God (in the Old Testament) had allegedly used evil men to accomplish good, and that is the reason the country needed President Donald Trump. He said this with no irony and no sarcasm, but with complete religious devotion and sincerity.
Do people understand how absurd, irrational and ridiculous such a statement is? It’s ridiculous on several levels:
It recognizes that President Trump, at the very least, is not a good man, but at the very worst, is an evil man. If we believe that, then we must dispense with the pretense that any political rival needs any moral footing to be worthy of public office. This belief implies that as long as our chosen leader is attempting to achieve our goals, his or her moral foundation is irrelevant.
It also implies that the ends justify the means. If we truly believe that just because we have a “justifiable end,” any course of action to achieve that end is okay, then we have more in common with terrorist groups than we do with democracies.
Most evil that is perpetrated is rationalized, due to the ends that the particular group seeks. Such groups commit all sorts of atrocities and crimes because they claim to “know” better than the rest of humanity and have the “greater good” in mind. Many of them start off committing, very relatively speaking, trivial violations of decorum and proper conduct. Therefore, “messy processes,” like democracy and building consensus, do not matter to them.
Moreover, whether it be an individual, a family, a community, state, nation or an alliance, we cannot give our liberty to a person or entity that is evil with the goal to use that evil as a tool to do good, because we will invariably lose our freedom and never achieve our goal. This is because we can’t control evil when it inherently seeks to control everything.
Loren M. Lambert © February 12, 2017
“The way for evil to triumph is for good men to enlist evil men as a means to achieve good ends.” ~Loren M. Lambert.
Yesterday, while listening to National Public Radio (NPR), I heard a number of President Trump supporters express their views regarding President Donald Trump. One of them (who, I’m sure, speaks on behalf of many [who I have heard say similar things about President Donald Trump]), said that God (in the Old Testament) had allegedly used evil men to accomplish good, and that is the reason the country needed President Donald Trump. He said this with no irony and no sarcasm, but with complete religious devotion and sincerity.
Do people understand how absurd, irrational and ridiculous such a statement is? It’s ridiculous on several levels:
It recognizes that President Trump, at the very least, is not a good man, but at the very worst, is an evil man. If we believe that, then we must dispense with the pretense that any political rival needs any moral footing to be worthy of public office. This belief implies that as long as our chosen leader is attempting to achieve our goals, his or her moral foundation is irrelevant.
It also implies that the ends justify the means. If we truly believe that just because we have a “justifiable end,” any course of action to achieve that end is okay, then we have more in common with terrorist groups than we do with democracies.
Most evil that is perpetrated is rationalized, due to the ends that the particular group seeks. Such groups commit all sorts of atrocities and crimes because they claim to “know” better than the rest of humanity and have the “greater good” in mind. Many of them start off committing, very relatively speaking, trivial violations of decorum and proper conduct. Therefore, “messy processes,” like democracy and building consensus, do not matter to them.
Moreover, whether it be an individual, a family, a community, state, nation or an alliance, we cannot give our liberty to a person or entity that is evil with the goal to use that evil as a tool to do good, because we will invariably lose our freedom and never achieve our goal. This is because we can’t control evil when it inherently seeks to control everything.
Loren M. Lambert © February 12, 2017
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