[b]Saul D. Alinsky
History is made up of “moral” judgments based on politics. We condemned Lenin’s acceptance of money from the Germans in 1917 but were discreetly silent while our Colonel William B. Thompson in the same year contributed a million dollars to the anti-Bolsheviks in Russia. As allies of the Soviets in World War II we praised and cheered communist guerrilla tactics when the Russians used them against the Nazis during the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union; we denounce the same tactics when they are used by communist forces in different parts of the world against us. The opposition’s means, used against us, are always immoral and our means are always ethical and rooted in the highest of human values.[/b]
Makes you wonder if that might still be going on.
Mendoza said to Tanner, I am a brigand; I live by robbing the rich.
Tanner replied, I am a gentleman; I live by robbing the poor. Shake hands.
Makes you wonder if that might still be going on.
…one’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s distance from the scene of conflict.
Now why do you suppose that is?
One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand described as ‘that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you’re right.’ If you don’t have that, if you think you’ve got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated.
But not you, right?
The real action is in the enemy’s reaction.
Here? Cue the huffers and the puffers.
Mark Twain once put it, “The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.”
I think the right word here might be “hyperbole”.