“Here’s the problem: everybody thinks their cause
is righteous. Everybody thinks they are acting for the greater good. Those who
want universal health care may think they have the moral high ground, but those
who favor a market system are just as convinced that theirs is the correct
moral path. When you allow an exception to the rules of justice because “it’s
for the greater good” you open the door for literally everyone to use that same
excuse to do terrible things. What starts as an exception becomes the rule, and
violence escalates on all sides, bolstered by an ever-growing cloud of smug
self-righteousness.”
Logan Albright writes wisely about the often stated “we are
doing it for the greater good”. He is
correct in saying the worst atrocities are often committed under this
premise. This is, in fact, the excuse
the US military uses in its complete and utter destruction of the rest of the
world. We are fighting ISIS so it’s for
the greater good, we are fighting communists so it’s for the great good, we are
fighting NAZIs so it’s for the great good.
This is not acceptable to me and I beg you take a deep look inside and
see that the US military does a lot of bad in the name of the greater good.
“In the real world, the idea of ‘the greater good’
can be, and has been, used to justify anything, however perverse. I don’t care
how noble your motives are. Once you’re willing to sacrifice the lives of
innocents for your cause, you’ve lost the moral high ground. The truth is that
there is no greater good than respect for the rights and dignity of others.”
I love this post and this website. It is like The Onion except with a
libertarian worldview. A passage:
“In a new interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, the Gold
Star widow of La David Johnston provided a damning account of her conversation
with the president. Among other issues, she said that President Trump seemed to
forget her late husband’s name in the middle of the discussion.
While such a charge would be
difficult for most presidents to live down, Trump quickly responded to the
accusation on Twitter with an excuse that many may find plausible.
‘If I had to remember the name
of every American soldier who died in a pointless and obscure conflict on my
orders, I wouldn’t have time for anything else. No good!’ Trump wrote.
PolitiFact subsequently judged
the tweet to be false, concluding that Trump would in fact have time left over
even after memorizing America’s pointless casualties. However, their assessment
was controversial because it relied on a narrow definition of ‘pointless’,
which excluded current operations in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia, among
others.”
