Alan Futerman on those who justify the means of Hamas

Danny Woods: Attacking people just because you think you own their land or they might've taken it, bombing them, killing them, taking their children, killing the elderly, kidnapping babies, this is not in any way a legal representation that would be considered valid.  It cannot be.  And then to defend that system and say, "oh, you see the other person who's wrong because of this thing he did a long time ago," it's so utterly lopsided.  The argument is so wrong...  It's completely wrong and someone who justifies that, it's crazy, justifying the most deepest wrongs and evils man can commit...

Alan Futerman: The point I mentioned about Jew hatred explains so because if you're fighting absolute evil, if you're fighting a cosmic battle and you are fighting evil, everything's permitted.  The ends justify the means.  You can do whatever you want.  And even if you do something that is horrendous, "well, it had to be done"...  So this is not just something you see among Jew haters only.  In this context, you can take anyone on the intersectionality camp and they use exactly the same argument.  They say, "well, if you fight colonizers, if you fight settler colonialists, if you fight oppressors, if you fight etc., all bets are off and you can do whatever you want."  This is the type of totalitarian mentality that allows people to think they can do whatever they want.

~ Alan Futerman, "Block, Futerman on Hoppe, Israel and Hamas," Individualist Origins, 43:45 mark, May 15, 2024

Chip Kusmaul on idealism and tyranny

Q: What are three appropriate ways to make your society an ideal one? 

A: Well, there’s a conundrum.  A society can’t be ideal, unless everyone thinks it’s ideal.  So, what if other people want something different than you?  Do you force them to comply with your ideal?  Do you consent to their ideal?  Neither one works for me.  The closest to an ideal society that we can hope to get, is one where everyone is free to pursue their own ideals. 

Remember that Hitler had ideals for society.  So did Stalin and Mao.  And they expected everyone to conform to their ideals.  In other words, they were tyrants.

~ Chip Kusmaul, MEd from Xavier University (1973), Quora, September 19, 2021

Jeffrey Tucker on mass panics and rationalizing cruelty

At the end of every mass panic, people work very hard to find ways to justify whatever cruelty, barbarism, and brutality they perpetrated or justified.  Any excuse that comes along.  That's already happening now.  It will be years before honesty returns.

~ Jeffrey Tucker, tweet, April 6, 2020

William Tecumseh Sherman on war

War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.

~ William Tecumseh Sherman

William Tecumseh Sherman
1895

Friedrich Hayek individualism, morals and collectivism

The principle that the end justifies the means is in individualist ethics regarded as the denial of all morals. In collectivist ethics it becomes necessarily the supreme rule.

~ Friedrich Hayek

Dr. Stephen Schneider on advancing the environmentalist movement

To do this, we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. This "double ethical bind" we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.

~ Dr. Stephen Schneider, Stanford University Professor, Discover magazine, October 1989 issue

Lord Acton on ends and means

Liberty is not a means to a political end. It is itself the highest political end.

~ Lord Acton

Statue of Liberty
1922-1925

Sean Berkowitz on the Enron fraud

These men did not try to put the company into bankruptcy. They felt if they could just hold on, if they could just lie a little bit longer and get to the next quarter and the next quarter and the next year, everything would be fine.... They figured the market wouldn't understand. They were arrogant, and they decided what the market heard and what the market didn't hear.

~ Sean Berkowitz, lead prosecutor in the Enron trial, "The Guiltiest Guys in the Room," Fortune, July 5, 2006

(These comments were made to the jury in his closing argument.)

Lao Tzu on virtue and expediency

When virtue is lost, benevolence appears. When benevolence is lost, right conduct appears. When right conduct is lost, expedience appears. Expediency is the mere shadow of right and truth; it is the beginning of disorder.

~ Lao Tzu, 6th century BC poet and father of Taoism