The End Justifies the Means...Sometimes

The end doesn't justify the means.

The end justifies the means.

Both statements can be true, depending on what "ends" and "means" are in question.

A good or profitable end result doesn't justify murder, theft, or violence employed to get it. However, a life saved just might, depending on who is to be saved and who killed. Taking a completely different approach, arduous labor is often justified by material and spiritual gain afterwards.

For those who need everything spelled out in minute detail, the two statements could be worded so:

A selfish end doesn't justify wicked means.

A profitable end justifies costly means.

If Men Were Meant to Be Circumcised...

If men were meant to be circumcised, we’d be born circumcised. It’s a revolting, primitive habit, almost as bad as female circumcision, and it should be illegal. -Bob

Bob cracks me up. His comment deserves a response, but only for the laughs.

Allow me to apply his reasoning more broadly:

• If men were meant to speak, we’d be born with a full vocabulary.
• If men were meant to fly, we’d have wings. 
• If women were meant to have babies, they’d be born pregnant.
• If men were meant to have short hair, we’d be born with hair that don’t grow.
• If babies were meant to have their umbilical cords removed, they’d be born without umbilical cords.

 Really, Bob. Just because you don’t know, understand, or like the reason for something doesn’t mean it’s barbaric. It might also mean that you are ignorant, stupid, or have poor taste.

Nobody who calls God's commandments "revolting" or "primitive" has anything worthwhile to say on the subject.

Would a Just God Allow Suffering?

Some people complain that a just God wouldn't allow all the suffering we see in the world. I'm sure some of them aren't smart enough to think through the implications of the words, but most of them are just letting emotions override reason.

Without suffering, the term "justice" is meaningless. What is the point of a "just God" who has nothing to judge? On what basis can anyone call God just or unjust except by the standard that He sets as Creator?

Like "rich" and "poor", the term "suffering" is entirely relative to the experience of the speaker. A wealthy man in Haiti is a poor man in Hawaii. If tonight God were to eliminate all of the most painful experiences a person could ever have, then what we think is merely uncomfortable today will become unbearable torment tomorrow. The same people who cry about famine and war today will cry about influenza and warts tomorrow.

They should stop assuming that they are the center of the universe and all perspectives and experiences must be judged by their own. Instead, they should start wondering if suffering beyond anything they've ever imagined might be possible, and they should be grateful that it remains that way. They (meaning me too) should be grateful for the opportunities that God has given them to grow stronger through lifting heavy burdens and climbing high obstacles. They should wonder what great task God might have in store for the entire human race such that the terrible things we witness and endure might be necessary in order to prepare us.

What kind of God allows suffering? The kind who has a broader perspective and longer time horizons than you and I.

See also God Knows Why You Suffer.

Danger is Good for You

Security breeds complacency and weakness, which requires ever greater attention to security. Eventually, any people which continues to value security over liberty will be replaced by some other people.

A moderately erratic and naturally fluctuating environment, with periodic spikes of disaster and windfall, promotes adaptability and strength in healthy individuals and systems alike. If you love some person or organization and want it to thrive, don't be too controlling. A little danger every day is good for you. Lots of danger on occasion, while often bad for the individual, is almost always better for the collective in the long run.

A Review of Rogue Justice by Karen Greenberg

Rogue Justice:
The Making of the Security State
by Karen J. Greenberg

From my reading and experience, lawyers tend to see the law in one (or more) of five ways:

1) A necessary framework for civilization, one that keeps us (all of us) from descending into barbarism. Without a consistent and rational system of justice, we might as well go back to the caves and trees.
2) A useful tool for keeping the little people in line. The law is justification for hanging some and jailing others, and a cattle prod to keep the rest moving in the right direction.
3) An obstacle to getting the real work done. The law is only for the people who aren't smart enough or powerful enough to know what really needs to happen. Those who have a more informed perspective, must be able to bypass the law or at least reinterpret it to suite their purposes as required.
4) A protective cover for what would otherwise be considered criminal behavior. With the right spin and pressure, any law can be made to say anything, and that's a good thing for people who want to be able to do anything they want while staying "within the law."
5) A game to be used for the entertainment of lawyers, a professional, high stakes sport full of word games and logic puzzles, prizes and penalties. The only real losers are those who don't know the unwritten rules.

Of course, every lawyer operates in all five paradigms. They're just people, after all, and can't be expected to be 100% consistent. Unfortunately, the only thoroughly honorable approach to law (#1), pays the lowest dividends, so the legal profession attracts and encourages people who are drawn to the other four.

The men who wrote the United States Constitution tended toward idealism and wrote it with the assumption that their successors would also be men of honor and high ideals. The Bill of Rights almost didn't pass for just that reason. It didn't work out that way. We've been on a downhill slide ever since. Today, Washington is dominated by men and women who scoff at idealism, who sneer at honor, who hold the first way anathema and the others as religious dogma. Although they give lip service to the founders' intent, not one DC lawyer in a hundred believes in anything like those original principles. They would imprison Washington, Adams, Jefferson, et al, in a third world dungeon and label the tens of thousands of non-uniformed militiamen who fought for our liberty as "enemy combatants" unworthy of the respect that one human being owes to another. They are liars, torturers, thieves, and murderers. The best thing that could happen to the United States, would be a black hole that swallowed up everything in the Capital Beltway. That would be far too kind to the legal filth who wrote and continue to support the Patriot Act and the like.

My greatest complaint against Greenberg's book is that she was far too easy on too many people. This is the softball version of the story. Greenberg seems to have assumed at least good intent on the part of those who destroyed the United States--and I'm sure many of them actually had some good intentions--and gave a complete pass to some of the worst offenders. Maybe she feared for her life if she told us how bad it really is. I would, if I were her.

(Review based on a free advanced reader copy.)