Picking sides...

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

I actually started writing a post on the Ron Paul's recent racist newsletter scandal and the conservative reaction to the same but jonathankorman beat me to the punch. As such I'm shifting the topic slightly to something that came up in the comments.

Now I like Ron Paul, As jonathankorman said;

He vigorously opposes American military adventurism and the military-industrial complex. He has pointed out how the financial industry has perversely benefitted from the financial crisis they created. He speaks in defense of civil liberties and has fought against attacks on them like the PATRIOT Act. He calls the War On Some Drugs the madness that it is. And often he says this stuff well.

But his response to the scandal namely, "I didn't know what was in the letters but I put my name on them anyway" has dramatically lowered my respect for him. You see, if he's telling the truth, such a decision demonstrates a high level political incompetance. What kind of fool would out-source his reputation in such a way? and what kind of fool would run for president without taking care of the skeletons in his closet first? If he did write those letters (even if he were simply playing to the crowd) he's simply dishonest and unwilling or unable to take the heat.

Niether of these qualities speak well of him, and to be frank I expect higher quality bullshit from my elected officials.

That said, I flinch internally anytime I hear someone frame an argument about politicians or policy in terms of good and evil. In my opinion you can either pick a team, or pursue the truth. When you frame an argument in such a way you've basically declared your preference for the former.

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I think it's clear if something is based on the concept of killing other people and taking their land for a manifest destiny that the idea there is evil. The results of it may not always be, but a Manifest Destiny/Lebensraum idea is an evil one at its most refined, and only worse the cruder and more blatant it is. By contrast there are evil people who befoul the noblest and greatest societies or cultures in all cultures, even when they are complete and horrifying exceptions to a general rule. Thus both ideas and people can be evil, and evil people empowered by evil ideas are worse than either on their own.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

This raises the old conundrum,

Is it better to have evil intentions with a good result, or good intentions with an evil result?

Obviously the ideal situation would be good intentions with good result but reality rarely works out that way.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It's my belief that whatever philosophers say about it morally the two are directly equivalent and in practice the results are the same. If anything good intentions with evil results is worse, as that's why Mao killed more than Stalin did: his intentions were good and he didn't let minor things like reality interfere with them. Stalin, on the other hand, had enough sense to avoid identifying with such excesses or letting them get out of control. Which brand of evil in this regard is lesser is like deciding between being hung, drawn, and quartered or being impaled after having drunk a lot of water.