"The road to hell is paved with good intentions" -- ancient wisdom, perhaps the second profound realization of our species.
"...but his intentions were good." -- the apologetic so often pathetically used after hideous or lethal results that even clichés exclude it from their class.
If his intentions were truly good, both he and those who would excuse him would accept responsibility. That includes significant restitution and suitable mitigation and intense safeguards to prevent similar recurrences.
Insincerity is marked by changing the subject; passing off the blame; burying the evidence; embarking on a similar course under a different name; rewriting history.
Liberalism has a place in the world. I await discovering where it more often than not lives up to its good intentions.
Don't hold your breath expecting the
View My Stats
When you say liberalism has it's place in the world, do you mean classical liberalism?
ReplyDeleteOr is its place in the world Ground Zero on the Bikini Atoll?
Socilaism has just never been done right, you know.
Very good Ed. I'm still working on that essay. Here's a peek.
DeleteContemporary liberalism is classical liberalism without reservation. They've lost their own conscience -- marked by the insincerity of their claimed good intentions highlighted by this short essay -- as they project that loss onto those who disagree with them. This explains their presumptuous moral superiority. We've permitted them to ride the high horse for to long. That must stop or we're doomed.
Thus, its practitioners tend to degenerate into Leftism which in turn leads the segment of the Right which can be bullied -- usually by threats to upset applecarts. And so they march society Left, Right, Left, Right down into the pit of totalitarianism. And that's even ignoring the role of misanthropes in all of it.
Contemporary liberalism mocks justice by insisting on too much charity for the cruel, and invariably winds up being cruel to the kind. Thus the treatment by the "SJW" towards all not them.
And since kindness is the coin that most typified Classical Liberalism, the gradual increase of misplaced charity -- for example, decreasingly apt punishments for crimes -- Gresham's Law took hold. Contemporary liberalism is the consequence.
Then there's the phrase '...but his heart's in the right place.'
ReplyDeleteTo which I once replied 'You mean it's somewhere between his lungs?'
This was not the anticipated response. The other party's shocked face and quick change of subject were highly gratifying.
And there's also "but he meant well." To which Alex DeLonge might reply "Welly, welly, well my droogies, what are you up to?"
DeleteThat could also be where you raise or bury subjects from or to the dark and deep.