Johnny comes home with a note from the teacher saying that Johnny cheated on a test. When asked, Johnny admits doing this, but tells his daddy he did it trying to get good marks, which he, Daddy, ordered him to get. What should Daddy do?
Before making a judgment, let's go into it a little deeper. Wasn't Johnny doing exactly what every special interest group has done since we began jotting down history? He was doing what he thought was necessary to get things done. The end justified the means. If it took a little plaigarism to get the grades, then that's the way it was.
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The Roman Catholic Church thought the same way in 1492, when it began a regimen of roasting non-Catholics who refused to see the light - and thus be saved. Later, the Crusades killed thousands in taking the Holy Land back from the Muslims and Muslims obligingly killed their share in turn - all for good reasons, I'm sure.
Hitler, in an effort to purify the German race and keep the world safe for Aryans, slaughtered a few million in the name of racial purity and threw in several million others to advance the cause of "living room" for his people. Well before that, pioneers in the New World, irritated that natives objected to allowing settlers to build on their lands, exterminated their food supply and killed most of the rest. We needed land, so whatever it took to get it was O.K. Were the two equally horrific? No, but the principle was the same.
Today, we're tearing up the Constitution into little pieces so that we can be "safe." If keeping secure means killing American citizens without trial, then so be it. Losing a few thousand people to mindless gun violence is OK if it allows people to go target shooting or blast anybody who enters their homes. Drones do the job with less risk and you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, even if they're seven or eight years old. The end justifies the means.
President Obama belives this as George W. believed it before him. The difference is that the means are much more efficient. Republicans believe that we have to reduce the deficit (the end) and so cutting education, health care and stuff like that is fine (the means). Gradually, we're discovering that this philosophy has the inevitable effect of eroding any kind of democratic government. Democracy, for example, takes time to work while quick decisions, usually necessary when something really needs doing, seldom works by majority rule. How long did it take to allow women to vote?
Johnny wasn't cheating when he cheated. He was doing things in the new American way - he was pragmatic with no constraints of ethics or morals. What was important was getting the result. we call it "the bottom line." How you get it is nobody's business - right, Dad?