Quote of the Day

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. -C.S. Lewis

I torment you with the sincere approval of my conscience.

Why is common sense so damn uncommon. No one spearheads the ruthless extermination of human populations without the incessant, shrieking obligation of their conscience. With every body burned some psychotic ideologue offers a toast of goodwill for all. This is a fact so consistent...so reinforced by historical experience, that we can be quite certain that the amount of moral zeal behind any public policy is directly proportional to its destructive power...the well-intentioned exploited by the puppeteers, used to perpetuate the opposite of their intention.

If passion and virtue belongs in the public sphere...if our conscience must drive us to engage in behavior of a scope beyond that which we know and love directly...apart from true knowledge and understanding that can only exist between friends, lovers, family...I believe there is one appropriate place for it: dedicated to the dissolution of all tyrannies through which an individual can secretly hijack the fruits of another's conscience for their own purposes. Impossible, you say, that such cold monsters really exist? Then ask what savage, if an adequately organized tyranny existed, would secretly starve an unseen contenent to feed her hungry, screaming child? Does this monster approve of such a tyranny? Enhance it and utilize it to the extent of her power? Exploit it until billions of imaciated bodies have piled up overseas and her own child is no longer suffering? In defense of this tyranny I expect cries of compassion for the dead...her empathy to be broadcast at whatever volume required to expand the tyranny until generations have been secured at the expense of whatever unthinkable atrocities are necessary to maintain it. So long as the front of the tyranny prevents her identification, there is no end to her brutality.

I contend that one cannot refuse to be the mother any more than we might be expected to disregard a loved one in need. One can only refuse to be the child of this scenario, lest the throat become horse and raspy from a lifetime of labored shrieking at the expense of many. But those many are also to blame. They did not attack the tyranny while they watched it grow to the size necessary to deprive this child in the first place. They also exploited and enhanced it for whatever gain they could derrive from it. Now, they depend on it, and will not take lightly to its exposure and deconstruction. And now, at the approval of my conscience, I will stop tormenting you for your own good.