The Humanitarian with the Guillotine - 1
Chapter XX, Excerpt 1 of 3
The Humanitarian With the Guillotine
If the harm done by willful criminals were to be computed, the number of murders, the extent of damage and loss, would be found negligible in the sum of death and devastation wrought upon human beings by their kind. Therefore, when millions are slaughtered, torture is practiced, starvation enforced, oppression a policy, it must be at the behest of many good people . . . on record as giving approval, elaborating justifications, or cloaking facts with silence, and discountenancing discussion.
There must be a very grave error in the means by which they seek to attain their ends. There must even be an error in their primary axioms, to permit them to continue using such means. Something is terribly wrong in the procedure, somewhere. What is it? It may be said that the wielders of power are vicious hypocrites; that their conscious objective was evil from the beginning; nonetheless, they could not have come to power except with the consent and assistance of good people.
The principal political figures now wielding power in Europe are socialists, or communists; men whose creed was the collective good. It did not happen by chance; it followed from the original premise, objective and means proposed. As a primary justification of existence, the objective is to do good to others. The means is the power of the collective. The premise is that that good is collective. The root of the matter is ethical, philosophical, and religious, involving the relation of man to the universe.
The Humanitarian With the Guillotine
If the harm done by willful criminals were to be computed, the number of murders, the extent of damage and loss, would be found negligible in the sum of death and devastation wrought upon human beings by their kind. Therefore, when millions are slaughtered, torture is practiced, starvation enforced, oppression a policy, it must be at the behest of many good people . . . on record as giving approval, elaborating justifications, or cloaking facts with silence, and discountenancing discussion.
There must be a very grave error in the means by which they seek to attain their ends. There must even be an error in their primary axioms, to permit them to continue using such means. Something is terribly wrong in the procedure, somewhere. What is it? It may be said that the wielders of power are vicious hypocrites; that their conscious objective was evil from the beginning; nonetheless, they could not have come to power except with the consent and assistance of good people.
The principal political figures now wielding power in Europe are socialists, or communists; men whose creed was the collective good. It did not happen by chance; it followed from the original premise, objective and means proposed. As a primary justification of existence, the objective is to do good to others. The means is the power of the collective. The premise is that that good is collective. The root of the matter is ethical, philosophical, and religious, involving the relation of man to the universe.
The arc of the curve of altruism always follows the same path; a sincere desire to help (the Good Samaritans) followed by begging for alms to help the needy, followed by the use of political power to tax to help the needy, followed by Ayn Rand’s “…the mindless face of a thug with a club in his hand…” demanding your contribution or else.
Isabel Paterson nailed the essence of the Humanitarian with this sentence “The humanitarian puts himself in the place of God”
Similar for people. Rather than "Are they 'good' or 'bad'?" I prefer, "are they logical?", "do their arguments make sense?".
Head-of-State Thompson is always talking about "the public good".
Analogs from today's news would be Bill Gates and Gavin Newsom. Their views of "good" are not supported by logic, and the negative consequences of their actions seem to be "unforeseen" only to them and their supporters.