The problem is that evil deeds rarely start out looking exactly like that.
We can all agree on the atrocities and obvious things like genocide and the abuse of children.
But what happens when A seems harmless – and is then used as a tool for B and C?
Take free speech. Most would like to agree on the merits of this one…
But when you start limiting what people who are obviously wrong can say, it is difficult to know where to stop.
What about people that are “mostly” wrong?
Or, people that go against “the science?” (Whatever the heck that means.)
(Good-grief, scientific progress is disagreement. By definition. We learn and prove each other wrong and update information as we go. Does anyone remember Galileo? The “politicians” at large basically banished him for saying the earth was not the center of the universe.)
Once people swallow restricted speech, all that has to happen then is for power to change. A new President. A new King. Whatever. Then you cannot say things that are obviously true.
Truth becomes a lie, and a lie becomes the truth.
And, heck – once people believe lies – you can do nearly anything with them.
Amiright?
Goodness-gracious-alive, this passage jumps out in our current age of wokeism and offense at everything taken:
In it he says, “We have been the silent witnesses of evil deeds. We have become cunning and learned the arts of obfuscation and equivocation.” But though “the huge masquerade of evil has thrown all ethical concepts into confusion,” some things have been seen clearly: “that evil [appears] in the form of bright, good deeds, historical necessity, social justice”; and, above all, “the failure of ‘the reasonable ones’—those who think with the best of intentions and in their naive misreading of reality, that with a bit of reason they can patch up the structure that has come out of joint.” In such circumstances, “Who stands firm?” His answer: “Only the one whose ultimate standard is not his reason, his principles, conscience, freedom, or virtue; only the one who is prepared to sacrifice all of these when, in faith and in relationship to God alone, he is called to obedient and responsible action.”
-Alan Jacobs, The Year Of Our Lord 1943 (Amazon)
