RfR: Of Means and Ends

This chapter comprises a list of "rules pertaining to the ethics of means and ends" and uses examples from history instead of hypothetical situations to try to validate the rules. The following is the list and a couple of quotes from this chapter. I think it best you read the list and discuss with your book club(s) the pros/cons of each rule. Also try to determine whether the examples used to validate the rules is appropriate.

"To say that corrupt means corrupt the ends is to believe in the immaculate conception of ends and principles."

Ethics of means and ends:
1. One's concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one's personal interest in the issue.
2. The judgment of the ethics of means is dependent upon the political position of those sitting in judgment.
3. In war the end justifies almost any means.
4. Judgment must be made in the context of the times in which the action occurred and not from any other chronological vantage point.
5. Concern with ethics increases with the number of means available and vice versa.
6. The less important the end to be desired, the more one can afford to engage in ethical evaluations of means.
7. Generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics.
8. The morality of a means depends upon whether the means is being employed at a time of imminent defeat or imminent victory.
9. Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.
10. You do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments.
11. Goals must be phrased in general terms like "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," "Of the Common Welfare," "Pursuit of Happiness," or "Bread and Peace."

"[I]n action, one does not always enjoy the luxury of a decision that is consistent both with one's individual conscience and the good of mankind. The choice must always be for the latter."

RfR: The Purpose

Science of Revolution

Alinsky claims there are few revolutionary writings which the Radicals "desperately" seek. They must turn to the writings of "communists, both red and yellow," instead. It's too bad there are no more copies of what our Founding Fathers read. You know, books from authors like Sir William Blackstone, John Locke or Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith, Frederic Bastiat or Montesquieu, Polybius or Plutarch. Nor even could those poor "Have-Nots" find anything to read from those revolutionaries themselves. Well except for this, this and this. And this, this, and this, and this, and this, and this, or just get out your 5000 Year Leap book and turn to the bibliography.

He laments that revolution is synonymous with communism. (Too bad for him, he's not around in 2009 when communism seems to have lost its stigma.) Also, revolution is associated with war, but he wants to create a revolution between the "Haves" and "Have-Nots". Since the "Haves" um, have, all the power and guns I assume war is not possible in the Radical's revolution.

The Ideology of Change

The main reason why it is impossible to argue with a Statist schooled in the Alinsky program is because a Statist has no root principles. S.A. says an organizer "does not have a fixed truth - truth to him is relative and changing." Also to make the simple complex, S.A. believes that no action can have a determinate result, therefore it is unnecessary to assume that any action is good or bad: "It frees one from the myth that one approach is positive and another negative." Otherwise known as the "judge by intentions not consequences" law. This is how he can put Moses, Thomas Jefferson and Gandhi in the same class of "great world leaders" as Lenin, Castro, and Mao.

Class Distinctions: The Trinity

"A major revolution to be won in the immediate future is the dissipation of man's illusion that his own welfare can be separate from that of all others."

Remember S.A. says truth is relative, but believe him when he classifies the absolute truth of classes (the "Haves", "Have-Nots", and "Have-a-Little, Want Mores") and their roles in society, you know, because he's a realist. The class S.A. seems to disdain more than the "Haves" are the "Do-Nothings." It is his philosophy to constantly move toward the goal. One of those goals is to enlighten man that "interdependence of man [is] his major strength" and "man is his brother's keeper."

"The moral life is the only road to survival." However, it is the philosophy that we are our brother's keeper that S.A. finds to be the moral way to live. If we live by this maxim than the Statist concludes everyone will be "Haves." Never mind history shows that social-justice is just the predecessor of social-destruction. Read the true story of Thanksgiving.