“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
— Samuel Johnson (attributed)

While Samuel Johnson didn’t actually say this, the meaning should be clear to most people. This simple statement has been used by many people to damn the actions of people both on the left and on the right. For example it has been used to damn President George W. Bush as being well intentioned regarding the war on terror but allegedly using foul means to justify it (the whole “Bush Lied People Died” canard). A similar damnation might be laid upon ACORN for promoting fraud as a means to achieving a desired political result in elections.

One could easily argue that there’s no comparison between the “lies” of George Bush and the “fraud” perpetrated by ACORN. After all the former allegedly resulted in loss of life, while the latter merely “fixed” an election. Of course those that would accuse our forty third President of lying to get us into an unjust war would say that ACORN neither committed election fraud (for which some of their membership have been duly convicted in a court of law) nor “fixed” an election, but merely kept a certain class of citizen from being disenfranchised.

It isn’t my intention here to rehash either of those arguments. I am prepared to if I must, but that isn’t the purpose of this post. Rather I cite these (and further) examples because the arguments have been made elsewhere, and they serve to illustrate this particular interpretation of the use of good intentions as paving stones. They serve as examples that having good intentions does not justify immoral, dishonest, or dishonorable means. The ends do not justify the means.

Conservatives would do well to remember this truth as we move to present our values and convictions to others. We must be certain that the means we use are morally acceptable not because of our intentions, but because they do not require dishonesty or dishonor. Hypocrisy will most certainly discredit and dishonor us. We have merely to look at such “paragons of virtue” as Senator Stevens of Alaska or disgraced former governor Eliot Spitzer of New York to see the truth of this.

Yes, I’m aware that Elliot Spitzer is a Democrat and not exactly a conservative, but his example serves to illustrate my point just as well. It also serves as a perfect counterpoint to Senator Stevens — because governor Spitzer showed what appeared to be true humility when he admitted his failings, even if it did take him a couple of days to resign his office. Senator Stevens on the other hand although convicted by a court of law of seven felonies, still maintains that he has not been convicted, and still seems likely to win reelection to the Senate. Wow, does that sound anything like Rep. William Jefferson, D-LA? The difference between Sen. Stevens and Rep. Jefferson is that Rep. Jefferson is unlikely to face censure, even if he’s convicted of corruption over his freezer full of cash while Sen. Stevens may well and deservedly face expulsion by the rest of the Senate.

Eliot Spitzer’s case also illustrates another point as well. The first article I linked to above also made mention of this fact…

[T]he Mann Act, passed by Congress in 1910 to address prostitution, human trafficking and what was viewed at the time as immorality in general, makes it a crime to transport someone between states for the purpose of prostitution.

Interestingly enough, that same bit of information can be found in the article that tells us that Mr. Spitzer will not be charged with any federal crime. As someone has noted elsewhere “politicians and lawyers have no morals, because they don’t need them.”

To be sure, no man walking the Earth in the flesh today is perfect, and only one that has walked the earth in the flesh has ever been perfect. (No, that’s not a reference to Barack Obama.) This doesn’t excuse criminal behavior from our politicians or from anyone else on our side. We cannot afford to use dishonorable means to achieve any good end. Ringing charges of hypocrisy will overwhelm any message that we try to articulate.

For the rest of us (the non-politicians) that still seek to promulgate conservative views, we must also realize that we each have our blind spots and moral failings. We must all walk in honest (not false) humility, aware of our failings. This does not mean that we should not strive to uphold a high moral standard, yet we must remain humble while we constantly strive to overcome our failings.

The Lord knows that in the arena of ideological warfare, it is not uncommon to attack the messenger rather than the message. Corruption and blatant hypocrisy make that all too easy. Self examination, prayer and humility will help us to avoid those taints, and make such attacks that much more difficult for our ideological opponents. They won’t be sufficient to block all of the slander and calumnies that might be laid upon us, but they’ll certainly help.

There is something else that we as conservatives need to be aware of as we spread the word. We need to be careful to ascertain the truth of what we say, even if we’re merely passing it along from others. This isn’t always easy to do, but it should be possible.

Many of my friends forward me interesting nuggets of information from one source or another, often in email forwarded to groups of their friends and forwarded to them from other friends. Nearly always the content of these messages illustrates an important point about their political ideology that they feel the need to share. Quite often, the point they are trying to make is a valid point and the information they share is genuine. The Internet is vast though, and there is as much misinformation available as information. Sadly, a lot of the misinformation is spread about through these chains of forwarded email. I’ve gotten burned by this before, posting email content that I received that was incorrectly attributed, so it’s quite easy to see how it can happen.

As a result, I try to verify the source and content of such items before I pass them on. There are a couple of Internet sites that are dedicated to testing the veracity of such material, such as Snopes and TruthOrFiction.  If I find a problem, I try to let the sender know about it. This isn’t to alert them to some sort of inadequacy on their part, but rather to help to ensure that we only pass on the truth. Sometimes, there’s no problem with the information at all. Sometimes, the information presented is true, but the attribution is wrong. Sometimes, the information is only partially correct. In the first two cases, correcting the attribution before sending it on is often enough. In the third case, I won’t use the material at all. If I can find something wrong with it, it’s a certainty that a savvy ideological opponent will too — and they’ll use it to discredit the meaning of the message. “Fake but accurate” didn’t cut it for Dan Rather when a few conservatives dug up the truth. It won’t cut it for us either.

We’ve got to be careful and scrupulously honest in our dealings with the opposition. Conservative values and principles are worth defending and worth spreading. Those are good ends, but they don’t justify using bad means.

Why is all of this important? Because our credibility is important as we seek to promulgate our values. Conservatives believe, as our founders did that the survival of our republic and of American freedom depend on each generation knowing and understanding the principles that it is based upon, and understanding what it takes to maintain it. Without integrity and credibility our message and our values will be ignored. And we’ve got to get that message across because our public education system simply isn’t doing it despite all of the “good intentions” and the massive amounts of money being funneled into it.

A study by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s National Civics Literacy Board found that on average, seniors in college would fail (that is literally earn an “F”) a simple American civics literacy exam. Further the study found that college “seniors were especially less likely than freshmen to correctly answer questions about major themes in American history.” Is it any wonder with such an appalling failure on the part of our educational system that the American people can elect a man to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” that believes that that same Constitution is fundamentally flawed and contains restrictions that must be circumvented in order for government to function?

We MUST educate the American electorate about our history. We must educate them about the foundational principles upon which our nation is based. We must educate them as to the sacrifices of the men and women that purchased our liberties with their fortunes, their honor, and their lives. We must educate them to ensure their understanding of what it is that truly makes our nation great.

These are noble ends. Our intentions are good. We must use noble means to achieve them lest they merely become the Devil’s paving stones.

Next time, a different take on the meaning of the statement: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” By their fruits shall you know them.

http://perrinelson.com/2008/11/12/1276.aspx

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