Might doesn’t make right
“Might makes right” is an aphorism, a terse saying or astute observation. But such a saying or observation as “might makes right” can have devastating effects.
It is an absurd saying, it is a dangerous statement, it is the credo of totalitarian regimes, it has no place in the decision-making of a democracy, and it appears to be a deciding principle of President Trump and his administration.
John Altgeld, the 20th governor of Illinois, who served from 1893 to 1897, had this to say about this aphorism: “The doctrine that might makes right has covered the earth with misery. While it crushes the weak, it also destroys the strong. Every deceit, every cruelty, every wrong, reaches back sooner or later and crushes its author. Justice is moral health, bringing happiness, wrong is moral disease, bringing mortal death.”
Those who cheer Trump’s decisions – congressmen, government pundits, journalists and ordinary citizens – to use multiple missile strikes to destroy a questionable target in Syria, to drop a huge bomb in a remote area of Afghanistan, to send a naval battle group in the direction of North Korea, need to step back and rethink the consequences of these actions and ask: “What did they or do they really accomplish, and what is the policy moving forward?”
Does this administration realize that its “saber-rattling” may result in devastating conflicts with multiple casualties of its own citizens; that crushing the weak of multiple countries is abhorrent; and that the moral fabric of our democracy may be in jeopardy?
Pacifism and militarism: they are extreme doctrines; and reasonable and sensible people should consider them as such. What actions should be considered? Diplomacy, diplomacy, diplomacy and the very, very, very last action: use of military force.
Whatever your political leaning may be – Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, libertarian or socialist, or any combination of all six – do not allow this bizarre president and those who surround him to deceive you with their flip-flop, infantile thinking about foreign affairs and demand reasonable, thoughtful and just decisions when it comes to confronting belligerent countries.
Trump’s surrounding world is tightly guarded and relatively safe; do not allow him to expose your world to one of continual uncertainty and danger. Remember, once out of office and the return to private life, Trump will resume his billionaires’ life. You in all likelihood, may be stranded in the same economic position you were in 2016!
Edwin Lefevre is a resident of Monessen.