An act can only be judged as virtuous if it meets all of the following criteria:
1. The act intended must be a good act.
2. The intent must be good.
3. The means used to achieve the act must also be good (it is not permitted to do evil that good may result).
4. The result must be good.
5. If any evil occurs as an effect of the act, the evil must be unintended and of lesser effect than the resulting good.
The Evils of modern liberalism result from the use of Corrupt Means
Modern Liberalism does not repeatedly fail because its goals and intent are not good, per se. They are often very good. Liberalism most often fails because it is driven by the immature; souls who lack both insight and patience to understand the true causes of a societal evil and devise a fitting plan or solution. As a result, they, in their haste, do not refrain from using means that are unlawful and/or unfitting.
Consequently, the resulting evil (collateral damage, if you will) is often much greater than the good achieved. In fact, the unfitting means may actually prevent the intended good from ever being achieved. Frédéric Bastiat points this out when he writes in his masterpiece, The Law, "Since the law organizes justice, the socialists ask why the law should not also be used to organize labor, education and religion."
Bastiat's answer is as clear as it is concise: "Because it [the law] could not organize labor, education and religion without destroying justice."
He continues,"We must remember that law is force, and that, consequently, the proper function of the law cannot lawfully extend beyond the proper functions of force."
In short, when the law operates beyond its lawful parameters it contradicts itself, creating great harm and falling short of the standard to which it holds others. The powerful who hold positions meant to preserve the law commonly do this, driven by their lust for more power. Thus they create a second standard of behavior for themselves and the institutions they run, a standard far below that which they hold others. The resulting evil is commonly known as "corruption."
How Liberals react to Liberal failure
When the good fails to be realized the modern liberal remains undaunted. Rather than admit and repent the corrupt use of means, he devises means even more unfitting as a "mid-course correction," that he hopes will bring things aright. This, of course, also fails. But undaunted the modern liberal continues to tinker with society, taking risks with the lives of millions, repeating the process, ad nauseam. This is insanity in action.
Self-proclaimed Conservatives acting like Liberals
Let's look at an example that might surprise some who call themselves conservatives. Rep. Michelle Bachmann says that if she becomes president she will promote and sign a bill saying that marriage is only between a man and a woman. Others are in favor of a law making English the language of the American Empire.
Protecting the institution of marriage is a good which all conservatives can and should embrace. A common language is important for many reasons. But the means to protect the institution of marriage as it has been historically known and practiced must be lawful--so says the true conservative, (aka the true Constitutionalist).
The problem with Rep. Bachmann's goal is her willingness to use the law to protect and defend a good that is beyond its scope and power. This unlawful means makes Rep. Bachmann's act a liberal and unconstitutional one.
True Republican Conservatism: Judge Bork and fidelity to the Law
Now, let's take a true conservative, like Judge Robert Bork. Judge Bork is a faithful Catholic. He, therefore, is personally categorically against abortion. Had he been appointed to the Supreme Court he would have voted to repeal Roe vs Wade, but not because he was personally against abortion. He would have voted for repeal because the Constitution does not give the Federal government the authority to make such a judgement. This matter, as Judge Bork has repeatedly pointed out, is a matter for the states.
One could almost be completely certain he would have the same opinion on the marriage issue. That is, if any governmental institution has the rightful authority to judge on language, or marriage or similar issues, it would be the states or the people of the states, with their unlimited and unenumerated Constitutional powers.
For Judge Bork the problem is not his opposition to the good desired, but the means used to achieve it. According to the law of the land only the states or the people of the states have authority to judge in these and similar areas. The judge, as a true conservative, refuses to make it legal to use the corrupt and lawless means to achieve a goal, even if that goal is a true good.
Lincoln, Modern Liberalism and Slavery
Finally, no one can deny that the goal of ending slavery was and is an indisputable good. But the horrific and unconstitutional means used by the Lincoln administration to accomplish it in America did not result in freedom. It resulted in the mere exchange of chattel slavery for political slavery--the slavery resulting when sovereign states and sovereign peoples are forced to remain in a relationship they despise and which they see as abusive and destructive to them as a sovereign people.
The central principle of the Declaration of Independence rejects the right of governments to subject a people against their will. The sovereign right to self-government and self-determination was the core justification for the American Revolution. When Lincoln used means contradictory to this principle, he began a process that reversed the victory of the colonists over Great Britain––a process that has once again enslaved Americans to a tyrannical, consolidated power: its' own government.
The political slavery resulting from the unconstitutional use of force by the Federal government has been much greater, more pervasive, more far reaching and much more destructive to liberty and than the chattel slavery we inherited from Great Britain.
The evil of political slavery was not the necessary price for ending chattel slavery. Political slavery was caused by the corrupt and lawless means used to achieve it: sectional hegemony and the subjugation of sovereign states and sovereign peoples to the brute force of centralized power--inhuman means clearly hostile to American Liberty.
Slavery came to an end around the world without the use of violence and force, save in only a few instances. In those instances where violence was used, slavery provided the excuse for the use of violence, but was not the real reason. The reason, in the case of America, was the desire of a few for all power to be consolidated in Washington.
The Southern States opposed such consolidation and were able to prevent it for the first seventy years of the Republic. Their subjugation was essential if northern consolidators were to achieve their goal. The war, carried out under the guise of the false philanthropy of ending slavery, was the means to that end.
The Sorry Results
Americans today are suffering in uncounted ways and their personal freedoms are in grave peril as a result of that consolidation...all flowing from the corrupt and lawless means used to end the evil of slavery.
We must commend the leaders then, because they did not hide the real reason for the means they used. The leaders stated again and again, before, during and after the war, their intent was to change the loyalty and fealty of the individual citizen from his family, his community, his region and state to exclusive devotion to the Federal government. Nationalism was to usurp patriotism. As Seward repeatedly stated, the desire of the Radical Republicans was "To make a man love his nation more than his state."
The ending of slavery was simply another means to weaken those sovereign forces that opposed a consolidated Empire, an Empire that was to be used by the few to achieve untold power and wealth for themselves at the expense of the liberty of the many.
Our present leaders and their "court historians", as apologists for the War, are not so forthright. They insist the exclusive intent of the Federal Government was to end slavery. They conveniently forget there was, within the Constitution, a peaceful and constitutional means to do so. Their blatant dishonesty reveals that they are even more corrupt than the schemers who brought about the war in 1861, and their corrupt puppet, Abraham Lincoln.
These are only a few of the horrible, profound and long-reaching effects of the use of corrupt and lawless means in order to achieve a particular good. These means in the modern world are all but ubiquitous. Few in power refrain from the use of such means.
As long as there are those in power, regardless of their political label, who believe the ends justify the means and do not shirk from their use, the erosion of our liberties will continue unabated. That is why I am supporting Ron Paul for president, and not faux conservatives like Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum, both of whom would abuse the power of the office of the presidency to accomplish that which is beyond the scope of the authority of the Federal government, as defined and limited by the law of the land: The Constitution of the United States of America.
