amgreatness.com/2020/02/14/the-fail-of-the-left-idealism-without-realism/
“The ends justify the means” (“TEJTM”) is a platitude that has been used throughout history to rationalize the pursuit of both laudable and iniquitous goals, more often the latter than the former.
The events leading up to “national socialism” in Germany and communism in the Soviet Union, for example, illustrate how utopian visions can give rise to evil empires. An individual’s quest to obtain and retain power can become an end in itself that leads to horrific consequences, as exemplified by such notables as Josef Stalin, Bashar al-Assad, and Mao Zedong. Even in religion-inspired campaigns, such as the Crusades, the Inquisition, and ISIS, original benevolent intentions can become obscured.
Sadly, we are seeing TEJTM appear all too frequently in today’s America. With the presence of social media and a compliant mass media complex, things that may be praiseworthy goals are giving rise to proposed or actual policies that are far from benign or realistic in their application.
This country is being culturally riven from any plausible ideal of “social justice” because, too often, its implementation has become an ideological winners-versus-losers exercise.
A stark example is New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s crusade to balance racial and ethnic representation in the city’s elite special high schools. He proposes to substitute social engineering for what is now a test-based, racially blind merit system. If disavowing merit is the cure, it is far worse than the disease, because America has achieved its preeminence based mainly on rewarding merit.
There are many other examples, which go far beyond New York, of supposed social justice trampling merit in school admissions, including at elite universities. And there are countless examples of the goal of social justice being perverted and used arbitrarily to advantage one group over others—for example, citizens being denied state benefits, or at least being carefully scrutinized, while illegal residents find doors open for them. Another example is proposed reparations that are to be paid to people with little or no connection to slavery by people with no responsibility for that sordid history.
