Aside

Bearing False Witness for Political Gain

I was smeared by CNN so I know exactly what the Koch brothers are going through. However, they appear to be getting smeared from someone higher up the food chain, according to former Solicitor General Theodore Olson.

Via WSJ:

How would you feel if aides to the president of the United States singled you out by name for attack, and if you were featured prominently in the president’s re-election campaign as an enemy of the people?

What would you do if the White House engaged in derogatory speculative innuendo about the integrity of your tax returns? Suppose also that the president’s surrogates and allies in the media regularly attacked you, sullied your reputation and questioned your integrity. On top of all of that, what if a leading member of the president’s party in Congress demanded your appearance before a congressional committee this week so that you could be interrogated about the Keystone XL oil pipeline project in which you have repeatedly—and accurately—stated that you have no involvement?

Consider that all this is happening because you have been selected as an attractive political punching bag by the president’s re-election team. This is precisely what has happened to Charles and David Koch, even though they are private citizens, and neither is a candidate for the president’s or anyone else’s office.

If Olson is right, the a violation of the 9th Commandment (Bearing False Witness) is being perpetrated against private citizens from inside the halls of power.

In his piece, Olson informs readers what the truth about the Koch Brothers is:

What Messrs. Koch do, in fact, is manage businesses that provide employment to more than 50,000 people in North America in legitimate, productive industries. They also give millions of dollars to medical researchers, hospitals and cultural institutions. Their biggest offense, apparently, is that they also contribute generously to nonprofit organizations that promote personal liberty and free enterprise, and some of those organizations oppose policies advocated by the president.

This is a must read.

If this decision is being made at the very top, it comes from a President of the United States who is himself a student of Saul Alinsky. In his defining work, Rules for Radicals, Alinsky was a clear proponent of ends-justifies-the-means thinking.

In fact, he wrote:

“The end is what you want, the means is how you get it. Whenever we think about social change, the question of means and ends arises. The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms. He has no other problem; he thinks only of his actual resources and the possibilities of various choices of action. He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work. … The real arena is corrupt and bloody.” p.24

“The means-and-ends moralists, constantly obsessed with the ethics of the means used by the Have-Nots against the Haves, should search themselves as to their real political position. In fact, they are passive — but real — allies of the Haves…. The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means… The standards of judgment must be rooted in the whys and wherefores of life as it is lived, the world as it is, not our wished-for fantasy of the world as it should be….” pp.25-26

“The third rule of ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means….” p.29

“The seventh rule… is that generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics….” p.34

“The tenth rule… is you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments…. It involves sifting the multiple factors which combine in creating the circumstances at any given time… Who, and how many will support the action?… If weapons are needed, then are appropriate d weapons available? Availability of means determines whether you will be underground or above ground; whether you will move quickly or slowly…” p.36

It also bears mentioning that Alinsky dedicated Rules for Radicals to “Lucifer.”

There is a reason for the Commandment about not bearing false witness. It is sinful and it is evil.

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