Obviously this is what you and your liberal/progressive elk subscribe to: Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals! Sad.......but true!
1. One’s concerns with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s personal interest in the issue.
Here he is saying that it is easy to judge the behavior of others as ethical or unethical if your ass isn’t on the line. “We all have strength enough to endure the misfortune of others.”
2. The judgment of the ethics of means is dependent upon the political position of those sitting in judgment.
Here he explains that all is relative. A hawk may seem evil to a field mouse while we judge the hawk to be morally neutral. Wolves are evil to deer and the George Washington was evil in the judgment of King George II. He would today that bin Laden is only evil to Americans but that is a subjective judgment. He is no more evil to his supporters than was George Washington to the colonial citizens.
3. In war the end justifies almost any means.
When your ass is on the line, you can do anything and it may be considered moral. He relates the story of Winston Churchill welcoming the Soviet Union to the alliance against Hitler and being asked if it was morally acceptable to form an alliance with a totalitarian murderer like Stalin, Churchill assured his questioner that there is was no moral issues in partnering with Stalin. He said, “I have only one purpose, the destruction of Hitler, and my life is much simplified thereby. If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least one favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.”
4. Judgment must be made in the context of the times in which the action occurred and not from any other chronological vantage point.
Habeus corpus is a moral good but Abraham Lincoln suspended it during the Civil War and used illegal military commissions to try civilians. Alinsky believes that this was morally acceptable then, due to the circumstances, even if it wouldn’t be today.
5. Concern with ethics increases with the number of means available and vice versa.
Here he essentially says that, when you have multiple means, you should use the most ethical. If you are limited with a single means for achieving your end, you should use it without consideration of the ethics of it… you have no other choice. If you have many choices of means to achieve your end, you can and should concern yourself with ethics.
6. The less important the end to be desired, the more one can afford to engage in ethical evaluations of means.
This is pretty straight forward. Ends of little importance should have their means intensely vetted. With critically important ends, the ethics of the means become of little consequence.
7. Generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics.
History is written by the winners. If you are successful in accomplishing your end, your means will be judged ethical regardless of what occurred.
8. The morality of a means depends upon whether the means is being employed at a time of imminent defeat or imminent victory.
It isn’t okay to go straight to the nuclear option. If, on the other hand, the enemy is at the gates and defeat is imminent, you can take the gloves off. When you are making your last stand, anything you do is ethical.
9. Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.
Blockading Southern ports during the Civil War was judged unethical by the Confederates. Fighting like Indians and savages by the militia during the U.S. Revolutionary War was considered unethical by the British. Tea parties and boisterous townhall meetings are considered unethical by Pelosi and Reid. If it works, the opposition will call it unethical.
10. You do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments.
Alinsky claims that Gandhi would rather have fought the British with firearms but he had no guns and he had no army. Therefore he invented nonviolent resistance and pretended that it was his first choice due to the ethics of it. Alinsky argues that nonviolence was his only choice so he draped it in morality so it didn’t appear to be the only choice of a weak movement.
11. Goals must be phrased in general terms like “ Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” “Of the Common Welfare,” “Pursuit of Happiness,” or “Bread and Peace.”
Alinsky wants to ensure a “goal once named cannot be countermanded.” It doesn’t matter that setting out to preserve the Union becomes a quest to end slavery if the entire enterprise has its goals marketed broadly in terms of freedom and liberty. It is all in the spin.
The summation of these rules is that there is no objective morality or individual ethic. All ethics and morality are circumstantial and, while all ends don’t justify any means, there are ends that justify any means. Alinsky argues that important ends justify almost any means and that individual morality is the hobgoblin of history’s losers.
The above set of rules certainly justify as ethical and moral the waterboarding of Kahlid Sheik Mohammad as a means to save many thousands of American lives. The above rules also justify Holder’s investigation and prosecution of the waterboarders. The ethical justification of Holder’s hobbling of the CIA is to solidify the support of the base for Obama and to bring about the Administration’s goal of weakening the CIA and its ability to, in their view, oppress people around the world. Obama and Holder almost certainly have no opposition to waterboarding per se, they are simply using available means to reach what they see as critically important ends. This, according to Alinsky, is all perfectly ethical.
You will find in the Obama Administration no moral compass. The term “moral compass” implies there is some objective “true north” of moral and ethical behavior. As students of Alinsky, Obama and his enablers believe no such objectively moral absolutes exist. Individual ethics are for suckers. Anchored morality is for losers. The ends will always justify the means for the victorious.
This is the opponent we face. We should not be surprised when the Obama Administration justifies shocking means to what they deem critical ends.