Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Da Shadow do!
George Rebane
That wish by the president’s opponents and enemies has been reported numerous times since he tested positive for Covid-19 and was admitted to Walter Reed. Many commentators, led by Tucker Carlson of FN, immediately reacted to such remarks with condemnation, citing moral strictures and other value statements, supposedly both communal and personal. The bottom line was that all such wishes were evil in and of themselves, and most likely those who expressed them were also evil persons.
However, there is another perspective to be had on such statements from the Left. A correspondent and RR reader questioned the automatic attribution of ‘evil’ to both the wish itself, and more strongly to the wishers. The argument offered is based on how a nation’s military is motivated and trained to kill when its members carry out the legitimate orders of its government. In the combat arms branch of every military service, the fighter is motivated to kill by being told that the enemy wishes to destroy his country and everything that is dear to him should that enemy prevail. Therefore, to prevent this, the fighter is taught to fight and kill the designated enemy. And during this process there is no moral deficit that is attached to such killings. On the contrary, this kind of killing is celebrated, and the bravest and most successful killers are recognized, congratulated, often decorated, and always appreciated for carrying out a task of great and unquestioned benefit to the fighter’s society – nation, way of life, culture, … – in short, the fighter is a defender of all that is good, and a patriot of high order.
Upon deeper examination, the rationale for such justified killings and sentiments that promote your enemy’s death is that the enemy’s survival endangers the survival of things that you value (starting with your own life), hold dear, and the succor of the environment in which you and yours want to live. When your hopes or actions are motivated by such beliefs, then such hopes and actions are not attributed to be evil.
Now stepping back to a peacetime political environment; if a group of people sharing an ideology and worldview which holds that the ascendancy/survival of a politician will result in a disaster for their country and its citizens, a disaster that will give rise to uncounted subsequent deaths of innocents through tyrannical and/or negligent public policies, then is it evil to hope for the early and imminent demise of the so-identified dastardly political leader? From that group’s perspective such a hope is socially just and a responsible sentiment. For all of them see a benefit to the nation’s common good were that politician to die.
A counter argument might be that only governments can be morally justified in wanting, preparing for, and carrying out the death(s) of its enemies (individuals, armies, cities). But such sentiments, let alone acts, are denied, nay proscribed, to smaller groups or to individuals no matter their strong beliefs about dire consequences. Killings by appropriately sized collectives are then seen to rise unblemished above the moral boundaries that contain and restrict lesser cohorts and individuals.
So what are we to make of those who wish President Trump dead?
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