A woman who mailed then-President Trump a threatening letter that contained ricin weeks before the 2020 election was sentenced to 262 months in prison on Thursday, the Department of Justice announced.
A woman who mailed then-President Trump a threatening letter that contained ricin weeks before the 2020 election was sentenced to 262 months in prison on Thursday, the Department of Justice announced.
Every time I come upon that dynamic in real life, it’s always turned out to be the wrong decision. The ends may justify the means, but the means defines the ends.
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I would, many of them are my ancestors (both sides of the conflict, and some freed by it). And the results were horrifying, even if the means were justified by the evil of slavery (which was a far greater evil than what was inflicted on the Confederates).
Sherman’s march made martyrs of the Confederate cause, and those that weren’t martyrs turned around and started the KKK, using Union brutality as a rallying cry, and the political backlash derailed Reconstruction with Jim Crow laws.
The means defined the end result, which we’re still dealing with today in the form of MAGA.
This is the dynamic I speak of. I don’t believe fighting evil is the wrong decision, but per Sun Tzu:
Had a peaceful solution been worked out, or a surrender negotiated before the razing of the Georgia countryside, I believe that Reconstruction would have been a success. Needless to say, those were unrealistic options at the time, so I do not fault my ancestors (those that fought on the winning side) for the choices they had to make. But those destructive actions led to more evil - driven underground - hiding until recent years, and still potent enough to affect our political discourse today.