Thomas Sowell

Great quote from Thomas Sowell's editorial on realclearpolitics.com from T.S. Elliot

'T.S. Eliot understood this more than half a century ago when he wrote: "Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm -- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves."'

Something I have been trying to put into words for years. Moral vanity is the driver in human affairs, not material interest. This is the reason that we are opposed by most of the world. The segment of advanced civilization that has chosen to hide behind our defenses cannot admit to itself it is on the wrong side, that the precious "international law" it hides behind is a sheild for the most monstrous dictators and thugs while the force of our arms is the source of what good has happened to humanity in the post war world. They fixate on Abu Gahrib and blind themselves to mass graves for children filled by the regimes they, the international community, sheild.

It is a form of religious politics. A religion of absolutes that blinds itself to any harm it engenders, excusing itself on the grounds of the wondrous new world of peace, order and tranquility if only we give the dictators what they want.