On the Enormities of Kindly Men

A reader with the ever-present name of The Ubiquitous utters this cri de coeur:

During election night, I cheered in irony because if I did not laugh I would not know what to do. The greatness in this sarcastic folly struck me only the following day in conversation with a friend, a God-fearing man who means well — and voted for Mr. Obama.

“But what about abortion? How is that not terrible?”

“It’s just one issue … ”

True to form, I cut him off bitterly, and the weight on my shoulders increased with every word: “It is not an issue. It’s everything. How can it be an issue when the scale boggles the mind? What is it, 45 million in the United States alone, since the ’70s?”

Any man who openly advocates for abortion may seem a nice man, a decent man, who loves his daughters and means well. But these otherwise noble qualities do not redeem a man, but condemn him. It is kinder, in a sense, to Mr. Obama if we demonize him. For the other option is that he is a dupe, willing or unwilling.

The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid “dens of crime” that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices.

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.