Maybe the real fear is that, when one begins to consider the root systems of small-scale, sometimes state-supported, but often stateless evil, there’s an obligation to apply the same rigor to the large-scale machinery of imperial evil. And in doing so, one might find that what drives and absolves the state of so much evil isn’t the fear that not doing so will allow some terrorist to destroy the fabric of free society. But rather that the evil itself is necessary to the system it protects. That in the end there is no international rules-based order, no universal human rights, no equal justice
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