The Immorality of Good Intentions

The cult of good intentions -- regardless of the outcomes, often in spite of the outcomes and all historical evidence -- is why the highway to Hell has lanes that number in the millions.

Your good intentions do not make you ethical; only your good outcomes make you ethical. Refuse to even try to match the two, and you're an immoral person.

The person with good intentions is always working from a place of ignorance. With ignorance, you cannot be good. The person who acts from ignorance is a bad person.

Only the person who informs himself as fully as possible before acting or advocating is a moral person. The pretense of knowledge is a kind of ignorance, but is it one of the worst kind -- because you think you know, but you don't know. This creates the certainty the person of knowledge has, without there being sufficient reason to feel such certainty, and to act on that certainty.

Knowledge, however, is not enough. Knowledge in one area often makes one think one should have opinions about any number of other areas in which one is hardly an expert. And being an expert hardly means one also has the wisdom necessary to act. One should have the particulars of knowledge, yes, but one should also have the unity inherent in wisdom. The combination of knowledge and wisdom is beauty, and virtue aims at the beautiful.

The person with good intentions has no virtue. Only the person who acts in knowledge and wisdom both and thus aims at the beautiful has virtue.

Who, then, today has virtue?

The Prophet of Beauty

In ancient times the prophets were of wisdom.

In modern times the prophets are of knowledge.

But I am the prophet of beauty -- the unity of knowledge and wisdom.

I herald in a new era.

The Good Thing About Democracy

The good thing about a democracy is that it's not a state. If you live in a state, you don't live in a democracy, even if there are democratic elements.

There may be nothing less democratic than a pure democracy.

Republics are not democracies. They can overcome the excesses of democracy. But they can become states as well. 

The state is an improvement over monarchy. Monarchy is an improvement over theocracy. But is is truly said that the state is the coldest of monsters. It is the Leviathan of the deep.

The last thing you should want to do is vote a party of the poor into office --
A party of the poor will make more poor --
That's how they'll get more votes.

The last thing you should want to do is vote a party who favors business into office --
A party of business will protect the already-existing businesses --
That's how they'll get more votes.

The last thing you should want to do is vote a party who hates the rich into office --
A party who hates the rich will destroy the wealth of the country --
Creating equality through equal poverty.

The last thing you should want to do is vote a party who favors groups of any kind into office --
A party who favors groups will make more and more groups --
And destroy everyone not like them in their hatred for themselves.

Beware the neosegregationists, who seek to segregate  minority groups from majority groups to protect them from the majority. That is the beginning of every genocide.