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[DirkGently]

7. That's more an argument for evil, isn't it?

I don't know if this was meant ironically? Sorry, the link is blocked for me, so I can't see where the rest of the essay goes.

You can't rise and sleep under the blanket of the very freedom they provide and then question the way they provide it, okay?

But that's not Orwell. It's a bit from Jack Nicholson's entitled, amoral, fascist tirade from a A Few Good Men, wherein he tried to justify having a recruit tortured to death for incompetence on the theory that no one can question anything done in the name of "guarding the walls."

This is the mistake Republicans and other zero-sum thinkers make routinely. It's why they want torture programs and spying on political enemies and journalists. It's why they make up false arguments for war, no matter what price the rest of us pay for it. It's why Cheney bragged about "going to the dark side."

The "dark side" doesn't actually work, in the long run. Sure, you can pull a few things off in the short run with brutality, ruthlessness, callousness, and cruelty. You can make a few people afraid for a while and get them to shut up or go away.

But then comes the backlash. The sons and daughters grow up thinking of nothing but revenge. No one trusts your word, because you have proven yourself cynical and ruthless. You can't build anything or cooperate with anyone. You can only dominate briefly through brute force before it all turns to shit because evil doesn't actually work.

We don't need the kind of would-be "protectors" who brag about the people they've killed and cultivate the identity of being a scary bad-ass.

When we fight, we do it without malice and without taking joy or pride in inflicting destruction. We do it because we must, only because we must, only as much as we must. People -- even those who have really 'been there' -- who think war or violence is a strutting game of counting coup aren't actually very good at defending anything. They only know how to destroy, because they don't understand what fighting is actually for.

So, yes, we judge, even when roughness and violence are involved. We call it honor or ethics or just plain intelligence. Those in a rush to justify dumping all of those things out of "necessity" don't really understand the world, and don't believe in the values they exhort us to jettison in the first place. They are embracing evil, and they will lose.

If we allow them to represent us, we will lose as well.