Friday, March 21, 2014

"Hanging Winston Churchill – Vicarious Liability of Leaders"

The fact that the hands of a politician are literally without blood makes his responsibility all the more despicable. He risks nothing, not even the shine on his manicure. He never looks in the faces of the dying or hears their cries. He can pretend to be blameless.

4 comments:

Shawn McEwen said...

I'm not sure I'm all in on this one. I understand what Wendy is saying, but sometimes pure circumstance has a way of spoiling events that started off as virtuous. It's easy to see a person's culpability after the dice have been cast and the game is at an end, but few can manage the foresight necessary to predict coming events, and see all possibilities. That would be something like tipping a glass of water up side down, and then having the ability to tell the water where to go. It gets very sticky out there in the ethereal world.

I also believe that in the WW II example, while Hitler KNEW what he was doing, and that it was wrong, I'm not so sure about Churchill. I happen to think that most of the German people were guilty as sin due to the fact that THEY knew what was happening and did nothing to stop it. Not a damn thing. So my question is this: If many Germans were silently complicit with the Nazi Party's agenda, was Churchill as evil as Wendy makes him out to be by bombing those same civilians? I mean if we're talking about vicarious liability here, we may as well be equal opportunity destroyers here. Also, here's another thought: Is the punishment of evil deeds even in man's domain? Anyway, just thoughts. Hope you're well.
~Shawn

Anonymous said...

The Real Churchill
http://mises.org/daily/1450

"Churchill the Socialist

"Churchill made a name for himself as an opponent of socialism both before and after the First World War, except during the war when he was a staunch promoter of war socialism, declaring in a speech: "Our whole nation must be organized, must be socialized if you like the word." Of course, such rank hypocrisy was by now Churchill's stock-in-trade, and not surprisingly, during the 1945 election, Churchill described his partners in the national unity government, the Labour Party, as totalitarians, when it was Churchill himself who had accepted the infamous Beveridge Report that laid the foundations for the post-war welfare state and Keynesian (mis)management of the economy.

"As Mises wrote in 1950, "It is noteworthy to remember that British socialism was not an achievement of Mr. Attlee's Labor Government, but of the war cabinet of Mr. Winston Churchill.""

...

"Churchill had fallen under the spell of the Fabian Society, and its leaders Beatrice and Sidney Webb, who more than any other group, are responsible for the decline of British society."

Anonymous said...

As the coming collapse will rewrite many (thought to be) givens, so to will this (unbloodied politicians) be rewritten.

Happy D said...

Just the inevitable logical extension of the dodge that the non-initiation of force doctrine has become.