You just can't make this stuff up

[sirs]

Ends justifies the means.  I rest my case

[Xavier_Onassis]

What does this mean, "The ends justifies the means".

It is certainly true most of the time.

I want a cheeseburger (the end), so I give the Burger King cashier  $1.99 and the special coupon I got in my mailbox(the means).

To date, I have asked again and again in many forums what does this mean and why does the end NOT justify the means? 

It depends on what means are used. Certainly the means to getting a cheeseburger is not pointing a gun at the Burger King cashier.

So some, but all means justify the ends. Just saying that the end does NOT justify the means involves a value judgement and good sense, and that is always what the discussion is really about.

So yeah, as a rule, the stipulated end DOES justify the means.

sirs just heard this lambasted on some rightwing web site and is clueless about what it means. I guess he likes the way it sounds sort of profound.

[Plane]

   The ends never seem to arrive.

     The means are where we live most of our lives.

         A united and peaceful Europe sounds like a very good end, but for Napoleon and Hitler  the means to that end were so destructive that the end was ruined by the means.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Napoleon and Hitler wanted France to be the main country and the others to be tributaries. Peace was not an essential part of the plan of either of them.

[Plane]

Peace is how these plans get sold.

It might even be one of the goals of the leadership.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Hitler worshiped war and thought it to be a good thing, like PE class for the nation.
Napoleon wanted to depose the royal heads of Europe because they were against him as a usurper.

Propaganda involving peace was not needed in France or Germany. The people who served in the armies were motivated by nationalism and the idea of national superiority.

Rather like the US claim of "American Exceptionalism"

[sirs]

With the added qualifier we're not mandating that any other country clone our way of life & government,  or face war and gas chambers

[Xavier_Onassis]

It is still upsetting that there were not enough protesters to prevent the Iraq Wars.
The US is clearly more moral than the Nazis.

I was referring to attitudes of the civilian population, not gas chambers.

[sirs]

It is still upsetting that there were not enough protesters to prevent the Iraq Wars.
The US is clearly more moral than the Nazis.

Probably because as most agreed, including a majority of your precious Democrats,  it was the right thing to do

[Xavier_Onassis]

The people of this country were propagandized to invade Iraq. Polls sho that a huge number of them thought it should be done to punish "the Ay-rabs" for 9-11.
It was a stupid decision, based on deliberately distorted and false information, and OI was entirely right about hos it should have never happened, which I said at the time.

[sirs]

Your opinion on this matter has been weighed, measured, and found wanting

[Xavier_Onassis]

Like you have the ability to judge anything.

[sirs]

Actually,  I have the ability to judge everything, not that that's the point to anything.