MADCOW
" [S]ince
the birth of the State, the world of politics has always been and
continues to be the stage for unlimited rascality and brigandage,
brigandage and rascality which, by the way, are held in high esteem,
since they are sanctified by patriotism, by the transcendent morality
and the supreme interest of the State. This explains why the entire
history of ancient and modern states is merely a series of revolting
crimes; why kings and ministers, past and present, of all times and
all countries-statesmen, diplomats, bureaucrats, and warriors-if judged
from the standpoint of simple morality and human justice, have a hundred,
a thousand times over earned their sentence to hard labor or to the
gallows. There is no horror, no cruelty, sacrilege, or perjury, no
imposture, no infamous transaction, no cynical robbery, no bold plunder
or shabby betrayal that has not been or is not daily being perpetrated
by the representatives of the states, under no other pretext than
those elastic words, so convenient and yet so terrible: "for reasons
of state." These are truly terrible words, for they have corrupted
and dishonored, within official ranks and in society's ruling classes,
more men than has even Christianity itself. No sooner are these words
uttered than all grows silent, and everything ceases; honesty, honor,
justice, right, compassion itself ceases, and with it logic and good
sense. Black turns white, and white turns black. The lowest human
acts, the basest felonies, the most atrocious crimes become meritorious
acts. "