The Evil of the Lesser Evil is...uh...Evil.

That's such a curious phrase: "lesser of the evil." It's been in my head a lot over the passed few days, and I've been finding it rather sickening.

We choose our political leaders via this sophisticated methodology, and then we watch as our government murders other people of the world, directly or indirectly.

But we don't REALLY watch, do we? If I vote for someone I deem the lesser of the evil, and they enact new military laws, or sell weapons, or bomb a land, I am willing to look the other way. I have government programs, I have a cleaner domestic conscious. The violence doesn't bother me as much as it might otherwise.

What is the otherwise? The evil I consider greater is elected. Dammit! I worked so hard to get the less evil guy in, and now this! The greater evil murders many more people, lets many of my programs degrade, and man it sucks! I'm gonna work extra hard next time and get a better leader in there!

I find myself far more disturbed by the first scenario. It is very sociopathic, and very disturbing. With the "lesser of the evil" paradigm, we create a moral complicity for the atrocities of the state. We are willing to look the other way as long there are merely less murders and more domestic government services.

If we are willing to sacrifice lives for single pay health care, or a department of education, then we should volunteer to pick who dies. But would we really do that? Of course not. We elect people for that.

Is the state ALWAYS murderous? In some countries, not necessarily. Is the state ALWAYS violent? Absolutely. And violence begets violence, in some fashion or another, giving us our wars and discord.

So when we choose the lesser of the evil, we choose evil. The worst part is that we submit willingly under a series of shallow guarantees from our masters, who in turn wreak havoc on the poorest and the weakest, and we subsidize it all under the "moral obligation" of paying taxes. We even tell ourselves we're being charitable.

In short, the more power we are willing to give to the state, the more it will be abused, if not now, then in the near future. When we use violence to achieve our goals, it boomerangs back at us in some way or another. The reason is because at its core, the state is rotten. We reap what we sow. It's in our hands.

Let's sow some peace, eh?