The Long Game

The end justifies the means.

Means to an end.

End game.

Too many fall by the wayside when they lose sight of their beginnings, their principles and especially of the end-point of their journeys.

Political crusaders begin life with a set of principles that shape their view of the end-state of the world that they would like to see. Along the way, life and society may alter, in small or significant ways, their principles and maybe even their view of the End.

Most times, the world around them manages to do a bit more. The temptation to focus on the now and on short term glory, for whatever reason, infects and infiltrates even the most hard-core of political puritans. The delusion that single acts in one short, finite space of time will yield spectacular results that will hasten the achievement of the End takes hold in their minds.

The result is that he or she resorts to committing acts of supreme folly that ultimately leads to not even a phyrric victory but a supreme defeat; the loss of one's position and all that has been worked for as well as distancing the achievement of the End.

Like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A move that hastened the end of the Second World War but at the same time, was an act of brutal and indiscrimnate murder that ranks with the Holocaust. So did good triumph over evil? Was the End envisioned by Allies of a freer and more just world achieved? Did it bring about the End or some other second-best, twisted end?

Realpolitik. Tactics versus strategy.

I choose to argue that in politics of principle, one must stay true to principles and the End. There is no excuse for not thinking through one's steps and rushing headlong. To use a cliche, there are no gambles only calculated risks.

To achieve the End, one has to always keep to the principles that have shaped one's vision of the End. Anything less serves to diminsh one's position and makes the bringing about of the End that much harder.

Bringing about the End takes time. So be it. Take the time.