When virtue is under attack how is it justified to defend virtue with less than virtuous means? When the only hope for right is to employ a wrong is what I and others often struggle with. Does that mean that the struggle is wrong? No. It does mean however that choices must be made and often those choices contradict the very virtues we are trying to protect. It is a conundrum that often freezes us to inaction. Yet inaction is a condoning of the status quo which we have already understood to be an attack on virtue. In a perfect world the solution to every wrong would be perfectly right and be 100% effective. However we do not live in a perfect world yet so our choices are often if not most always less than desirable. What to do? Well the answer is to stop the greater harm with a lesser harm if necessary. Our conscious must allow for those times when the only immediate solution to deplorable harm is to employ another lesser form of harm to stop it. This is our dilemma. What is a lesser form of harm to stop a greater form of harm? Remember we have some understandings of how harms work in some areas of life and geography, yet as we all know time continues and factors once then are not the same now. The human experience will continue if we continue to face the tough choices in life that assail the best of who we are. If we don't defend against that which steals from us our expectation and hope for virtue to dominate our existence then we are allowing for the eventual destruction of all of us. Virtue is the worthy paradigm that should and will prevail as long as we understand that it's defense is what we do best.
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