Robert Heinlein once posed a question: [View all]

... "When is it moral for a government to do what it is immoral for an individual to do?"

In reference to violence against women and minorities, I offer the following observations:

I suggest that the institutionalization of violence, especially violence towards our own citizens, speaks to that question. I also suggest that there are quite a few people who do not understand the ethical dictum "What I do through another's hands, I do myself." While I would never try to float a serious proposition that people actually do feel a queasy conscience about committing violence themselves, for many I think the opportunity to be sanctimonious, take the moral high ground, and deplore what our institutions do "of necessity" while sadly acknowledging that necessity, adds a piquant spice of justification to their hatred and greed. I doubt, too, it is a sentiment wholly confined to males, for there are many females who support the misogynistic patriarchy for their own reasons (they must be getting something out of it, though I can't imagine what, unless it is a hope of living a life of luxury and privilege as the appendix of an alpha male, not dissimilar to the hope felt by many of the financially oppressed, that they will be rich one day).

-- Mal