But what of good intentions?
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it." Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes (American Baptist Minister and Civil-Rights Leader. 1929-1968)
Good intentions mean nothing without action. Good intentions followed by the lack of action are worse then negative actions since verbal intentions followed by no action builds a mountain of hope upon a foundation of sand.
To speak of the ‘rights’ of the individual and turn away when such rights are being abused is to act ‘passively’.
Now there is no doubt that one is only human and to suggest that the individual must champion all wrongs is to deny one’s human limitations. On the other hand, to proclaim one believes in the ‘rights’ of the individual, to profess one believes in the concept:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…The Declaration of Independence – Thomas Jefferson
…and then to berate, castigate, and rebuke the effort of democratic societies attempting to establish such rights within societies held in check by tyrannical despots, goes beyond the word absurd.
We use force to subdue criminals. We use force to protect the defenseless. The genocide of WWII would never have ended without the use of force. To suggest force is not a viable option in today’s day and age is to follow in the footsteps of Neville Chamberlain and embrace the policy of appeasement and history has clearly shown us the consequences of appeasement.
In short shirking the process of ‘confronting evil head on’ through action is the epitome of ‘passively accepting evil’.