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The meaning is that scoundrels, when confronted with evidence of their unanswerable crimes, will instead answer a different question: "Do you support some unque
by everybodyknows 9y ago
The meaning is that scoundrels, when confronted with evidence of their unanswerable crimes, will instead answer a different question: "Do you support some unquestionably virtuous cause?"
This is the reason that that runners of big cons typically give very generously to charities. See Anthony Trollope's "The Way We Live Now".
- eklavya 9y agoOh, I understood it differently. So it means that some scoundrels will use some virtue (in this case patriotism) to hide behind and not that patriotism is a bad thing?
- Koshkin 9y agoI wonder if this particular 'virtue' has ever led to anything good. There is a parallel in the difference between, say, love (for one's land) and faith on the one hand and patriotism and (organized) religion on the other - the latter ones have invariably been used directly to promote hatred and intolerance in support of some political goals or in justifying criminal acts.
- eklavya 8y agoYou seem to be defining the "nationalism" being discussed here.