Michael Mitchell: Archive

"If people did not indulge in such abject evasions as the claim that some contemptible liar 'means well' -- that a mooching bum 'can't help it' -- that a juvenile delinquent 'needs love' -- that a criminal 'doesn't know any better' -- that a power-seeking politician is moved by patriotic concern for 'the public good' -- that communists are merely 'agrarian reformers' -- the history of the past few decades, or centuries, would have been different."

--Ayn Rand, The Virtue Of Selfishness

If justice is a virtue, then mercy is a vice. People must be held accountable for their actions, otherwise we all suffer for sanctioning their sins, and rightly so.