A Wise Letter

My mom recently got this letter from her brother. She shared it with me and I liked it so much, that I asked permission to share it with y'all (didn't I say that like a true Texan? Aren't y'all proud?)

My point in posting this is not to start a debate over any of the individual points in this letter. I'm not sure that I agree with every point myself. But I really appreciate the general premise, summarized in the first paragraph.

So here it is, basically unedited (I fixed a typo):
EDIT: wow, didn't realize quite how long this would be, so I am abbreviating it slightly. Ellipses where the deleted portions were.

I have a theory that is hard to explain. It is that many times if not all the time in politics the right things happen for the wrong reasons and the wrong things for the right reasons, and that that happens on multiple levels - so that the right things are also the wrong things and the right reasons are also the wrong reasons.

Jimmy Carter was a good president because he didn't do much: the wrong reason but the right result.

Obama may let all the illegals become legal for free without responsibility for having violated the law. His reason may be compassion (the right reason on one level) but an offense of justice (the wrong reason) on another level -- but what may be the result? The illegals become citizens, claiming benefits (the wrong thing), paying taxes (the right thing), getting educated (the right thing) at our expense (the wrong thing), and eventually becoming "climatized" as true Americans (the right thing). The long term result may be the right thing, while intermediate results may be the wrong thing. Or it might play out a different way.

What about the war? Why are we at war? To protect our country against terrorism (the right reason) except maybe that's only a front for the true reason, which might be to protect private oil interests (the wrong reason). Even if it's for the aforementioned right reason, it might be the wrong thing - the wrong way to approach it. So we may be doing the wrong thing for the right reason. But what is the result? We improve the quality of life and slowly teach a stiff-necked people a little about freedom which they would never learn otherwise (the right thing) but this is also the wrong thing because to do so we must force our will upon them (the wrong reason) and expand our imperialism (the wrong reason). And the result, instead of being becoming more free (the right thing), the Iraqui people become instead only more incensed against their imperialist aggressors (the wrong thing), which is also the right thing because American imperialism should not be allowed to go unchecked. Yet despite the wrong result of creating enemies and slowly alienating the world against us (the wrong thing) the purposes of God are furthered because it begins to breaks the shackles of a Satanic religion (the right reason). It does this by introducing the decadent Western ways upon a religious and in many ways moral people (the Saudis, for example, complain that Western ways are corrupting their people), but these decadent Western ways also bring with them an appreciation and love for freedom - the wrong reasons producing the right results, and so in a back-handed way our American imperialism is just what they need and they benefit even if we have no right to force them.

...

Even people's reasons are both right and wrong on different levels. Democrats often do things out of compassion (the right reason) while failing to understand the principles of self reliance and responsibility. While Republicans, upholding these principles (supposedly), sometimes go too far.

The last Republican convention I watched (2004) had all the right reasons, but few of the expressed right reasons actually made it beyond the doors of the convention hall, and they did all the wrong things.

It is noticed that some economic group is being short-changed and the desire is to fix it (the right reason), so a law is passed which gives that group a tax refund, which is right thing because it corrects the injustice, but the wrong thing because again it singles out one group for special treatment, creating a new injustice.

...

And what if our political decisions result in the weakening of American sovereignty? which any trueblooded John Bircher can tell you plenty about. This is certainly the wrong thing. Or is it? Perhaps in the justice of God a nation cannot be trusted and must be reduced whose people violate His laws and ignore and forget the principles of morality. Perhaps we are not worthy of the freedom we have and so some of it must be taken away from us and we must live under reduced liberty because that is all we are capable of abiding. So the destruction of America by scheming and wicked men may be the right thing for the wrong reasons. And yet through it all the other nations of the world are blessed. Yet they also become more and more sucked in to one world system ruled by a faceless nameless elite. Satan's kingdom thrives ... but only so that it will fall in the end and be taken over at the second coming ... and at this point I must end my speculation because it's more and more guessing and how shall I make sense of it all ... but at least I perceive that there are many levels to all developments, and the worst may yet be the best in some ways. As Charles Dickens said, in the days of the French revolution and the accompaning turning upside down of all the systems of men, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ..."