As Churchill correctly noted, the horrors he listed were perpetrated by the ‘mighty educated States.’ Indeed, they were quite beyond the power of individuals, however evil. It is commonplace that men are excessively ruthless and cruel not as a rule out of avowed malice but from outraged righteousness. How much more is this true of legally constituted states, invested with all the seeming moral authority of parliaments and congresses and courts of justice! The destructive capacity of the individual, however vicious, is small; of the state, however well-intentioned, almost limitless.
-Paul Johnson, Modern Times
A.K.
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