This is for the good of all

“Every imperial project—in fact, virtually every public undertaking of every modern state—is accompanied by declarations of benevolent intention, more or less frequent and elaborate according to the scale of the undertaking and the degree of skepticism anticipated. These declarations have no evidentiary value. They are part of the manufacture of consent in democratic, and even nondemocratic, societies.” – George Scialabba, “The American Way of Strategy”