2011 – National 4th Grade 5th Place Award Winner:

Kaya L. Goosby, Hawaii.

Do the Ends Justify the Means ?

In my opinion, the ends do not always justify the means but, in many cases they do; for example in Egypt the people are currently protesting because they are unhappy with the president that they have had for the past 30 years and so supporters of the president beat them up.

The Egyptian people started out the friendly protesting and signs but quickly turned to violence after supporters of the president started to beat them up. The protesters then began throwing things, screaming and fighting against the supporters of the president who were whipping people. Eventually the president took away all the peoples cell phone and computers because he was concerned about other countries finding out what was going on in Egypt.

The president has agreed to leave in September and there will be a new president as a result of all the protesting and violence from the Egyptian people. I feel that it is ok that the protesters defended themselves because if they just kept peacefully protesting eventually they would be injured and possibly killed.

Unfortunately, our world is not perfect so we tend to make bad choices like what the Egyptian supporters of the president did when they chose to be violent toward the people that wanted a new president when they could have just let the protesters continue to protest peacefully. The protesters were not harming anybody until the supporters of the president did. I feel it is clear that in this situation, the ends do justify the means.

 

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