2011 – National 5th Grade 3rd Place Award Winner:

Liam Greene, Texas.

Do the Ends Justify the Means ?

Do the means have a positive effect on the end? Do the means have a negative effect on the present or is it good for the future? So if it is going to benefit the future by destroying the present, do the means justify the end? Were the means worth it? For example, is bombing a country in order to make a better country worth it? Were the intentions good? Would it be worth millions of people dying? Once it is bombed, the goal is to make it work differently, so the county has been destroyed in order to make a better county. But who is going to lead the nation? I am, Machiavelli. I am the one who made the plan and deceived the country. This could be an example from my book, The Prince. In the end, nobody knows it was me so I gained power in order to from a better nation, a new and great county which would be for the good of the people. I need to control it so it will be the way I want it to be. So now that I have power, I can help our country rebuild and make a better nation.

Thinking to myself:
A few months later: Now that I look back on bombing the country, I doubt and question what I have done. I asked myself this question dozens of times before I acted: “Is destroying the present to make a better future work it?” Now the question has changed and with that came more questions. Now that I am in my past’s future, was it worth it? Was it really for good? Did I do the right thing? Did my means justify this end? I don’t know. At least I can be sure what I did will turn out the way I wanted it to because now I have power. Was it worth it though? There will be many different opinions. I don’t want to see what my god says about this, if there is one. Were my actions for good? I doubt everything now. I believe my plan can only be judged by other people, but they also have to see my point of view too. They would have to get past all the negative parts of my actions, but no one will know my plan and what I did. I am now in power and I am not going to tell Think about this how some people’s view are different than others. For example, a Democrat and Republican might look at a political event in two very different ways. A mother might think it is a terrible injustice that her child was killed in a bombing. But someone who had a child murdered might be glad that the county was bombed and now the murderer is dead. I don’t want people to judge me, I just would want them to judge what I did. I will not tell because they will judge the person no his or her viewpoint. Though to judge what I have done they must look at it from as many different viewpoints as they can They must also look at the benefits and get past the coming, the killing, the slaughter, and the blood. I would want them to plan for the future and focus it and not the present. If you think about only the present and act upon it, it makes it the future worse. Example: using our earth’s non-renewable resources will make them run out in the future. But…to judge what I have done, the whole world would have to know. Judging it from many different views is better than just one. But see, I never planned to tell the world but…I must keep in power to make sure what I have done is for the benefit of now, our past’s future and also for today’s future….I will not tell the world that I destroyed the country, so I won’t know what they think because I won’t tell. Does the end justify the means? Did the means justify the end? Was it worth it? Only the world, the people’s view, can tell. What do you think?

-Niccolo Machiavelli

 

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