Michael Ignatieff Quotes
An intellectual may be interested in ideas and policies for their own sake, but a politician's interest is exclusively in the question of whether an idea's time has come.
Ignatieff, Michael. Fire and Ashes: Success and Failure in Politics. Harvard University Press, 2013, p. 15.
Taylor was the Chief Prosecutor of the Nazi War Criminals at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II. After the war, there were tens of thousands of Nazis that were guilty of War Crimes. As an expediency measure, the allies decided to not formally prosecute 100,000 of the lower ranking war criminals casing the British Prosecutor to resign in protest. However, most Americans had no idea that there were so many war criminals and that the decision had been made not tp prosecute them. There were a number of trials and convictions of the highest ranking Nazis, the highest profile Nazi war criminals were executed or given life sentences. However, a larger group of the 2nd tier of war criminals benefitted from the politics of the beginning of the Cold War. Some politicians in the United States thought these Nazi War Criminals might be useful to the West in the coming struggle with Russia. Politically, they did not have enough clout to free them, but they persuaded McCloy to commute their death sentences, so that they might be released a little later to work for us against the Russians. Also, they shortened the sentences of others. The result was that there were after a few years. number of mass murderers and slave labor exploiters who ended up in significant positions in the West German government, and some like Werner Von Braun were brought to the United States to strengthen our Rocket development and jet airplane design, the only two areas where the German's were ahead of us. Most Americans had no idea that murders and war criminals were in these positions until years later.
In a zero sum system whenever one party gains, the other must lose, and if one loses, the other has a corresponding gain. At other times, legislation was not a zero sum game. Many Congressmen believed that if good legislation would be passed, BOTH parties would benefit as would the country. If poor or no legislation were passed, that would be bad for all.
Michael Grant Ignatieff PC CM is a Canadian author, academic and former politician. He was the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Official Opposition from 2008 until 2011. Known for his work as a historian, Ignatieff has held senior academic posts at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, and Toronto. He is currently rector and President of Central European University.
