I use these terms since I think they have value, but I want to emphasize that there is never in this world one to one congruence between either term and any human being, group, or institution. Where we want to have a little white ball opposed to a little black ball, the reality is that if–we an example–visualize them as crumpled up bits of paper, describing everything about that, say, person, then we will see both good and bad. We will see more writing/facts/opinions that tend towards hate in the black ball, and more than tend towards a sense of common humanity and love in the other, but both will have blots. None of our saints have been perfect, even by our own standards. Perfection, per se, is only possible in limited areas, and then only at the cost of rigidity in some other area.
Two quotes I offer up often: “Renounce sainthood: it will be a thousand times better for everyone”, from Lao Tzu; and “Perfect goodness is crooked”, by Chuang Tzu.
Take Egypt. A useful way to unroll this is to look at the economic system, as decribed here (you have to pay $8 a month to get the whole thing, which shouldn’t break anybody’s bank; I read the original in the paper edition).
What he describes is a system where it is almost impossible to get title to anything. If you want to open a generic business, the paperwork takes five years. So what do people do? They just set up wherever they can, whenever they want to. But this is a shaky, unsecure way of doing things. It also happens outside the taxable economy, and since it represent an amount of activity equal to or greater than “legitimate” business activity, it needs to be factored in strongly in any policy discussion.
In most developing nations, the simple act of defining and protecting property rights would go a long way towards both economic development and political stability. This should be the goal, and it is an eminently reasonable goal.
Socialists, being Romantics temperamentally, want to see mass uprising in the street, coupled by VICTORY over THE MAN. It would be like their side won. They foolishly conflate Liberal ideals with anyone who rises against an autocratic state. This is of course historically impossible to defend. Even in the paradigmatic Leftist revolution, the French Revolution, they wound up with a tyranny that made Louis XVI look like a model of temperance and moderation. Same with Lenin. Both killed more political prisoners in their first year in power than the regimes they overthrew had killed in the previous 100. This is a universal pattern. You easily add North Korea, China, Cuba, Iran, and others.
Mubarak, in sum, is neither good nor evil. He is a combination. The Muslim Brotherhood, likewise, is mostly evil, but they have done good things. They have provided charity, and the other sorts of social services that even American gangsters were known for.
The question, on Egypt, is this: given that the overarching task is to move in the direction of global peace, prosperity, liberty, and contentment, what policy best moves us, however slowly, in that direction? And if we can’t move IN that direction, which policy causes us to diverge from that goal the least quickly?
That is how I think we need to address these things.