It’s simple to miss the significance of small compromises. They appear so insignificant. But small compromises ultimately flip into large compromises that take us additional than we wish to go and value us greater than we ever thought attainable.
That darkish actuality is captured in a film from the early 1960s known as Judgment at Nuremberg. The movie dramatically portrays the army tribunal that prosecuted Nazi leaders accused of crimes in opposition to humanity throughout World War II.
Spencer Tracy performs Judge Dan Haywood, who leads the trial. Burt Lancaster performs Ernst Janning, a revered authorized scholar who admits to sentencing harmless individuals to demise beneath the Nazi regime.
After Janning is convicted, he complains that his compromises have been small and wonders how might issues come to a degree the place hundreds of thousands of harmless individuals have been murdered? In response, Judge Haywood says that horrible consequence was inevitable the primary time Janning sentenced an harmless man to demise.
Small compromises, left unchecked, flip into large issues. They fire up a downward spiral of unfavourable penalties that grow to be tougher and tougher to reverse till, lastly, you’ve obtained a metaphorical holocaust in your fingers.
The antidote to compromise is conviction. Conviction compels us to face for what’s proper within the face of opposition, to be a voice for individuals who can’t communicate for themselves, and to guard the values that permit our nation to thrive.
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