I've been trying for some time to figure out exactly what "principles" are. Is there a universally agreed-upon definition?

All too often, when someone is called "unprincipled" it will arise in a political disagreement -- usually over what tactics and methods should be used to advance an argument or a cause. People who play by certain rules, such as fairness in debating, obedience to the law, honoring the truth (or insisting on logical arguments, which is one of my frequent themes), will tend to call those who don't "unprincipled."

My question is this: are those who are deemed "unprincipled" really unprincipled? Or are they simply activists who believe that the ultimate truth of their cause is more important than adhering to what they consider "someone else's rules"?

A good example can be found in this quote from Glenn Greenwald (in flaming red), as discussed by Jeff Goldstein:

There are some people who treat our conflicts with the Bush administration and their followers as just a matter of basic, friendly political and policy differences--along the lines of "what should the rate of capital gains tax be?" or "what type of laws can best encourage employers to provide more benefits to their employees"--and therefore, we treat people who support the administration with respect and civility and simply have nice, clean discussions to sort out our differences among well-intentioned people.

That isn't how I see that, and nobody should come to this blog expecting that. I don't think I've done anything to lead anyone to expect otherwise. I see the Bush movement and its various component parts as a plague and a threat, as anything but well-intentioned. My goal, politically speaking, is to do what I can to undermine it and the institutions that have both supported and enabled it.

There you have it: an admission by Greenwald(s) that he is justified in using whatever bad faith arguments he must to "undermine" the Bush administration and to demonize those who support its policies.

Which makes Greenwald(s) an admitted demagogue--and explains, in large part, why his jeremiads are so transparently disingenuous. Those who cite him approvingly, it follows, are either complicit in his goal of undermining this administration, or else are his (willing?) dupes.

Either way, he's a fraud, and his supporters either frauds or dullards.

That he spent his time today giving cover to those who essentially cheered on the Taliban marks him as someone whose hatred of Bush has, at long last, shown him to be among those whose love of country is provisional--granted on the condition that policies he likes are in place, and leaders he favors are in power.

But still, my question about principles has not been answered. While I suspect most (but not all!) of the readers of this blog would call Glenn Greenwald unprincipled, in his mind he is quite the opposite. He answers to a higher set of principles, best known to him, and subject only to his own review. He wants what he wants, and those who disagree with him are in his mind murderous sociopathic, bloodthirsty, downright frightening right-wing authoritarians. The details of this demented argument are not especially worth my time, but it's important to bear in mind that Greenwald (in conjunction with Sadly No) is making the argument about Glenn Reynolds, which I find deeply disturbing. Because if (and I mean if) we assume Greenwald really believes these things, then almost anything he does becomes justified.

How many of us would consider Count von Stauffenberg's assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler to have been unprincipled? Very few. That's because defeating murderous sociopathic fascism is a moral principle of the highest order. Thus, if Greenwald believes his vicious rhetoric, this makes him a moderate in comparison to the highly principled Count von Stauffenberg.

So what are "principles"? Are they "relative"?

I still don't know, but I do hope Jeff Goldstein is right about Greenwald being a demagogue.

Whether this make me a hopeless moral relativist is another question.