Burning Down the Barn

The speech I am reading delivered by Adlai Stevenson is chocker block full of good stuff I reckon.  If I am looking for a sign, there it is.  It says “Get a life Kuskie.”
In the meantime, I am getting off on some of the things I am reading.  Something he said that I just read is “we must take care not to burn down the barn to kill them rats.”  I have good stuff happening and bad stuff.  In dealing with the bad stuff, I must be careful not to pull up the good stuff. 
To me it is like the weed killer available.  Some of it is really specific.  It is not to be applied indiscriminately.  If it is, the consequences can be the killing of the good stuff along with the bad stuff.  We saw that recently on Gardening Australia.  A guy was keeping bees.  He had become renowned.   The neighbour wanted to get ride of weeds and indiscriminately sprayed.  Thousands of bees died.  Weeds are bad.  Bees are good.  I did not think the bees had to die.  There was a solution that could have gotten rid of the weeds and allowed the bees to live.  But instead the solving of one problem caused another.
For years we had a possum that would leave its tree in the evening and do what possums do at night.  It is pure speculation, but we think it was poisoned by a new neighbour.  One day we found it in our yard, and it did not look well.  The next day we found it again.  Dead.  The neighbour saw the possum as bad.  We saw it as good in that it was not disturbing us.  (We try to limit the use of chemicals in our yard so that animals have a safe place.)
I may or may not agree with a cause, but I am unequivocal when it comes to methodology.  For me agreeing or not is beside the point.  I cannot agree to someone inconveniencing others to get their point across (I think war is different).  To me, everyone needs to be able to live their life without another trying to force their will on them.
Besides it seems many causes are counterproductive.  I am big on considering the end of a matter.  So often it seems to me the end is not justified, let alone the means.  For example, communism was seen as a “cradle to grave” caring for the individual.  A noble ambition but it produced incredible disincentive.  There were shortages and wasted lives and deaths.  Some things are doomed to failure.  It is one of the reasons why social engineering is a no-no to me.  So often the goal does not account for the make up of the individual.  It is like trying to put a square peg into a round hole.  No matter how worthy the cause of the square peg is, it belongs in a square hole.
Still, for some things I am not optimistic.  History has shown that things have happened and continue to happen and will happen.  It seems the best I can do is live how I see is best.