I think you have wildly misunderstood my point, given that your statement of "The older I get, the more I've seen people come to completely incorrect conclusions that justify their decisions to harm others" is not the polar opposite of what of I was saying - if anything, it aligns with what I was saying very well.
To rephrase, my point is that phrases like "the ends don't justify the means" and "political violence is never the answer" seem to almost always be applied in very specific contexts, completely ignoring other contexts where many people (I'd say "society at large") are completely OK with the ends justifying the means and political violence.
To use your own sentence, I've seen many people in positions of power "coming to completely incorrect conclusions that justify their decisions to harm others", e.g. why bombing children in their beds is OK.
> To rephrase, my point is that phrases like "the ends don't justify the means" and "political violence is never the answer" seem to almost always be applied in very specific contexts
That's not what you said. You were talking about society as a whole, not narrow contexts. I'll re-quote your original comment that I was responding to:
> statements like "the ends don't justify the means" and "violence is always the wrong answer" are, at best, wildly logically inconsistent in any society at any time, and at worst, designed to ensure only a very few people in power can commit violence.
I was responding to your "at best, wildly logically inconsistent in any society at any given time" claim.