Time & Perspective Quote by John McCarthy

McCarthy’s line cuts like a budget memo with blood on it: revenge rarely travels alone, and it almost never travels light. By pairing “revenge” with “loot,” he collapses the comforting story that violence is primarily about honor, security, or principle. The sentence is coldly administrative in its phrasing - “closely associated” sounds like a finding from an audit - which is exactly the point. It treats brutality not as a tragic aberration but as a recurring business model.

The intent is double-edged. On one level, it’s a warning about how quickly moral justifications metastasize into material incentives. Once retaliation is framed as righteous, plunder can be rebranded as restitution: taking becomes “recovering,” theft becomes “spoils,” and conquest becomes “stability.” McCarthy’s construction implies that leaders and crowds alike can be seduced by the neat synergy: anger supplies the narrative fuel; loot supplies the payoff. Each one laundered by the other.

The subtext is a cynical diagnosis of political storytelling. “Revenge” gives violence emotional legitimacy; “loot” gives it logistical momentum. Together they explain why conflicts persist even after the original grievance has gone stale: there’s always another score to settle, and always something else worth taking.

Contextually, coming from a politician, the remark reads as an attempt to puncture propaganda - especially wartime rhetoric that insists aggression is purely defensive or moral. It’s less a history lesson than a rule of thumb for citizens: when a cause is sold as justice, follow the money and watch who gets paid.