See my post above, but to expand a little bit: People, politicians in particular, use the "big picture" argument to distract lesser minds from the little details with that they might not agree. The Vietnam war for example, was perpetuated by the domino theory. If we allow one country to fall to communism, then they all will. Although we really have no place in intervening, think of the big picture, what if communism spreads even more? The most significant paragraph of the article is It also talks about how the big picture absolves the government from wrong doing, because they were doing it in interest of the big picture, which everyone agreed on to begin with. No real substitute to reading the thing yourself though, because I'm foregoing the details and just giving you the "big picture."