One man's action and another man's welfare

A proper leadership has to be willing to impose unity onto a people and to fight against those who threaten disunity. The pagan forces of terror are always attacking the forces of unity. They must be fought by the leadership with vigor and with violence. 

The values of deliberation cannot be brought to bear when dealing with those who would undermine the prevailing ideology. Those who do not pledge allegiance to the governing legitimate authority must be excised, ruthlessly. They cannot be tolerated, even in the name of respect for diversity. Allegiance to the ruling legitimate authority is the litmus test of tolerance and the limit of the processes of deliberation. 

The forces of darkness threaten rupture of the unity of the people. To stop that wounding and to heal the people requires courageous leadership. 

The covenant goes both vertically, between Man and God, and horizontally, between Man and Man. God's sanction to excise the strange service (avodah zarah) in the name of the wholeness of the land is about how Man and Man have to get along, lest the land becomes contaminated. The implicating of one man's action on another man's welfare is mediated through their common purchase on and their common effect on the land they share. That implication of man to man under God's judgment is the point (in the Book of Genesis) of Abram's bargaining with God over the fate of Sodom and Gemorrah.