From "we had to destroy the village in order to save it", attributed to an American soldier or armed forces spokesperson during the twilight-zone-of-logic that was the Vietnam War. It can apply to any screwy attack: school vouchers seek to starve and destroy public education in order to save it. Arguably, Open Source licenses, if evangelized at the expense of a more-fundamentalist notion of Free Software, can be seen as a similar example. YMMV.

The original quote comes from the Vietnam War. After the Tet offensive American forces went on a wild counterattack. After the village of Ben Tre was virtually destroyed, an American Major said to journalist Peter Arnett (who would become famous for his work on CNN during the Gulf War), "It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it."

As quoted by Neil Sheehan in his book about John Paul Vann -- A Bright Shining Lie.

The basic idea of saving something through its own destruction is that it's been set upon a course that leads to its own demise, and swerving it from its course is more work than simply rebuilding it. Usually, at some point during (or possibly even after) the reconstruction, safeguards are put in to prevent the same path being taken again.

The idea of destroying something for its own good is not a unique one. Three literary examples that I can think of off the top of my head are The Worthing Saga by Orson Scott Card, the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, and Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. This idea is also seen in the software world: when a hunk of code gets so obfuscated and fragile that trying to understand and extend it is more work than scrapping it and starting anew, out the window it goes (of course, as with anything, a complete evaluation needs to be made... it might be easier to recreate the wheel every time, but you have to make it a perfect circle and make sure the right axles fit, even axles you didn't expect to be used, and and and...).