Posted on 05/29/2023 4:38:48 AM PDT by MtnClimber
For the left-wing elites, the cause is but a means to personal and professional power.
Why do so many liberal climate-activist grandees fly on private jets? Or why do those who profited from Black Lives Matter have a propensity for estate living? Or why do the community-activist Obamas prefer to live in not one, but three mansions?
The answer is that calls for radical equity, “power for the people,” and mandated equality are usually mostly sloganeering for those who enjoy power and the lucre it brings, and their wish is to augment both for themselves. The result is that the issue du jour of mandated equality often becomes secondary if not irrelevant. There is neither fear of inconstancy nor hypocrisy, given the central theme that governs a leftist party line is political utility—or the ends of power always more than justify the hypocritical means used to obtain it.
Spout racialist nonsense for 40 years? Harass women and young girls by blowing in their hair and squeezing them too tightly? Create a family grifting syndicate to leverage foreign cash in quid pro quo fashion? Praise racial segregationists?
Joe Biden did all those things and more. But he also did them in service to a supposed noble cause, sort of like the current board president of the NAACP promoting a black travel ban on Florida, while he lives—in Florida!
Keep political utility in mind and the baffling hypocrisy of the Left makes all too perfect sense.
January 6 vs. the “Summer of Love”
From all the tens of thousands of January 6 Capitol protesters a small percentage entered the Capitol itself. Of that group, an even smaller number committed violent acts. Most of those seriously injured that day were among the protesters themselves.
(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...
VDH ping
It's certainly not about fixing things and running government efficiently so it has to be about power for power's sake.
What else is there?
The was in the headline should be was is and will. It’s not a bug for the left but a feature.
There’s this gravity in the world always pulling things leftward, always and unceasingly leftwards, it has a name.
The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power.
Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power.
What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing.
All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives.
They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal.
We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.
Power is not a means; it is an end.
One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.
The object of persecution is persecution.
The object of torture is torture.
The object of power is power.
-George Orwell, 1984, Part Three, Chapter III, page 263
This is a rare example of where I disagree with VDH. The man is brilliant.
The elite only seek power to grow and/or maintain their wealth. It’s only about money, and the status it provides. The Biden Crime Syndicate is a prime example.
Because of the harshness (particularly re: damages) of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was in such dire economic straights and had been so humiliated that the people were blind to (or refused to see) what was going on.
The regular people in America see exactly what's going on here.
It's the effin' Lefties.
All of America sees what’s going on.
A large segment of society whole-heartedly agree with it,
The (silent) majority don’t.
But I believe the pushback has begun..
It will be interesting to see how many mansions and yachts and planes AOC ends up with. The bartender is such a hypocrite.
Money without power is often useless. The Chinese billionaires are figuring this out, as are some of the Oligarchs in Russia.
One of the brilliant things about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is the protection of property. It allows wealthy people to exist without having to exercise much political power.
The Left is constantly seeking to destroy that possibility.
But the Left demands that everyone agree with them and then tries to outlaw any opposing speech or thought.
As the old cartoon says, "Socialist ideas are so good they have to be mandated by force."
Truth.
.
Orwell’s novel, “Animal Farm”, was prophetic in this regard. It is all about power and the leftist elites always enjoy the fruits of that power while the peon masses live in the misery all socialist governments bring. Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, East Germany or the Soviet Union same story every time.
Sex.
Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
(H. kissinger)
Communism is the biggest hustle ever to be perpetrated upon mankind.
The suckers keep falling for it.
Because socialism denies human nature — the innate desire to be free to live one’s life as each individual chooses — socialism inevitably morphs into its truly evil offspring, communism, wherein force — often deadly force — is essential to control and restrict the individual’s thoughts, speech and actions to maintain to extraordinary level of obedience required for the survival of the socialist system.
Leftward, or you could say away from God.
In 2020, for 120 days, left-wing mobs led by Antifa and Black Lives Matter wrought far greater destruction in nonstop rioting, arson, looting, and assault. Over 35 people died. Two billion dollars in property damage followed. Some 1,500 officers were assaulted and injured. Over 14,000 protesters were arrested.
Yet few were convicted of any serious crimes; fewer were sentenced to long sentences—given prosecutors, state and federal, claimed the violence was merely a result of protesters exercising their “constitutional right” of dissent.
Left-wing politicians and activists from then-vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris (“They’re not going to let up, and they should not, and we should not.”) to Nikole Hannah Jones (“Destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence.”) either excused the often violent protests or urged that they continue.
VDH stating the obvious in a direct way, much better than I can. PING!
FR Index of his articles: Victor Davis Hanson on FR
Town Hall: Victor Davis Hanson on Town Hall
American Greatness: Victor Davis Hanson on American Greatness
His website: Victor Davis Hanson
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