Weighty matters from the Far Right whilst you are discussing the intricacies of Facebook and other communist propaganda tools.
Whatever it takes
By Bradley R Gitz
The various scandals afflicting his administration (Benghazi, the IRS, etc.) suggest that lots of well-intentioned liberals did lots of things they shouldn’t have to assist Barack Obama’s re-election effort, aided and abetted by a certain media disinterest in anything that might jeopardize it. The age-old issue of “ends justify the means” thus arises.
As the phrase implies, “ends justify the means” tells us that a particular goal is so important that it justifies using any tactics to attain it. There is so much riding on the outcome that anything goes.
But this by itself is nothing new; rather, it simply takes us to the next level of explanation, to the point of asking why Obama’s re-election in particular was thought to be so crucial for so many.
Part of the answer to that involves the linkage of political personalities with ideology. Within such a context, ideological obsessions become fused with the career advancement of special individuals (“messiahs”) and it is assumed that all kinds of bad things would happen, or good things fail to happen, were that individual (in this case Obama) to somehow fall from power. Thus, just as a leader can become gradually corrupted when convinced of his indispensability, supporters of the cause become so invested in his progress that they support him reflexively, come what may.
Many of his critics have hypothesized that Obama could commit a series of ax murders on the White House lawn and many liberals would still find a way to excuse him and blame Republicans for the carnage. An exaggeration perhaps, but what screams through all the scandals is that some liberals are going to defend Obama on everything, regardless of facts or logic or any concern for lost integrity. Stand by their man to the end they must.
But the key factor in all this, and one not easily disentangled from personal ambition, is ideology. Usually what motivates the pursuit of power is an ideological agenda; more precisely, a burning, idealistic desire to bring about reform and change. If you sincerely believe that you better understand the world and have solutions to its various problems, that you’ve somehow penetrated the veil of “false consciousness” that your fellow citizens can’t see through, then you must acquire power to put those solutions into effect. Power becomes the means that justify the end of remaking the world around you in better form.
This, too, is an age-old, well-observed tendency, one that succinctly explains why so many revolutionary movements throughout history ended up as bloody tyrannies. Power is obtained through whatever means necessary (violence usually), and then all kinds of increasingly questionable and eventually murderous things are done to keep it and expand it. The ideological transformation must continue and ever more repressive measures must be adopted to overcome resistance.
In all of this, power, ambition and ideology become entangled. The ultimate problem, though, is ideology, because it provides the justification for personal ambition in pursuit of power.
It is not surprising, then, that Obama’s re-election effort inspired a range of dubious tactics, regardless of whether directed or condoned by “the One.” Re-electing Obama was considered crucial by those on the political left, because only Obama could bring about the radical change that they so fervently desire. Seldom has a group holding power become so convinced of their moral superiority or the utter moral depravity of their opponents. Seldom, too, in an electoral democracy have we seen a “personality cult” develop comparable to that which has developed around Obama.
For Obama and his supporters, Republicans are so obviously sexist, racist, homophobic and generally evil that just about anything is justified to keep them from power. And from such assumptions of capacious virtue and imputation of base motives (rather than legitimate policy and ideological differences) inevitably come corruption.
Which is precisely the point-ideological thinking not only leads to an ends-justify-the-means approach, but also an us-versus-them mentality and the thoroughgoing demonization of “them.” Punishing enemies becomes the operative principle. When you are so convinced that you are right and virtuous, you can justify doing just about anything to those whom you think aren’t.
The great atrocities of history have been committed by idealists in a hurry whose minds were set aflame by ideological passion, which is why all of us who value self-government and individual freedom should instinctively distrust those with grand schemes designed to correct life’s myriad injustices. It is precisely the political leaders who promise the most, those who wish to have government do so much more than it already does in order to perfect our lives and bring about utopia, who most threaten our liberties and civil society in general. Power becomes everything; everything becomes political and all resistance becomes illegitimate and must be crushed.
And therein resides the scariest part of the Obama infatuation that has so infested and distorted our politics for more than half a decade now-the accompanying refusal to acknowledge that serious, well-intentioned people in our republic can, for perfectly good reasons, see things a bit differently.
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Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.
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