What is the point of today’s Dems?
By Noel S. Williams
Dems are unabashedly and unashamedly power-hungry. But why? Unless in the hands of philosopher-kings with perfect knowledge and virtue, power has to be restrained. Those wielding power are not angels; in fact, today’s Dems can be downright devilish.
It is a given, then, that power must be curtailed if individual humans are to exert their own agency. But what are the ends of power in an enlightened and civilized society? Aspiring toward equality (especially as envisioned by communism) is a soul-destroying fool’s errand — humans are not equal except in their Godly creation.
Perhaps an enlightened and moral view of the purpose of power (usually wielded by government) is to pursue the “common good.” A modern variant might be utilitarianism, which seeks the maximum well-being for the maximum number of people possible. But good luck agreeing on that.
In a vast, pluralistic society with many competing interest groups, the “common good” is mostly ephemeral. Perhaps it is reducible to a few basics, like peace and safety. Surely, we can all agree on that? After all, that’s why our progenitors surrendered some freedom by escaping a state of nature (where life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” per Hobbes’s Magnus opus, Leviathan) to enter civil society. Actually, today’s demented Dems may not agree that we even have self-preservation in common as they seem to espouse an anarchistic “might makes right” mentality.