Top down vs. bottom up

One of the biggest differences between how the Left and Right view politics, morality, ethics, etc., is that the Left believes that the “ends justify the means,” whereas the Right tends to believe that the means are just as important as the ends.

Another way to put it is that the Left tends to believe that their goals are so noble, so important, so crucial to the survival of humanity itself that pretty much anything is allowable in order to achieve them.

The Communists famously believed it was worth killing tens if not hundreds of millions of people to achieve their utopian, Marxist goals. Mao Tse Tung once famously quipped, “You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.”

You see such a mentality on a smaller level today. BLM and Antifa activists believe it’s acceptable to riot and loot in order to help (somehow?) achieve racial equality and justice. That’s why the politicians of the Left are so unwilling to denounce, much less resist, such destructive actions. They figure that the goal is so important that if a few businesses get burned down or innocents killed, such is the cost of progress.

Or look at abortion. Both the Right and the Left see the problem: a woman who doesn’t want to have a baby has gotten pregnant. The Right is willing to solve it, but not if it involves doing something wrong, like killing the unborn child.

The Left, in order to solve the problem with minimum inconvenience or suffering for the mother, chooses abortion.

Whatever moral qualms there may be about the act of abortion is subsumed to the primary end of “helping” the mother, though those of us in the pro-life camp believe, with evidence, that such forms of help ultimately harm the mother.

You also see this dynamic in politics, especially those aimed at toppling the administration of President Trump. Democrats and the media figured that Trump was so “deplorable,” despicable, and beyond the pale, that anything they did to undermine or remove him was justified. Lie, cheat, abuse power, permit rioting, all was fair game when battling the terrible, evil Trump.

Ironically, they accused him and his allies as being threats to our democratic institutions, but it was their capricious use and abuse of such institutions, like the FBI, CIA, the election process, and journalism itself that really undermined our faith in our republic.

But, no matter. Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet.

I know we on the Right are not perfect and that Trump is engaging in some “by any means necessary” tactics right now to try and claw back an election win, but that is the exception, not the rule.

Another big difference between the Left and the Right is motivation.

Generally, a Leftist wants to sweep in, solve a big problem with a big program, and take credit for it, have their name attached to it…. Anything like that sound familiar? (Hint: Obamacare.)

The regimes in the USSR and Communist China were also big on this, calling their overall progams Leninism, or Stalinism, or Maoism. They used “Five Year Plans” to fundamentally re-make society, the economy, and their respective countries. Those guys wanted the credit for doing something big, usually with disastrous results and piles of corpses.

Right-wingers prefer, instead, to make structural changes that unleash the power of the crowd (and not the mob), of the many, to create solutions for all. This is the premise behind free-market capitalism.

Create enough incentives and pathways for people to make good personal and economic choices, and wealth will be created, people will rise out of poverty, and persistent social ills will be solved, or at least ameliorated.

Sure, government will need to make rules to curb excesses and fill in gaps, but generally government’s role in this scenario is that of facilitator, whereas in Leftist regimes, government is the executor.

Obviously, such deep, hidden, and unsexy measures don’t generate a lot of credit, power or prestige for the politicians who enact them, for they are by design meant to push politics and politicians into the background. Leftists don’t like that. They want to be front and center and take the credit, and gain the power.

So we have two very different approaches to governance: one where any means are justified to achieve top-down, government programs to solve societal problems, and another where the ends are only as good as the means used to achieve them, and where power is devolved to the populace to solve problems through the free exchange of money, services, and ideas and credit for progress is diffuse, not concentrated.

I know there are exceptions to this rule, but the fact is that the freer and more prosperous the society, the more like the Right it is, and the poorer and unfree, the more like the Left.

Think about that as we see the executive branch return to the Left and watch how they use their power to do big things (“forgive student debt”) that infantilizes citizens, making them dependent on individual politicians who promise to give them more and more, while all the while taking away others’ property and rights to achieve those ends.

Bread and circuses, my friends, bread and circuses.

Trey Hoffman

Peachtree City, Ga.