Demoralization in America: The Separation of Means & Ends

By Kyle Becker on Apr 05, 2012

CDN:

The country is in moral crisis. The great majority of citizens appear to be aware of the dire situation, even if they do not recognize it in such terms. They may feel powerless to change the cultural decay or that they have no recourse but to pray for the fate of the country. But a fundamental understanding of the ideological and political sources of our nation’s demoralization would do much to empower a counter-movement dedicated to preserving American values and defeating their opponents.

A radical minority desires social breakdown as an opportunity to promote its leftward political agenda. It is hard for most Americans to contemplate why a sizable number of their fellow citizens would seek to purposefully throw the country into tumult. Many commonly give the left too much credit for noble intentions, such as aiding the poor, protecting the helpless, and defending supposed victims. There may be many people who vote Democrat who have such admirable aims, but they do not have a deep enough appreciation for the moral means of advancing these worthy goals.

One of the best ways to understand radical leftists is to know what they know and to read whom they admire. Two main sources that are easily readable are Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, and just as tellingly, Reveille for Radicals. Both were influential in molding the thinking of the left’s top leadership; namely, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Alinsky took leftist activists to task for respecting moral means to attain moral ends, such as assisting the poor and helpless. But even more dangerously, Alinsky taught that power is an end in itself.

The separation of moral means and ends has been devastating for American life. Agitation, demoralization, and deception have all become legitimate means in the opinion of the left to promote the radical agenda. If that propels the nation into crisis, so be it. As Hillary Clinton put it in regards to the chimera of climate change, “Never waste a good crisis.” Rahm Emanuel, the former chief of staff for Obama and current Mayor of Chicago, once said, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste.” It is not a stretch to argue that such people desire a crisis to advance the leftist agenda, which in the minds of our present radicals requires statist means.

A recent example of the radical left attempting to cause a crisis is the tragic shooting of Trayvon Martin. The case was seemingly cherry-picked by the left to promote the cause of stoking racial animosity to fire up the base prior to the elections. Evidence of this are the left’s consistent jumping to conclusions regarding the case, its ignorance of alternative cases that do not support its white racism narrative, and NBC’s outrageously deceptive editing of footage to make it falsely appear that Zimmerman is a racist. It is not widely reported, for example, that Zimmerman is unlikely to be racist since he mentored two black children free of charge.

The statist media and the radical Democrat Party are working in tandem to impose tyranny on the American people. This may sound like hyperbole, but the further one probes, the more clear this realization becomes. The cultural media, such as movies, music, and television even play a crucial role in this agenda. This takes a studied eye to detect and comprehend, which is one reason the left utilizes the culture in a political manner. The connection of morality to the accumulation of power in the state is not an obvious thing. But the demoralization of a people is the surest way to increase government power. The most effective way to achieve power is to create dependency, whether of means or of safety. This is how the Marxian police state is built.

Morality here is not a euphemism for religion, although Christianity is a target of the radical left. We must note that the Bible does not propose using immoral means to promote moral ends, as the left sometimes implies. What must be emphasized is that those who care about the safety and livelihood of their fellow citizens must push back on the soundest and broadest moral grounds to build a coalition best able to defend liberty and protect individual rights. That pushback must be founded on individual rights, although religion can play a strong role motivating and advancing such a cause.

The most egregious misconception of the left is that democracy is itself the arbiter of right and wrong, of legitimate and illegitimate, or moral and immoral. But the number of people who believe in a right does not create a right, any more than believing in a public good brings it into being. Ayn Rand perhaps summed it up best, “Since there is no such entity as ‘the public,’ since the public is merely a number of individuals, the idea that ‘the public interest’ supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others.” Democracy is thus not the means of determining right and wrong, morality and immorality, or constitutionality and unconstitutionality. Morality exists separately of man’s whims.

The ultimate minority is the individual. Diversity, tolerance, and minority rights are encompassed by individual rights and are therefore memes ripe to be commandeered by the right. We are for the safety and security of all human beings based on the rule of law. We are for the opportunity of people to work for a living, and to go as far in life as their hard work and talents can take them. We are for compassion and caring about our fellow man, using the moral and personal means to do so. In such stark terms we can refute the left’s distortions about who conservatives are and what we stand for, and broaden our coalition to restore American liberty.

If the hard left is willing to falsely accuse people of racism, gin up a race riot where people can be hurt or killed, and abuse the state to bully or even silence its ideological opponents, then America is in an undeclared state of war. The weapons of the left are becoming all too real, and our retaliation with words is becoming increasingly frustrating and futile. If elections are a proxy for actual war, we must muster the largest “army” we can to defeat the left. We must therefore win the hearts and minds of the American people.