Intentions Over Results

posted at 7:20 am on September 30, 2009 by Track-A-'Crat
[ Congress ]   

With the fusing of political parties everywhere into one hideous amorphous mass (a process that’s reaching its apogee in Europe, where party names have long since ceased to provide anything but the merest hint as to that party’s alleged values), the choice facing the electorate increasingly appears to be that between big and bigger government, high and higher taxes, and little or no accountability. The traditional dividing lines have softened and blurred, leading to the rise of the independents and their king-making capacity. The decisions of voters are less than ever based on how much they agree with a given party’s platform, but rather on how little they disagree with it.

With one exception, that is.

One lonely boundary still splits the Left from the Right, and it has not only remained constant, but has strengthened with each passing day of the Obama administration: the division between intentions and results.

A central tenet of the Left is its slavish devotion to the tyranny of intentions. Whereas those on the Right characteristically rely more on empirical and tangible observations and logic, the void of reason at the heart of Left-wing ideology has been replaced by emotions and intentions. For them, results are mere side-effects of a stated policy: it is the intentions underlying any given policy that reveal its true worth.

Which is exactly the type of anti-logic to be expected of the Democratic Party. Intentions and results are not mutually exclusive concepts, unable to coexist simultaneously. The difference then becomes one of interpretation – Democrats are largely contented by the lingering warm thoughts that motivated the legislation in the first place, whereas conservatives are far more likely to turn to concrete results as proof (hopefully) of the new law’s worth.

Allow me to take this out of the realm of the abstract, with thanks to then-Senator Obama (the entire video is a masterpiece of Obamian double-speak, but especially around the 0:45 and 2:30 minute marks):

Senator and President Obama is so wedded to the idea of increasing tax levies that he considers the outcome to be of secondary significance. For him, the very act of raising taxes for “the right reasons” more than compensates for the lower taxation yields that follow, clearly elevating intentions over results.

So how can the Left derive satisfaction from something as ephemeral as “good intentions”?

Simple. It’s been forced to do so.

This single-minded focus on intentions is the hallmark of those who have only held academic jobs and of an ideology that has never succeeded. Obama has only ever been a part of the invisible economy, so is well-versed in performing jobs associated with no real output, and he is an adherent of an ideology that has failed every time and every place that it’s unfortunately been put into practice. In the absence of results to support their contentions, those on the Left are presented with two options: change policy or discard the results. And the path of least resistance is once again the winner.

Examples of this mental affliction abound. Porkulous? Cap ‘n’ tax? Obama’s promise to reduce the number of abortions committed in the US by, bizarrely, making them easier to carry out? How about the president’s recent, and supposedly triumphant, conclusion of a UN Security Council resolution committing the UN’s 192 member states to working towards a world free of nuclear weapons? Nothing but more of the same, intentions over results. No meaningful follow-up action will take place, reducing the agreement to a public relations boost for Obama, a short but false moment of global harmony and another occasion for the Left to chant in unison that love is all you need. Time wasted on this could, instead, have been used discussing Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, Honduras or a host of other issues.

And it’s in no way limited to the American Left. The odious Robert Mugabe is equally fixated on intentions over results, having succeeded in transforming Zimbabwe from the bread-bowl of Africa into its basket-case. Mugabe’s hatred for his white citizens and his obsession with redistributing their farms to those with no experience or knowledge of farming predictably resulted in the destitution that now ravages Zimbabwe. But Mugabe nevertheless congratulates himself on having done what was right and fair, mindless of the devastation that it’s caused.

The mindset that allows for this level of self-deception is a deeply dangerous one. Foregoing results as the surest measure of a policy in favor of intentions allows those framing the legislation to permanently claim moral superiority in everything that they do. Such people, convinced of their own righteousness (see: the mad mullahs of Iran), are usually those least suitable for positions of power.

But who are we to argue with the most ethical Congress ever?

Cross-posted at Track-A-’Crat.

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