Is no the point to achieve power without being subsumed? Or are we just jerking off?
if it was online, it's probably just jerking off (unless I said it, in which case i was right)
What is the dividing line between strategy and opportunism?
When an an opportunist says "I'm doing this for the principle of the thing," - they're lying. They're doing it for themselves. It's shocking to me how many liberals don't understand that.
Is no the point to achieve power without being subsumed?
I'd like to think that if I was in a position of power - I'd use it to help other people and not use that position to simply give myself more money and more power. But that's very easy to say.
Nearly all men can stand adversity. If you want to test a man's character - give him power.
That's a paraphrase of something Thomas Carlyle said.
That's why I always come clean when running for office that I will be corrupt, but I will restrict my corruption to accepting free meals from local restaurants and receiving small dollar bribes from the teacher's union.
It's about having manageable corruption on a scale your constituents can relate too.
Future me as a congressperson: "Yeah, I do inside trading in congress and I support it too. But not excessively. It's fair that I can have a little inside trading as a treat..."
hmmm.
Opportunism is a strategy, but it can be a dangerous one and always needs a sacrifice of something (allies, principles, groups who look to you for support). In the things that I can grok as being an opportunistic strategy, this usually means throwing somebody to the wolves in an attempt to make the wolves like you.
I want to say that trying to use opportunism is done from a position of weakness. You have to have something to offer to the wolves that you actually should care to lose or damage.
Like TERF's throwing trans people to the conservative wolves in an attempt to get some kind of status in the conservative movement. Biden throwing migrants/asylum seekers into internment camps to appease the stronger conservative "if only they followed the rules they wouldn't be kept in cages" groups.
