Alexander Hamilton noted that "a dangerous ambition...often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people.....of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants."
Charisma and outspoken zeal for the welfare of others has often concealed dangerous ambitions. For example, Stalin and Hitler had charisma; both purported to represent the common people or the homeland. As ends, they promised peace, prosperity, and progress; as means, they used war, murder, and oppression. They failed to grasp their ends. In fact, their means became their ends: Hitler's thousand year reich ended in ignominy and bitter defeat in about a decade; Stalin died alone and paranoid in a forest bunker and came to be despised by his own people. Our means will become our ends. Don't expect to grasp peace, prosperity, and progress with seditions, suppressions, or swords.
If we really want to make a change for the better, we must seek better means to our ends. The best means is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It proposes love of God, others, and self. And wouldn't that be the best end?
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