The Illusion of Principle

Everyone wants less government—until their side holds the reins.

We live in a time where slogans replace substance and allegiance often outweighs accountability. Populists promise to dismantle bureaucracy, yet expand it when the cause suits them. Free markets as rare as they are, often get praised until they might disrupt the wrong institution. Both sides claim to resist control, yet turn to the very mechanisms they denounce when power is within reach.

This isn’t about left or right. It’s about the human tendency to justify authority when it benefits us and condemn it when it doesn’t.

We see it in the way movements that once cried for liberty now cheer for surveillance. They advocate for censorship or state intervention, so long as it targets the “other side.” We see it in the way innovation is celebrated until it threatens legacy power structures. In the way rebellion is romanticized until it becomes inconvenient. Every election it is the same emotional manipulation of the masses.

The fight, more often than not, is not about principle.
It’s about control.

And until we stop defending hypocrisy cloaked in ideology—until we stop excusing power plays that align with our preferences—nothing changes.

The question isn’t who’s in charge.
The question is: What are we willing to excuse when they are?