While I have no personal insight into Barack Obama, I have dealt personally with several politicians; and while there are many earnest politicians dedicated to

While I have no personal insight into Barack Obama, I have dealt personally with several politicians; and while there are many earnest politicians dedicated to public service, there are also those who conflate public service with their own personal interest. I do not mean they are cynical; that they are lying or have abandoned their principles, but that their principles are directed solely to getting themselves elected. Any form of lie-detection or telepathy would reveal they truly believe they are doing the best, most moral thing by getting themselves in a position of power. I find this attitude hard to describe; imagine “I am a good person”, “anything that is good for me is good for everyone”, “I should be leader”, “anything that makes me leader is good”, “anything that restricts my leadership is bad for everyone” all merged together into one single thought. Perhaps “I am the state” is the best summary. This is how you get civil libertarians restricting others’ civil liberties, homosexuals getting elected on anti-homosexual legislation, and drug-users campaigning for harsh penalties for drug use. These people do not see any contradiction between their words and their actions; it is as if words and actions are the same thing to them. If I campaign for civil rights, then I am a civil rights leader, my actions are irrelevant. They do not seem to understand that other people can be good, that they themselves can be evil; or how restricting their own power could possibly be good. They do not seem to understand that arrests, investigations, or invasions, whether of privacy or of nations, which do not harm themselves could harm other people.