Intended
Polistra's Sixth Law of Human Nature: Ignore verbiage about goals and preferences. Assume that the situation - or action - that people actually achieve is what they really want.

There are a couple of limits to this law. It can't be fairly applied to youngsters who are still experimenting with goals, and it can't be applied when legal or cultural restraints prevent changes. But when discussing a moderately intelligent adult with few chains, it's absolutely valid and solves a lot of apparent mysteries.

Applied to personal situations: Why does she stay in that awful marriage? Because, despite her complaints, she likes it more than the alternatives. Why does he keep that awful job? Because, despite his bitching and moaning, he enjoys it. It doesn't matter if I would hate it or you would hate it. People are different.

An excellent political example in the news just now. George W. Vichy supported Teddy Kennedy's open-borders approach to immigration as long as Congress was under the "control" of the R brand. Now that Congress is under the control of the D brand, GWV is taking a more restrictive approach.

Mystery? Stupid? Unfortunate that partisan bickering is getting in the way of good policy? Nope. Just apply the Sixth Law. Ignore his talk, and look at his results. By supporting the D side when R was "in control" and supporting the R side when D is in control, you are guaranteed to achieve nothing. No new laws.

So we know what GWV wants, in this as in all else: He wants nothing. Nothing at all. He has more power than anyone else in the world, and he carefully insures that his power achieves nothing except wasting astronomical piles of taxpayer money.

Why? At this level I genuinely find a mystery.

I suppose the answer might be found if we could determine where most of the wasted money goes. China? Saudi? Ray Nagin? Some anonymous blackmailer? Don't know, probably never find out.

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The Sixth Law emphatically applies to leftist policies and causes.

There are no Unintended Consequences.

Lenin knew exactly what he was doing, and his apostles like Frances Fox Piven, Saul Alinsky and the delightfully deceased Comrade Betty Fried[m]an, all knew exactly what they were doing. Is it unfortunate that school integration, "intended" to achieve equal achievement for all races, actually produced more segregation and less assimilation for blacks? Nope. Maximum inequality and maximum chaos were the goal. Is it accidental and unfortunate that the ADA, "intended" to give more opportunity to disabled people, actually led to less employment for disabled people? Nope, that's the goal. More dependency, more resentment between groups, more reliance on an all-powerful state, more income for lawyers.
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