The Left Loves Control

After the legislature gives the Emperor unlimited power in the Third Star Wars and the whole assembly breaks out in applause, Padme commented, “That is how democracy dies, with applause.” In a recent Scientific American, the following words were uttered, “Human societies must now change course and steer away from critical tipping points in the Earth system that might lead to rapid and irreversible change. This requires fundamental reorientation and restructuring of national and international institutions toward more effective Earth system governance and planetary stewardship….. To be effective, a new set of institutions would have to be imbued with heavy-handed, transnational enforcement powers.” The editors stated that to save the world from us being fried to death, we must dispense with just nicety like Democracy or freedom. The demand for global governance seem to forget that at least in the United States, the power of the central government is limited by a thing call the constitution with emphasis on individual rights and liberties. Nor is this the first time just nonsense has radiated from the left.

A few months ago, I observed, “The first idea dealing with Andy Stern’s love affair with the Chinese mode shows an increasing lack of support for Democratic procedure by the left. Mr. Stern’s love letter to the Chinese model mirrors Tom Friedman own columns in which he dreamed we should all be Chinese for a day to dispense with this messy democratic procedure to deal with our problems. Stern notes that any economic activity must be done with the approval of the Chinese government and while Chinese have opened their economy from their communist past; Stern, like the Chinese, view property and economic rights as gift provided by the government and properly controlled by the government.”

Both Friedman and Stern has no problem with the idea of allowing freedom to slip away to pursue their goals with the ends justifying the means if the ends are progressive and as I noted a few months ago, “Freedom and economic liberty is no longer a major concern among the left, thus their love for the Chinese model.” Could one imagine if a conservative stated, let us imitate Mussolini for a day, that way we can eliminate Obamacare and make the trains run on time; what would the reaction be? Yet when leftist writers make similar points, no one questions it much less condemns it. Friedman or Stern can say let us be Chinese Fascist for a day and they are applauded for being so intellectual.

There was a time when the left would stand for free speech, but the recent Media matter orchestrated a campaign to get Rush Limbaugh off the air, which showed the desperation that the left has evolved into. One of the few major figures on the left to condemn this activity was Bill Maher, who understood that he could easily be the victim of a similar campaign, since he has uttered far worse about women than Limbaugh ever thought of. As mention in a previous column on the Supreme Court, the left's judiciary philosophy has been to reduce freedom just as economic freedom, religious freedom, restriction of gun rights and political free speech through various policy initiatives or decisions. Obamacare is just symptomatic of the left's new infatuation with control as the government has essentially used health care legislation to force institutions like the Catholic Church to bend to its will and essentially has told every American that there will be one health care system and choices be damned. And we have not even begun dealing with the IPAB (Independent Payment Advisory Board); the panel that will act as a de facto death panel as it rationed health care for all of us including seniors. So we are evolving into a society run by an army of unelected bureaucrats to determine every aspect of our life, and we can’t even buy the light bulb of our choice.

Every so often, we are faced with an election with stark choices, and even we are not pleased with our candidate selected to defend our cause. This is one of those elections in which the alternative is no longer a credible defender of our liberties but a believer of the expansion of government. As government becomes ever bigger, it becomes a bigger threat to our liberties that we take for granted. As T.S. Eliot wrote, our civilization will end not by a bang but a whimper, but are we ready to merely march toward the road to serfdom or do we resist? Or do we surrender with a whimper?