I consider myself a Martin Luther King liberal, which is to say, I am now called a conservative. As a man who has co-authored four books with Ralph Nader, that still seems surrealistic to me. Nevertheless, I have reluctantly concluded that the Left (generally) isn’t interested in freedom today (with exceptions), as much as it is in wielding power. Proof is found in today’s Thomas Friedman column. He decries democracy—people’s resistance to his desires for health care and radical environmentalism—and yearns instead for an “benign oligarchy” like China’s (!) to impose the “right” policies. From his column:
Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion: There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today.
One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.
China is hardly a “benign” oligarchy. It is a brutal tyranny with utterly no respect for the sanctity/equality of human life. It has a terrible eugenics policy, the one child policy has led to forced abortions and female infanticide, it executes prisoners for their organs, stifles political dissent, arrests Falun Gong because it detests their religion, brutally occupies Tibet, etc. etc. etc.
Beyond that point, the insufferable smug presumption in the superiority of the Left’s ideas—which is relevant to the Obamacare debate and how the cost control panels would work—is revealing. Friedman’s swoon over China is yet another warning about the threat of allowing people of his political ilk to exercise centralized control over crucial aspects of our lives.
And he clearly thinks he would be among the elite decision makers, who, even though he glows green in the dark, would be allowed to keep his huge, energy burning dachau (at left) reserved for party members. Nor, would his health care ever be rationed. Color me utterly disgusted.
