And those in the transnational progressivist movement seem to be concentrating what we think of as a disproportionate amount of their scrutiny and ire and pressure on the United States. It's because they recognize that American liberal democracy is the greatest rival they face.
They refer to us as a "rogue nation" and "the world's greatest terrorist" and "the biggest threat to the world" because from their point of view we actually are. We're the biggest roadblock in the way to establishment of the international transnational system they want to establish. We're the only ones who have been standing up and saying "No", and unfortunately we're strong enough and influential enough so that our "No" carries what they think of as undue, disproportionate and undeserving weight.
I find myself feeling the urge to quote nearly the entire article inline here. It's that good and that important. It is actually a summary of a longer article and as such is short, pithy, and loaded with significance. All I can say is that I strongly believe that this article should get as wide of play as possible.
Still, I'd like to summarize a few key points. I've pointed out here many times that the basic idea of the American experiment is that the individual citizen is the foundation of the state, that all power resides with the collective citizenry, and that they grant to the government limited power to govern. Our system relies on citizens having as much access to information as possible, on them feeling free to discuss all issues with each other, and with them feeling free to tell their elected representatives what they think without fear of persecution and with a reasonable basis to expect that they can influence the course of events, and that this same degree of participation and influence be spread as widely as possible. That's why I feel so strongly about the First Amendment; it is the core of what we as Americans are. Knowledge is power, and the First Amendment sanctifies the broadest possible access to information for every citizen.
The key concepts of transnational progressivism are:
Groups are what matter, not people. You are "Black" or "Christian" or "Mexican" or "Afghan" or "Sunni", you are not yourself. You also don't get to choose your group; it's inherent in what you were when you were born. Someone else will categorize you into your group, and you will become a number, a body to count to decide how important that group is. And your group won't change during your lifetime.
The goal of fairness is equality of result, not equality of opportunity. It isn't important to let individuals fulfill their potential and express their dreams, what's important is to make groups have power and representation in all things proportional to their numbers in the population. Fairness is for groups, not for individuals. The ideally fair system is based on quotas, not on merit, because that permits proper precise allocation of results.
Being a victim is politically significant. It's not merely a plea for help or something to be pitied; it's actually a status that grants extra political power. "Victimhood" isn't a cult, it's a valid political evaluation. Groups which are victims should be granted disproportionately more influence and representation, at the expense of the historic "dominant" culture.
Assimilation is evil. Immigrants must remain what they were before they arrived here, and should be treated that way. Our system must adapt to them, rather than expecting them to adapt to us (even if they want to). The migration of people across national borders is a way to ultimately erase the significance of those borders by diluting national identity in the destination country.
An ideal democracy is a coalition where political power is allocated among groups in proportion to their numbers. It has nothing to do with voting or with individual citizens expressing opinions, and in fact it doesn't require elections at all. A "winner take all" system, or one ruled by a majority, is profoundly repugnant because it disenfranchise minority groups of all kinds and deprives them of their proper share of power.
National identity is evil. We should try to think of ourselves as citizens of the world, not as citizens of the nations in which we live, and we should try to minimize the effects of national interests, especially our own if we live in powerful nations.
For these people, there truly is a growing international governance, a growing international law, and they truly think it's binding, or that it should be. It isn't, as I portrayed it, simply an informal system of non-binding gentlemen's agreements of local and limited significance, and it equally isn't a formal charter created by any kind of overt democratic process. It is a work-in-progress being created by the intellectual elite to describe how they think the world should be run, and its foundation of legitimacy is its morality and in the positive results it will bring. It has no mandate from the people of the world because it doesn't need one, because the people of the world don't know what's good for them. It must be created because it's the right thing to do; we must be bound by it because refusing to be bound by it is evil and selfish.
Nationalism is the enemy because nationalism is seen as the ultimate source of most of the woes which afflict humanity. Nationalism has been responsible for most wars; nationalism is responsible for economic imbalance and world poverty; and nationalism isn't necessary any longer and needs to be replaced by an international system.
The aspect of all this that I find the most offensive, and quite frankly the most terrifying, is that it truly is based on antidemocratic principles, on the idea of an informed elite running things, on the idea that the common cannot and should not be permitted to decide for themselves what they do or how their nation should be run, except in unimportant ways. The article points out that this is in fact how the EC currently operates, and that partisans of it consider one of its virtues to be precisely the fact that it is politically insulated from the will of European voters.
The EU is a large supranational macro-organization that embodies transnational progressivism. Its governmental structure is post-democratic. Power in the EU principally resides in the European Commission (EC) and to a lesser extent the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The EC, the EU's executive body, initiates legislative action, implements common policy, and controls a large bureaucracy. It is composed of a rotating presidency and nineteen commissioners chosen by the member-states and approved by the European Parliament. It is unelected and, for the most part, unaccountable.
A white paper issued by the EC suggests that this unaccountability is one reason for its success:"[the] "essential source of the success of European integration is that [it] is_independent from national, sectoral, or other influences."Thus freed from the partisan and selfish demands of voters, it is able to do what is needed even if few like it or would support it. The elite which run the EC know what is required and this system gives them the power to implement it without approval from voters who might not agree.
European socialism is part of this concept. High taxes are good, not merely a necessary evil in the service of a socialist state but a positive goal. Money should be taken away from the herd of cattle and administered instead by the state, because the cattle are stupid and will waste it if permitted to keep it and make up their own minds as to how to spend it. Money is power, and people shouldn't be powerful because they may misuse that power. Better to let the elite make those decisions, at the level of government or the EU. Distribution of wealth is good not only because it helps the poor, but also because it removes unnecessary wealth from those who are better off, who don't need it anyway and would only waste it.
And though they do not say so, they actively oppose the primacy of the US Constitution on America. From their point of view, such a national charter as foundation of national law and governance is obsolete, and should be faded out gradually in favor of something they feel is better, which amounts to a world government by an unelected elite who are not answerable to the masses for what they do. Nationalism as such is the foe they see themselves fighting against; it is what they are primarily attempting to abolish. Their dream is to eliminate war by eliminating all grievances which can lead to war, by eliminating borders, eliminating competition, and giving everyone (every group, that is) some say in the overall governance. Once they have a stake in things, they will no longer want to destroy it by fighting against it, and in any case simply recognizing them and rewarding them will substantially defuse their belligerence.
A "patriot" is someone who clings to the outmoded principle of loyalty to their own nation; such people are unsophisticated atavisms and represent the tip of the old nationalistic way which has to be destroyed before the transnational system can truly be established. "Jingoistic patriot" is redundant because all patriotism is automatically jingoistic. Referring to someone as a "patriot" is like calling them a "racist"; a "patriot" is, in a sense, a "nationist", one who discriminates against other nations on behalf of his own just as a racist discriminates against other races on behalf of his own. Such people are evil, and anyone who says he loves his own country must necessarily hate all the others.
This explains the European attitude towards the conflict in Israel. They see the establishment of a Palestinian state as an entitlement unrelated to any other issues. They see the end of the conflict there as being impossible until the Palestinians are granted political power proportionate to their numbers, with an added bonus for having been victims. But in fact, ending the conflict isn't even the most important thing. The Palestinian state isn't seen as a means to peace, but as an end in itself, something that the Palestinians deserve unconditionally. That's because the progressivists think all disenfranchised groups are entitled to some sort of political empowerment; it's an inherent part of their world view. And the unwillingness of Israel to grant the Palestinians such a state, and the support of the US given to Israel which helps prevent that, are indeed seen by them as extremely serious crimes against international law, which are not justified by the unimportant details relating to any particular low level terrorist war which might just happen to be taking place in the area. Israel and the US are putting their own selfish national interests ahead of the internationalist agenda, and the US is so powerful and influential that a Palestinian state can't be established as long as we resist it. Therefore we are engaged in disenfranchisement of the Palestinians through force, which is a crime essentially identical to genocide.
Occasionally you see a leftist use the term "genocide" in some fashion which looks odd in that it doesn't seem to refer to anyone being killed. They're not kidding; they see no difference between disenfranchising someone and killing them, between disenfranchising an entire people and committing genocide.
And they would grant Arafat full right to lead the Palestinians, even though any idea of his selection democratically is a sad fiction, because democracy doesn't matter. "Groups" should be led by unelected elites anyway, so Arafat no more requires a democratic franchise from the Palestinians than the EC does from Europeans. A leader is someone with vision and influence; he doesn't need a mandate.
In one of my comments about the issue of international law, I pointed out that it was fundamentally undemocratic, that it did not have what we in the US consider the essential aspect of consent of the governed. It turns out that to the transnational progressivists, this is not a bug but a feature. They do not think that law or the enforcement of it should be responsive to the governed, because they do not trust the governed. The whole point is to use the law and its enforcement to force the common folk to behave the way they should.
I also suffered a strong feeling of deja vu when I read this article, because I instantly recognized the real basis of the politics of mynew-found friend Demosthenes, and his insistence on the primacy of international law and the requirement that the US ask for international permission (which would not be granted) before making any kind of military move against the nations which threaten us. This article describes the true argument between us, and explains why we disagree so fundamentally. I do not grant any of the fundamental assumptions underlying transnational progressivism, and so our disagreements have rapidly foundered on unstated axioms. (And now I know what his are, and I'll be able to deal with them much better.)
Kagan's article and Mead's article were important because they explain to Europeans why America has been doing what it has. This article is equally important because it will explain to Americans the real reason why Europeans have been doing what they have, and why in the aftermath of last September's attack they still spent more time criticizing us and attempting to impede us than they did our enemies. They fear us more than they fear our enemies.
The article asks whether liberal democracy, as practiced in the US, can compete against transnational progressivism, or even survive in parallel with it. I believe that it can triumph, because ultimately the only way the progressivists can defeat us is by convincing us to give away the store. By the nature of their philosophy they do not engage in military conquest, and no means of coercion less than that which is available to them can force us to give them what they want, as long as we stay strong and aware and don't get conned.
I wrote yesterday at great length about how a modern military and a modern information economy rely heavily on the empowerment of individuals at every level of the structure, and how that is our (American) advantage against the theocratic nations and the last remaining dictatorships of the world. The easy way to tell the true power of an army is to see how much authority and power it gives to its sergeants. The more they are trusted and the more authority they have, the better the army and the more dangerous it will be in war. (This article is apropos. I knew that the situation in the Arab military structures was poor, but I didn't realize just how shitty it really is. Against us on a non-nuclear battlefield, they don't have a prayer.)
Our reliance on the individual is also our best strength against this new threat, and it is in fact
our willingness to rely on the individual which makes us their worst ideological threat. By its nature this new political philosophy is elitist; by its nature it seeks to deprive the commons of the ability to inform themselves about issues, to consider those issues, and then to actively participate in the political process. When one of their intellectuals proposed establishment of a parallel Internet which gave governments the power to control access by their citizens to information that the government considered appropriate, he was quite serious.
Thus, in the same way but to a lesser extent than nations such as Saudi Arabia, this movement seeks to make the commons passive, to make them not think but rather to follow orders, to live but not decide. But this means that they will waste the vast majority of their human capital; it means that their small elite will be competing against the intellectual power of our entire nation. They think they can win because from their point of view most of our people are a burden, and reliance on them weakens us. I'm very certain, on the other hand, that our reliance on the commons is our greatest strength. I'm very certain that they're wrong and I'm sure that the power of our massed intellectual might can bury them economically.
In the same way but to a lesser extent as nations like Saudi Arabia, their political philosophy will weaken the ability of their workers to compete in the information age, and this already manifests in the significant difference in per capita GDP between the US and Europe, much of which can be shown to be a function of substantially lower productivity by their citizens.
It's already happening. The Europeans are already lobotomizing themselves, and you can already see the result of it. In February, a poster on the site Libertarian Samizdata asked the interesting question: Can anybody think of any historically-significant cultural or technological innovation to have emerged from Continental Western Europe since World War II?
Alas, because of the legendary Blogger archive bug, my link to the original post no longer works, and I can't find it. (Update: the Samizdata folk have kindly provided this new one.) But my response to that challenge is here. This new article actually makes clear that the idea of transnational progressivism itself primarily derives from Europe, so that actually answers their original question. But when I originally considered the question as an engineer, I was astonished to realize that the Europeans had contributed a fair amount to the refinement and enhancement of new technologies, but were very very poor at actually creating really new things. When you ask what kinds of really major innovations have come out of the US in the last fifty years, the answers flow easily: the transistor, integrated circuits, the laser, the computer, the Internet, modern plastics, the cell phone, television, the LED, fiberoptics, ultrasound and MRI, many completely new kinds of drugs, CAD, and a lot of other things in many areas.
I sat and thought hard, and eventually only came up with a small number of things, and all of them came from one company in the Netherlands. Europeans have gone to sleep; they're technologically parasitic on us for advancement. European technology is one big me-too.
As long as we can stay true to ourselves, then I think that we will win, because a strong economy which is technologically advanced is our best weapon in this struggle. In the long run, we have to maintain the empowerment of the individual and our identity and indepencence as a nation, and as we do and as that remains the key to our strength, their system will crumble and collapse just as international Communism did, and for the same reason: it just can't compete in the ways that will truly matter, and eventually it will become abundantly obvious to everyone that our system works better (just as was the case with Communism).
They already can't compete. To the extent that Europe has already adopted the kinds of programs and policies advocated by this new philosophy they have already crippled themselves diplomatically, militarily and economically. They're already falling behind in all three ways, and the gap between them and us is increasing in all three ways. I see nothing to reverse this trend except their ability to sweet talk us into giving up.
So though some will characterize it that way, it isn't raving paranoia to believe that many of the international processes in which we refuse to participate (such as the ICC and Kyoto), and for which we've been roundly criticized, truly are deliberately designed to harm us. It is their long term goal to make our governmental system fade into irrelevancy by small steps. And they recognize the importance of destroying our economy, because our economic might is part of what makes us formidable.
This article provides a big answer. Now I know why they hate us.
But I have no doubt that Demosthenes and Hesiod and others like them will now proclaim that I've gone completely off the deep end.
The attacks of 9/11 awoke some Americans — by no means all — to the threat posed by totalitarian interpretations of Islam. John Fonte, a scholar at the Hudson Institute, has long been concerned about another ideology that is perhaps no less dangerous to free peoples.
It goes by names that sound either vaguely utopian, such as “global governance,” or too wonky to worry about, such as “transnational progressivism.” But in a new book, Sovereignty or Submission, Fonte makes clear how this ideology, which is widely embraced in Europe and, increasingly, among elites in the U.S. as well, is stealthily undermining liberal democracy, self-government, constitutionalism, individual freedom, and even traditional internationalism — the relations among sovereign nation-states. To put it bluntly, while the jihadists call for “Death to the West!” the transnational progressives are quietly promoting civilizational suicide.
That may not be what they intend. In theory, they are only recognizing “global interdependence” and arguing that “global problems require global solutions.” In practice, however, their project is to shift political and economic power from the citizens of nation-states and their elected representatives to the U.N., unelected bureaucrats, judges, lawyers, and NGOs. These individuals and institutions are to wield not only transnational authority (power “beyond” nations) but also “supranational authority” (power “over” nations).
Transnationals are not so much anti-democratic as post-democratic. They believe that in the 21st century, democracy should be updated to include the enforcement of “universal principles of human rights” that they, of course, will enumerate and define. They talk not of surrendering sovereignty but of “sharing” it “collectively.” The result, they assert, will be a new age of “global authority” that will produce “global justice” under a “global rule of law.”
Indeed, since the end of the Cold War, transnational progressives have been establishing international laws — really supranational laws — that no voters can repeal or even amend. One way this is accomplished is to draft a treaty and apply international pressure to get the U.S. president’s signature and the U.S. Senate’s ratification. Judges — often from undemocratic countries — in transnational courts then interpret the treaty to mean whatever they want it to mean. There are no courts of appeal.
And if the U.S. rejects the treaty or agrees to only parts of it by issuing “reservations,” the transnationals declare that the U.S. is bound nonetheless — under what they call “customary international law” to which, they further insist, even the U.S. Constitution is “subordinate.”
It is on this basis that the argument is made that the U.S. is violating the Geneva Accords by declining to classify al-Qaeda terrorists as prisoners of war — despite the fact that the U.S. has never agreed that unlawful combatants are entitled to such honorable status.
Curiously and ominously, transnationals have been working hand in glove with Islamists to achieve such goals as a global prohibition of “Islamophobia” — which would represent a historic abridgement of free speech
No comments:
Post a Comment