Posted on 09/24/2002 12:17:40 PM PDT by Coeur de Lion
The hard left, having failed to prevail through the democratic institutions of American life -- the executive branch, the Congress, the court system, state and local governments -- is doing a dangerous end-run via the United Nations and other international institutions.
One example: two years ago, Jesse Jackson, Spike Lee, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, American Friends Service Committee, the ACLU, and NAACP issued a "call to action" to Mary Robinson, the then-U.N. Human Rights Commissioner. In it, these left-wingers asserted that "men and women of color [suffer] at the hands of the United States criminal justice system" and cannot get a fair deal. So, they announced, "In our frustration, we now turn to the United Nations and have asked the high commissioner ... to aid us in holding the United States accountable."
In other words, having failed to get their way through the usual methods of effecting change in the United States, they took their case to the United Nations. Their effort came to naught but, as John Fonte of the Hudson Institute shows in the current issue of "Orbis" magazine, this attempted end-run around American democracy represents a significant movement.
He dubs it "transnational progressivism," but I prefer the name "bureaucratic leftism." Whatever one calls it, Fonte establishes in his eye-opening article that, in the tradition of fascism and communism, this effort constitutes a significant "challenge to liberal democracy."
To fully absorb its threat requires reading Fonte's article in full. In summary, unable to achieve their goals through the ballot box, law professors, political activists, foundation officers, NGO bureaucrats, corporation executives, and practicing politicians now seek to achieve those goals by denigrating the two central pillars of modern liberal democracy, the individual citizen and the nation-state.
Bureaucratic leftism diminishes the role of the individual in many ways:
The group over the individual. A person's unique capabilities and outlook have less importance than his membership in the ascriptive groups (racial, ethnic, or gender) into which he is born.
Oppressor vs. victim. The world divides into good and bad groups, with non-whites, women, immigrants, and homosexuals by their very nature in the former category.
Fairness requires group proportionalism. "Victim" groups should be represented in all facets of life (executives, prisoners) proportionate to their percentage of the population.
Democracy as power sharing by groups. Democracy ceases to mean majority rule and becomes a matter of dividing the spoils among those ascriptive groups.
Victims' values rule. Institutions must shed the outlook of the "oppressor" culture and adopt that of the non-white, female, immigrant, and homosexual victims.
Out with national narratives and symbols. Traditional notions of history "privilege" the oppressors and must be discarded. In the American case, for example, the conventional emphasis story on European settlers is jettisoned in favor of a multicultural "convergence" of three civilizations--Amerindian, West African, and European. Then bureaucratic leftism weakens the nation-state:
Denigration of state sovereignty. States should cede their powers to higher bodies, such as the European Union or the United Nations. In this spirit, Israel's Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has called for a de-emphasis on sovereignty in his region and argued for a Middle Eastern version of the European Union.
Citizen of the world. Instead of giving ultimate allegiance (defined as who you would die for) to the state, a vague loyalty goes to some form of global membership.
Immigrant rights prevail. Immigrants should be able to relocate freely, impose their cultures on and offer only ambiguous loyalty to their new countries of residence. Long-established peoples in a region should accept "multiculturalism" with a smile. Although forwarded by progressives and garbed in post-modern lingo, Fonte shows that bureaucratic leftism represents a throw-back to a pre-modern age in Europe when rulers were unelected. Today's bureaucrats (like Mary Robinson) effectively fill the role of yesteryear's kings.
Predictably, the left's newest project is having more success in Western countries other than the United States - Canada, France, Israel, and New Zealand come to mind. Fonte implies that Americans will end up with the main burden of fending off this ugly system, just as it did fascism and communism - and is now doing with militant Islam.
Only by recognizing bureaucratic leftism for what it is can it be stopped before its malign ideas have a chance to do real damage
The problem is they can't vote Republican. Many Jews can't vote other than dem.
What's the answer for this type of behavior? Try this; they believe that government, big government, can solve all of Americas problems... from birth to the grave.
They think if they pay more taxes, the problems will go away. They look, but they do not see! Loyal democrat sheep.
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