Thomas Friedman wants democracy in Iraq — but not in the USA?

The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report via Gates of Vienna.
For a complete Fjordman blogography, see The Fjordman Files. There is also a multi-index listing here.


This article is several weeks old, but I didn’t see it until now. As Conservative Swede has noted, there are perfectly legitimate reasons for criticizing certain aspects of the democratic system. All Western nations have more or less lost or abandoned control over their borders, and I am very seriously concerned about how easy it is for Islamic organizations and other hostile groups to infiltrate our societies and political parties. However, I’m not sure an alleged lack of batteries and solar power is sufficient reason to support a Leftist dictatorship. If I recall correctly, Mr. Thomas Friedman applauded exporting democracy to Iraq, but he wants the democratic system abolished in the USA because it doesn’t support his Leftist pet causes.

Thomas Friedman — Our One-Party Democracy:

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. It is not an accident that China is committed to overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power.

Jonah Goldberg — Thomas Friedman is a Liberal Fascist:
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So there you have it. If only America could drop its inefficient and antiquated system, designed in the age before globalization and modernity and, most damning of all, before the lantern of Thomas Friedman’s intellect illuminated the land. If only enlightened experts could do the hard and necessary things that the new age requires, if only we could rely on these planners to set the ship of state right. Now, of course, there are “drawbacks” to such a system: crushing of dissidents with tanks, state control of reproduction, government control of the press and the internet. Omelets and broken eggs, as they say. More to the point, Friedman insists, these “drawbacks” pale in comparison to the system we have today here in America.

I cannot begin to tell you how this is exactly the argument that was made by American fans of Mussolini in the 1920s. It is exactly the argument that was made in defense of Stalin and Lenin before him (it’s the argument that idiotic, dictator-envying leftists make in defense of Castro and Chavez today). It was the argument made by George Bernard Shaw who yearned for a strong progressive autocracy under a Mussolini, a Hitler or a Stalin (he wasn’t picky in this regard). This is the argument for an “economic dictatorship” pushed by Stuart Chase and the New Dealers. It’s the dream of Herbert Croly and a great many of the Progressives.