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Left and Right Are One Now
In other words, Annan believes that a world authority of top down regulation of human societies everywhere needs to be established. Certainly, social problems cannot be left to free men and women to sort out as best as they judge fit. So, it is clear that President Bush and Secretary General Annan see things eye to eye: the world needs to be put in order, as per the vision of world leaders. I am sorry but I do not see much difference between this and what some of the worst dictators in human history have had in mind for us. Sure, these two blokes may not wish (yet?) to resort to out and out brutality, at least not on the scale of a Stalin or Hitler, in attaining their vision for us all. They will probably proceed by more subtle means-various treaties and such, backed up by the heavy hand of the tax authorities everywhere who will make sure that our lives and labors go to a good cause and aren’t wasted on things we ourselves might like to pursue. (Oh, that unalienable human right to the pursuit of one’s happiness! Where has that notion gone these days?) Domestically and internationally it looks more and more like the forces of Left and Right have reached a rapprochement. They will no longer fight each other on very much but agree to unite so as to bring about order. Sure, some of their objectives may remain slightly different-the Right will tend to fret more about our souls, while the Left will likely keep attending more to our pocketbooks. But these are mere details. What is crucial for both camps now is that statism live on and flourish and everywhere people give up all that nonsense the American founders made so much fuss about, namely, our basic individual rights to life, liberty and property. Because there are rival groups vying to run the world, some more overtly violent than others, some threatening more innocent people than others do, the relatively more “civilized” statists can invoke plenty of excuses to try to hold on to power and wield it themselves rather than allow these barbarians to take over. But this is only a matter of degree, not one of principle-all the major power blocs are out to rule the rest of us. There was once an idea, even if not quite a full-blown reality, that the USA was a sanctuary to the politically oppressed across the globe. But no more. The USA has now become just one of many countries in which statism is running amuck and individual liberty isn’t even mentioned in the country’s presidential addresses.
Tibor Machan is a professor of business ethics and Western Civilization at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., and recent co-author of A Primer on Business Ethics (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002). He is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
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Hearing
President Bush at the UN on September 23rd reminded me that the
Florida 2000 decision probably didn’t make any difference after all.
Sure, I find Bush more simpatico, just because Gore possesses such an
unappealing personality. But that shouldn’t matter for
political purposes. What ought to count there is which of these
individuals is likely to promote the best protection for individual
liberty. And, I am afraid that George W. Bush has shown
absolutely no interest in that task whatsoever. He doesn’t
even pretend to be interested in the basic rights of Americans any
longer. At the UN we heard that he is mostly concerned with
order-it’s between order and chaos that we must choose. As he put
it, “Events during the past two years have set before us
the clearest of divides: between those who seek order and those who
spread chaos.”
