Many Leftists are taking the occasion of what happened in Ferguson as a means to, among other things, bash America. And push their narrative that Everything Is Racist. And mixing the two. And adding in every complaint they can think of. Anyhow, as they are making their complaints, I wonder if they realize they are actually working against their own arguments for bigger and bigger Progressive (nice fascist) government. Let’s look at the typically unhinged Salon, where Aaron R. Hanlon goes loony
This has always been America: Ferguson and our dangerous delusions on race and democracy
We believe we’re the world’s champion of freedom. In reality, we torture, invade, violate rights, stop and frisk…
Politicians both left and right turn to the troubling doctrine of American exceptionalism to justify unilateral military intervention abroad, but what happens when we turn that dangerous delusion of unbounded moral supremacy against our own citizens on our own soil?
This is what’s happening in Ferguson, Missouri, right now, where it’s clear that the police have made an exception to the modus operandi of rights-based democracy by silencing and arresting journalists, seizing and firing on unarmed and peaceful demonstrators and applying military-grade armaments to do so.
And, lest we forget, they have initiated this armed state of exception to cover up for and suffocate dissent against the gravest rights violation of them all: the police shooting and killing of a fleeing, unarmed black boy, who never received due process for daring to step off the sidewalk.
As the nation and the world watch, horrified, at what’s transpiring in Ferguson, we don’t need to ask whether there’s a racial element in play when an overwhelmingly white police force, strapped to the teeth, is exercising extreme state authority to corral and suppress the reactions of a black community mourning the inexcusable loss of one of their children. But how is it possible for this to happen in a nation that proclaims itself the world’s greatest champion of freedom and democracy? The answer, in part, is the logic of exceptionalism.
Getting beyond the raaaaacism aspect, is this not something Conservatives have noted time and time again, the ever growing Power Of The State?
We witness in Ferguson a microcosm of this logic, where agents of the state have turned the doctrine of exceptionalism on our own people to justify the suspension of basic civil rights. If basic civil rights dictate due process, black Americans are the exception. If basic civil rights dictate freedom of the press, those journalists arrested for doing their jobs are the exception. If basic civil rights dictate free expression and peaceable assembly, the crowds in Ferguson taking rubber-bullet flack and choking on clouds of tear gas are the exception. The problem with so many exceptions, however, is that they risk becoming the rule.
Unfortunately, Mr. Hanlon, along with so many other Leftists, never make the connection that Government has grown too big and powerful, everywhere from municipalities to the Los Federales. Nor do they make the connection that they themselves, Progressives, are advocating for bigger and bigger government with more and more power, and you know the saying about absolute power. They never seem to understand that giving that power to Government will turn around and bite them.
What’s the solution? Leftists need to understand the fallout of their Big Government ways. We need to start at the top, and implement term limits for Congress, and most certainly repeal the 17th Amendment. What would that do? For one thing, if State legislatures are in charge of electing their Senators, it will make people pay more attention to their own state governments, and hold them more accountable. Anyhow, that whole debate is for another day, though I will suggest reading this article.
