A sad comment on 21st century Progressivism

Wow. That's all I have to say.

Thomas Friedman shows his true colors in the New York Times, today, and what, sadly, very, very sadly, modern progressivism has reduced itself to in the last 10 years, especially.

China's autocracy has great advantages

"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. China’s leaders understand that in a world of exploding populations and rising emerging-market middle classes, demand for clean power and energy efficiency is going to soar. Beijing wants to make sure that it owns that industry and is ordering the policies to do that, including boosting gasoline prices, from the top down."

You gotta read this piece of shit to believe it. I've always thought Thomas Friedman was an arrogant prick, frankly. But this opinion piece, today, takes the cake, I have to say.

There is a reason, Tom, why citizens of liberal democracies will be reading the likes of Lord Acton, Baron de Montesquieu, John Stuart Mill, Adam Smith, Mary Wolstonecraft, and the like hundreds of years from now, and Tom Friedman will be a long forgotten name.

Because they understood, better, why those liberal democratic values that you so boldly and unapologetically take for granted give you the opportunity to write such a pathetic little attack on those very values.

I love liberal democracy because it allows sad little hacks like Tom Friedman to say whatever the hell they want to say and then watch his party crash and burn while they try to follow his advice.

You know why?

Because the marketplace of ideas really does work. And Tom's just having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that his ideas are bad ones. And that is why we have checks and balances, separation of powers, liberal democratic institutions, and all the rest. To check, as much as possible, the hubris of sad, pathetic little men like Thomas Friedman.

I have literally zero respect for Mr. Friedman, at this point. It is hard for me to believe that people still read his books. I certainly will not. Except the way I read Marx. As a reminder of how important the contrary, stronger, and more honest liberal and democratic values that they are both so hostile to are so easily taken for granted because they make possible so many of our needs to be met and values to be expressed. Including the value of letting their enemies have as much say and as much rope as they want to hang themselves as much as they'd please.

What a very sad comment on the Democratic Party in the early 21st century. That so many of its members like Thomas Friedman would turn on the very values that made America so great, in the first place.

Could there be anything to more obvious demonstrate that Progressivism, at least in the 21st century, does not mean liberal in any recognizable way?

What a tragic comment on Americans. At least folks who would align themselves with something so imminently hostile to everything that makes the remarkable quality of our lives possible.