Competing Hells

From Business Insider: “A noted political scientist warned that the US could be under the rule of a right-wing dictator by 2030.”

The noted academic in question is one Thomas Homer-Dixon (first time I have ever noted him, to be honest), a Canadian think-tank researcher of the global enviro-socialist variety — the kind of “political scientist” for whom alleged concerns about the environment always seem to dovetail with issues of “fairness” and “systemic inequality,” i.e., of the need for Marxist redistributive justice on an international scale. Hence, this noted individual’s specificity in defining the type of dictatorship he sees as the chief danger in America’s near future, namely “right-wing.” The reason for this emphasis is simple: To a serious, committed global progressive, there is virtually no such thing as a left-wing dictatorship, since any extremes of authority which are dedicated to imposing material equality and saving the planet must be regarded, from the progressive point of view, as the essence of responsible government.

As for Homer-Dixon’s warning of a possible right-wing dictatorship in America by 2030, my own response is, “Yeah, maybe. Why is that such a radical prediction? America is currently enmeshed in a full-fledged left-wing dictatorship — a progressive leadership group clearly inclined to assert unlimited power without any reference, let alone deference, to constitutional limits on federal government authority or the basic rights to life, liberty, and property on which the country was founded. That the identity and leanings of the ruling faction might change, perhaps even radically, over the next several years, seems highly likely. That, of course, is one of the main problems with unlimited government authority. Once you untether the state, you have little practical control, or even predictive power, over which way the authoritarianism may tend from one year to the next.”

A suggested remedy for this risk: Stop wishing for untethered government authority as the means to your utopian fantasies, remembering always that the very same powers you desire to cede to your favorites are also the preferred means to someone else’s utopian fantasy, which may represent hell on Earth for you, just as yours may represent it for him.