First, it was “global warming.” When that didn’t get the job done — it didn’t cover enough weather-related events — they went with the more inclusive “climate change.” And now, “the existential threat of our time.”
Welp, apparently there are still too many “climate deniers” out there, fighting the climate loons climate-conscious folks every step of the way. So what’s the climate-change crowd to do?
According to a recent University of Cambridge research paper, suspend at least part of the U.S. Constitution, implement authoritarian control, and do whatever the hell they want to do. Any questions?
The paper’s author begins with the question, “Is authoritarian power ever legitimate?”
Interesting question, the answer of which in part is also a question: “Held by whom for what purpose(s?” The other part of the answer, as it relates to government, is “No.” And when held by left-wing loons who are hellbent on forcing their policies on society, the answer is an emphatic “Oh hell no.”
Author Ross Mittiga writes:
Is authoritarian power ever legitimate? The contemporary political theory literature — which largely conceptualizes legitimacy in terms of democracy or basic rights —would seem to suggest not. I argue, however, that there exists another, overlooked aspect of legitimacy concerning a government’s ability to ensure safety and security.
Mittiga suggests that while under normal conditions, “maintaining democracy and rights is typically compatible with guaranteeing safety, emergency situations” call for emergency actions.
Conflicts between these two aspects of legitimacy can and often do arise. A salient example of this is the COVID-19 pandemic, during which severe limitations on free movement and association have become legitimate techniques of government.
Climate change poses an even graver threat to public safety. Consequently, I argue, legitimacy may require a similarly authoritarian approach. While unsettling, this suggests the political importance of climate action. [Huh?]
For if we wish to avoid legitimating authoritarian power, we must act to prevent crises from arising that can only be resolved by such means.
Ah, that last sentence. Faux intellectualism. A frequent go-to of the elitist left.
And this:
From the perspective of political legitimacy, ensuring safety and security may, at times, justify relaxing or suspending strict adherence to certain democratic processes or individual rights.
It gets worse. The ridiculous “logic,” I mean.
In times of war, for instance, authoritarian impositions of power, including those that curtail democratic processes or basic rights, are often thought legitimate to the extent they are necessary for protecting citizens and restoring normal conditions.
Likewise, as those who have survived COVID-19 can attest, during a health emergency, severe and enduring limitations of rights to free movement, association, and speech can become legitimate techniques of government, even in robustly liberal-democratic states.
Somewhere in hell, Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and Joseph Stalin are furiously nodding in approval.
In reality, this guy misses the salient point. In times of war, the strong majority of the populace is generally behind government efforts to defeat the enemy. But, “climate change”?
The ceding of constitutionally-guaranteed individual rights to the totalitarian control of the left for anything? Much less climate change? Yeah, no.
Nonetheless, free-speech rights have to go, as well.
Free-speech rights in many countries have made regulating harmful climate denial and disinformation campaigns virtually impossible. […]
Given this, liberal-democratic governments (and theorists) must confront the bleak possibility that responding to the existential threat of climate change at this late stage may require relaxing or suspending adherence to some of the most widely shared [contingent legitimacy] standards and embracing authoritarian power.
OK, you get where the is guy is coming from and more ominously where he wants to take us. He drones on ad nauseam in his research paper, but we’re going to stop the nonsense now. If you wish to read the entire paper, you can knock yourself out, here.
This left-wing loon and his equally loony research paper should shock no one; it simply “says the quiet part out loud” [hate that overused saying] about the ultimate goal of the left.
As I’ve written in the past, when Democrats don’t win, their first inclination is to cheat. (See: “election fraud.”) When cheating doesn’t work, they attempt to change the rules. (Opposition to voter ID, lax mail-in voting rules, packing the Supreme Court, eliminating the Electoral College, et al.)
And if “all of the above” fails to get the job done? This guy spelled it out clearly: “relaxing or suspending adherence to some of the most widely shared [contingent legitimacy] standards and embracing authoritarian power.”
Two words: Try it.