“The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone” --Ibsen
Editor's Note: Tom Minchin recently sent me a note about the latest developments in the Australian global warming debate: "Lord Christopher Monckton"—a prominent and eloquent opponent of the warming hysteria—"has written an open letter to Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. It's a scorcher. An excerpt was printed in The Australian today." Tom then provided some passages from the letter, which are good and will feature in an upcoming edition of TIA Daily.
But I wanted to devote today's edition to Jack Wakeland's response to Tom, which explains both the power of the growing opposition to global warming dictatorship and the significance of the retirement of several prominent Democratic senators in the US.—RWT
Principled opposition that calls evil evil to its face, is very, very effective. Think of Ronald Reagan's "Evil Empire" speech—a speech that, if anything, understated the evil of the Soviet Union, yet shook that regime at its core.
Principled opposition that calls evil out has the power to erase the illusion of moral legitimacy that leftists, environmentalists, and other criminal and semi-criminal power mongers need to maintain within their own minds. The illusion of legitimacy is the air they breathe.
Lord Monckton's voice is, with great force, suffocating environmentalists and ex-communists. Here in the US, we have Senator Inhofe, former Representative Armey, and a few others who play this high-profile role, but none can equal in ten speeches what Lord Monckton routinely does in two paragraphs.
Prior to the 1994 "Republican Revolution" election here in the US, one Democratic or left-leaning Republican Senator and Congressman after another was bluntly accused by gun owners and property rights advocates of becoming a tyrant (which they were). The effect of this "uncivil" level of public discourse was dramatic. A dozen high-level and well-established leftists in the national legislature retired from public life.
And a half dozen Democratic congressmen changed parties.
One of these high-level leftists was "independent" socialist Lowell Weicker who, after serving 18 years as Connecticut's senator, got elected governor and pushed through the state's first income tax—a 5% levy—and then he banned possession of semi-automatic rifles. After raising the brute rage of the productive residents of the state and drawing hundreds of death threats from gun owners whom he had just converted into "criminals," he announced his retirement from politics.
Another of the retirees was former communist Paul Simon (not the singer, but a man with similar pseudo-intellectual views) who, as an "independent" Democrat from Illinois, served 10 years in the House and 12 years in the Senate. Simon's entire career focused on leading legislative and encouraging regulatory attacks on First and Second Amendment rights to free speech and to keep and bear arms. As Illinois's senior politician in Washington he energetically pushed--for two decades—campaign finance "reform" and strict gun control.
In the early 1990s, he focused on "federal standards" for TV violence and a ban on possession of all semi-automatic weapons. Illinois gun owners became more and more blunt in their condemnations of him as a tyrant. At a small symposium about violence on TV, my good friend Gene Barth confronted Senator Simon by quoting the First Amendment to him: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." And then, accompanied by a couple of gasps in the room, Gene bluntly and clearly asked: "What part of 'no' don't you understand?" [The line was originally my idea, and I was delighted to see it deployed so effectively.—RWT]
Senator Simon announced his retirement from politics approximately two months later. I credit Gene with his retirement, and he always thinks I'm joking. But I'm not. It wasn't Gene Barth all by himself who caused Simon to quit his career of oppressing us. It was a dozen and then a hundred people like that who kept turning up at his public events, stripping him again and again of his pretended legitimacy.
Senator Simon and Governor Weicker both complained that the collapse of "civility" had led to their retirements. But it wasn't the civility of their opposition that had collapsed.
When American politicians are unremittingly confronted with the tearing down of their pretenses at legitimacy, they quit. The same will work Down Under. Leftist Australian MPs may think that they are made of sterner stuff than their Babbittish counterparts in America, but if the tide of public opinion turns against them to the extent that 20% of their constituents think they're totally illegitimate and tyrannical, they too will quit rather than stand for election against such a vocal and certain psycho-intellectual force.
In this regard, the retirements of Byron Dorgan and Christopher Dodd are very significant. Even if they can win by majority vote, they cannot face the principled 20% who see through their illusion of legitimacy. Being elected to office—even if it is the only "profession" one knows—isn't worth it if the price is suffocation.
The tea party movement has taken the prestige (and all of the fun) out of being a statist senator.
The retirements of Dorgan and Dodd herald a wave election that will sweep the Democrats from power in both houses of America's national legislature.
Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of The Intellectual Activist (TIA) and contributor to The Freedom Fighter's Journal
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