Coercion and Control

Boris Johnson in the (U.K.) Daily Telegraph on the Left.

The Lefty instinct hasn't gone away: it has just mutated. Once they discovered they had lost the big economic arguments, Lefties decided there was no longer any need to own large chunks of industry. They could achieve their objectives through regulation, and the tyranny of political correctness.

Lefties are fundamentally interested in coercion and control, and across British society you can see the huge progress they are now making in achieving their objectives: in the erosions of free speech and civil liberties that are taking place under this government, in the ever more elaborate regulation of the workplace, the bans on hunting, smacking, smoking, the demented rules about the numbers of children you may take in a swimming pool, the proposed plan to tag your car to see where you have been, Prescott's mad spy satellites to see if you have built an unauthorised conservatory.

He is so right. What's true in the U.K. is more so in Calfiornia. And in California, it's mandatory bicycle helmets that make you look like a plastic duck-wannabe. It's mandatory motorcycle helmets when you've spent $5 - 30 thou for a Harley so the wind will blow in your hair. Then there are anti-smoking edicts, not one of which was established by voter consensus. It's campus speech codes that restrict speech that is, coincidentally, always contrary to Leftist thought. And then there is hate speech to be outlawed, defined, of course, by the Left, which oddly enough never seems to apply to them no matter what they say. Hate crime legislation would have had judges and juries compelled to judge racist intent before they considered the weight of the crime itself.

There are affirmative action programs at universities to systematically exclude whites from admission to cull their opportunities. All so they can substitute a Ward Churchill for someone who is actually an academic. His speech is defended as academic freedom no matter how hateful, no matter how untrue. A halocaust denier at Northwestern University is tolerated because of that same academic freedom. They even provide him with web space for his insane ramblings. But, then, the privileged classes today are the Marxists on campus and in the newsrooms.

Those Marxists in the newsroom are essential so that no one will question the coerciveness or criticize political correctness that shuts off free speech and attempts to intimidate and limit free thought. And if this means bilingual education to restrict the options and opportunities for Hispanics, it's just part of the dependency plan. Like permanent victimhood for blacks, it's a guarantee of inadequacy, a disability to become responsible adults. And the best part to the Left is that it's a handicap that minorities will pass on to their children in a generational slavery.

Imposition of law and taxes from an unelected judiciary is another lofty Leftist goal. It's another attempt to undermine democracy and stifle self determination. And don't forget the attempted imposition of gay marriage or the court-mandated $3 billion spent on Kansas schools, or the refusal of Vermont judges to inflict sentences because they no longer believe that crime deserves punishment in demonstration of their contempt for law. We're all wards of the state in the Leftist minds.

Which is why simple courtesy was so lacking at Coretta Scott King's funeral. The Left has no time for civility, manners, or decency. There's a world they want to control.