Veronika Kyrylenko: Dear Leftists, Looking for Tyrants? Look in the Mirror
When I first saw a news headline that said “Hillary Clinton calls for curbs on European immigration” this Thanksgiving, I almost dropped a turkey leg. I immediately became excited with disbelief. Was she going to admit that left-wing all-inclusive immigration policies failed in Europe? That they made crime rates skyrocket? Or that the Islamization of Europe undermines its unique civilization entity? “Well, probably not,” I thought to myself. “Hillary can’t really be that honest, because of ‘Islamophobia.'”
OK, then, was she going to focus on the economic side of the issue? After all, the absolute majority of these immigrants are low-skilled workers who don’t proficiently learn European languages so they can become a productive part of the workforce. Meanwhile, generous welfare provisions for these newcomers puts a heavy burden on local budgets.
But Clinton’s argument turned out to be more prosaic.
“Europe must get a handle on immigration to combat a growing threat from right-wing populists,” she has said during her interview for The Guardian.
I wasn’t even surprised: Clinton isn’t worried about ordinary Europeans who pay to support Middle Eastern and African refugees while being raped, robbed and killed in return for their hospitality. She’s only upset about the rising popularity of the “right-wing populists,” opponents of the open-border policies.
“The use of immigrants as a political device and as a symbol of government gone wrong,” she continued, “of attacks on one’s heritage, one’s identity, one’s national unity has been very much exploited by the current administration here (in Great Britain.)”
So, preservation of a rich heritage, unity and identity based on core values of freedom, human rights and democracy — which objectively are not a part of the Islamic worldview of these newcomers (or at least have an entirely different meaning for them) — for Clinton is merely a rhetorical tool used by the evil “populists” to deceive the voters.
What is the cause of the surging popularity of the right-wingers? According to Clinton, it is people’s subconscious desire to obey an authoritarian leader. “A significant part of the problem here is people’s desire for a leader that is going to just push through change without regard to political pressures, you know, that ‘getting things done’ mentality.”
Clinton said “right-wing populists” in the West have “a psychological as much as political yearning to be told what to do, and where to go, and how to live and have their press basically stifled and so be given one version of reality… The whole American system was designed so that you would eliminate the threat from a strong, authoritarian king or other leader and maybe people are just tired of it. They don’t want that much responsibility and freedom.”
If you translate her words from political speak into English, she yet again has called most people “deplorables” that are psychologically incapable of handling freedom and responsibility.
It’s reminiscent of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s prose poem “The Grand Inquisitor,” where Jesus Christ was harshly blasted by the Grand Inquisitor for giving people free will, since “nothing has ever been more insufferable for man than freedom!” In his opinion, people were weak, rebellious and naïve and valued guidance, welfare support and security over freedom.
And it is true, people can be transformed into an obedient herd that blindly follows its shepherds. But who are the “authoritarian leaders” here, and who strives to rip people of their freedom? Is it the “right-wing populists” who voice people’s rightful concerns, or is it the elitist globalists, whose failed policies destabilized whole regions, including Europe itself?
Authoritarian and totalitarian regimes that oppose democratic ones are studied in depth in Political Science.
Their basic characteristics include an ideology of absolute domination; a “big government” that regulates all spheres of political, social and economic life; ideological censorship of all channels of information as well as educational institutions; rejection of traditional morals and submission of all social interactions to the “greater good” (everything that serves the “greater good” is considered virtuous); limitation and/or elimination of individual rights and freedoms; a centralized and planned economy; terror and physical annihilation or intimidation of opposition.
Most scholars also agree that autocracy is an extreme form of collectivism that blurs the lines between the state, civil society and the individual. The latest ceases to exist, being dissolved in a collective entity. The opposition of autocracy is anarchy, and both are equally destructive for a society. It is, by the way, exactly why the Founders established a constitutional republic in order to balance the common good and individualism.
Sorry, Mrs. Clinton, but labeling your opponents “autocrats” was a huge miss. It is not them, but your party, and the leftists across the Atlantic who are inclined to autocracy. It is Democrats who embrace socialism despite its long history of political and economic failures. (No, the Nordic model will not work in America, and it is not even socialist.)
It is the Democrats who constantly attack and reject traditional moral values and introduce their twisted substitutes. It is Democrats who root for more government and more regulations. It is Democrats who seek to redistribute wealth in a better-controlled economy. It is Democrats who kick conservative speakers out of college campuses while touting diversity as a primal social strength — until it comes to a diversity of thought. It is Democrats who constantly seek for limitations of gun rights for law-abiding citizens. It is so-called “anti-fascists” who feel entitled to “punch a Nazi in the face” — or, essentially, anyone wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat. It is their leaders who reject civility in dialogue with their opponents until they get what they want.
In the best Orwellian traditions, Clinton attacks her opponents by accusing them of being what they are not, but what she and her party is. The dangers of autocracy lie on the left, not on the right.
A version of this Op-Ed appeared on The American Thinker under the headline, “Dear Mrs. Clinton: looking for autocrats? Look in the mirror.”
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