Bev Perdue, the Governor of North Carolina, has come out in favor of suspending elections for a few years. She thinks this will allow lawmakers to concentrate on fixing the economy and not worry about getting themselves elected.
“You have to have more ability from Congress, I think, to work together and to get over the partisan bickering and focus on fixing things. I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won’t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. The one good thing about Raleigh is that for so many years we worked across party lines. It’s a little bit more contentious now but it’s not impossible to try to do what’s right in this state. You want people who don’t worry about the next election.”
For the Left, this is nothing new. Suspending or denying elections has been the pathway to dictatorship for Leftists from Lenin to Hitler to Castro to Chavez. It speaks to the mindset that the people who vote are the rabble, and that the elected officials are the wise intellectuals who can solve problems through Brain Power and, in Obama’s case, Word Power.
This Kinsleyan gaffe comes on the heels of former Obama budget director Peter Orszag’s commentary in The New Republic that, to achieve our goals, we just need less democracy. It also follows about a billion columns by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman where he wishes that America were more like the Communist dictatorship China, because China can mandate and enforce policies without fretting over any political fallout. Even the President of the United States has made several comments about wishing he could “work around” Congress, displaying a total lack of understanding in the concept of co-equal branches of government, as well as a desire to concentrate considerably more power into the hands of one man (himself, coincidentally).
For the Progressive, society and government can be perfected. The history of bloody tyranny dovetails with the history of trying to create Heaven on Earth (“immanentizing the eschaton” in Eric Voeglin’s words). Progressives believe their ideas can shape human destiny only for the better, that a Utopia will be created if only we would do what they want us to do. They disregard the play in Thomas More’s word “Utopia,” that it comes from the Greek words meaning “no place.” For the Progressive, Utopia is just another mandate away, virtue can be ordered and enforced, and those who oppose their ideas are obstacles that must be overcome by whatever means are necessary. From the baseless slanders of Tea Party America on one end of spectrum to the horrors of the Holocaust and the Holodomor on the other, Progressives view their opponents as an enemy that must be marginalized, vanquished, or destroyed. From “individual mandates” to suspended elections, creating a perfect society must be legislated and enforced to overcome those who think they know better than their more enlightened Progressive leaders.
Of course, the media provides cover. The headline of the article about Bev Perdue’s wish for less democracy is: “Perdue jokes about suspending Congressional elections for two years.” Jokes? It’s crystal clear from the quote, presented above in context, that this was not a joke. “I really hope someone can agree with me on that,” she says after calling for suspending elections.
Well, har-dee-har-har.
The Clampdown 