Your Favorite Crisis Doesn't Justify a Dictatorship

[Kamaji]

Your Favorite Crisis Doesn't Justify a Dictatorship

Authoritarianism grows increasingly popular, with environmentalists among the greatest enthusiasts.

J.D. TUCCILLE
3.23.2022

When the deliberately inefficient give-and-take of liberal democracy doesn't let you shoehorn neighbors into your preferred policy solutions, there are two likely reactions: You decide the coercive state isn't the right means for achieving your goals and try voluntary means instead, or you conclude that the give-and-take of disagreement and debate is the problem and double down on coercion with the safeguards removed. That second choice in favor of authoritarian end-runs is growing increasingly popular, with environmentalists among the greatest enthusiasts.

"In the Q&A session after every talk I give on climate change, someone will typically raise a rather uncomfortable question: are democracies, given the short-termist nature of electoral politics, fundamentally incapable of tackling the climate crisis?" writes Mark Lynas, author of Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency, at Persuasion. "Nor is this idea limited to a political fringe. Environmentalist academics with impeccable liberal credentials also occasionally raise the question of whether classic Western liberal democracy isn't up to the job."

Lynas goes on to cite recent books, essays, and scholarly papers by environmental advocates suggesting that climate change is such a pressing concern that it justifies government officials steamrolling over limitations on state power and protections for individual rights.

"While, under normal conditions, maintaining democracy and rights is typically compatible with guaranteeing safety, in emergency situations, conflicts between these two aspects of legitimacy can and often do arise," wrote Ross Mittiga, a political scientist at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, in a paper published in December 2021 by the American Political Science Review. "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."

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Source:  https://reason.com/2022/03/23/your-favorite-crisis-doesnt-justify-a-dictatorship/

[Kamaji]

Because all left-of-center ideologies are inevitably fascist.

The only two salient differences between the German National Socialists and the Soviet International Communists was the scope of their preferred body politic, and their fashion sense.

Otherwise, they were on all fours with each other.