Elected Leaders Daydream About Being Dictators. They Shouldn't."If government is big enough to give you anything, it's big enough to take everything away from you."
JOHN STOSSEL
7.13.2022
Some Western leaders envy dictators' powers.
President Donald Trump said, when North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un speaks, "his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same."
President Barack Obama told reporters it would be so much easier to be the president of China.
Canada's Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, said he admires China because "their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime."
These are stupid and dangerous fantasies.
Some people have a "utopian dream that if only someone at the top could just point us in a certain direction, everything would go well," says historian Johan Norberg in my new video.
"People like a strong leader," I point out.
"A strong leader of their own imagination," Norberg responds.
One example he gives: "Thomas Friedman of The New York Times famously said that he wanted to be China for a day to solve global warming."
If Friedman were dictator, he could solve global warming? I doubt it.
Yes, China has built lots of wind turbines.
"But those wind turbines don't produce more power!" Norberg points out. "Around 30 percent of them are not even connected to the grid. And why is that? Because they didn't build them to make money. They built them because they wanted to meet a political goal."
So China has useless wind turbines and, for power, builds more coal plants.
Another example: American media said we should look to China to contain COVID-19. NBC's Chuck Todd asked Dr. Anthony Fauci, "How uncomfortable is it that perhaps China's authoritarian ways did prevent this?"
Fauci replies that China "prevented a broader spread."
But China's "'Zero COVID' policy turned into a nightmare," says Norberg. China locked people into homes. One city even killed COVID patients' pets. China is still the one country that will not acknowledge that we may have to learn to live with COVID.
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Source:
https://reason.com/2022/07/13/elected-leaders-daydream-about-being-dictators-they-shouldnt/
