Demonic_ How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America - Ann Coulter [136]
SIXTEEN
THE TOTALITARIAN
INSTINCT AND
SEXUAL PERVERSITY
OF LIBERALS
In Hillary Clinton’s famed “politics of meaning” speech during her husband’s first year as president, she said we must “remold society by redefining what it means to be a human being in the twentieth century.”1 A decade later, at a campaign event in California, Hillary vowed to raise taxes, saying, “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”2
More disturbing—if that is possible—Obama has repeatedly appealed for votes by saying that the difference between the parties is that Democrats “believe that I am my brother’s keeper.”3 If he were our brother, that would be a lovely sentiment. But he’s our president, the commander in chief, the nation’s chief law enforcement officer—which makes the statement terrifying.
Unlike the leaders of the French Revolution, America’s founding fathers did not presume that elected officials would embody the “general will.” Indeed, the framers did not imagine there was such a thing as the “general will.” Having some grasp of human nature, they knew there would always be many competing factions. Interestingly, Alexander Hamilton chided Lafayette at the outset of the French Revolution for “the reveries of your Philosophic politicians,” saying they were aiming “at more refinement than suits either with human nature or the composition of your nation.”4
Instead of expecting government officials to express the “general will,” our Constitution spreads opposing interests across separate governing bodies in a sort of organizational jujitsu, and provides explicit protections for individual rights. “Even the bill of rights,” as Professor Jeremy Rabkin says, “sticks for the most part to affirming the continued force of traditional legal safeguards of individual rights, saying nothing about citizenship, sovereignty, or the general will.”5
Liberals are constantly pushing for the Rousseauian approach to governance in defiance of our nation’s history and Constitution. They not only believe there is a “general will,” they are sure their policies express it. Instead of allowing ordinary people to have more control over their lives, Democrats produce inflexible, universal plans, sublimely confident of their ability to build a perfect system. They get angry when people say, “I don’t think your plan will work in this part of the country.” All plans, all rules, all regulations must be universal.
It’s an obsession with the Democrats to nationalize everything: health care, welfare, the speed limit, abortion, the drinking age—so there’s no escape. Like all totalitarians, the Democrats’ position is: We thought up something that we know will work better than anything anyone else has done for the last 30,000 years. We don’t know why no one else has thought of it. We must be smarter.
This is why the history of liberalism consists of replacing things that work with things that sounded good on paper.
When the Democrats were pushing national health care, Americans kept saying, “Do we really have to junk our entire health care system?” But Democrats explained they had figured everything out and would prefer if there wasn’t a lot of “discussion” to keep interrupting their thought process.
Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”6 (And now the Republicans are going to have to repeal it, so we can find out what’s not in it.)
Following the mob-rule playbook, Democrats spent decades creating a synthetic crisis in health care by issuing both federal and state government mandates dictating what insurance companies were required to cover. Politicians forced insurance companies to pay for everyone’s Viagra, prenatal counseling, shrinks, marital counseling, and drug rehab—all of which made health insurance ridiculously