POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

When masks slip

Check out this piece over at Ace's site, where the conservative writer takes Tom Friedman of the New York Times to task over his latest essay.  In it Friedman is basically scolding those who don't see eye to eye with Obama's ideas of progressive reform, and at the same time extolling the virtues inherent in a one party government.  I mean, this guy isn't even pretending any more!

A taste of Friedman:

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.

To which Uncle Jimbo responds:

Without any of that pesky opposition by troglodyte barbarians who are not "enlightened" enough to be progressives, or to see the joy of the warm embrace of Brother O and the state. Sure sounds like fascism to me.

Read both pieces; it's an enlightening dialectic...

UPDATE:  It.is.so.on! Jonah Goldberg calls Friedman on his yearning for liberal fascism:

So there you have it. If only America could drop its inefficient and antiquated system, designed in the age before globalization and modernity and, most damning of all, before the lantern of Thomas Friedman's intellect illuminated the land...

I cannot begin to tell you how this is exactly the argument that was made by American fans of Mussolini in the 1920s. It is exactly the argument that was made in defense of Stalin and Lenin before him (it's the argument that idiotic, dictator-envying leftists make in defense of Castro and Chavez today). It was the argument made by George Bernard Shaw who yearned for a strong progressive autocracy under a Mussolini, a Hitler or a Stalin (he wasn't picky in this regard). This is the argument for an "economic dictatorship" pushed by Stuart Chase and the New Dealers. It's the dream of Herbert Croly and a great many of the Progressives.

And, as always, Mark Steyn is good for a bit of humorous snark!

Rocketman