« Ammunition Control by the Obama Administration | Main | Yes, Virginia there WAS a Santa Claus »
December 24, 2009
"There'll be nowhere to run from the new world government" ....by Janet Daley
The committee to save the world: Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, Gordon Brown and other leaders at the Copenhagen climate talks Photo: AFP/GETTY
There'll be nowhere to run from the new world government
By Janet Daley
There is scope for debate – and innumerable newspaper quizzes – about who was the most influential public figure of the year, or which the most significant event. But there can be little doubt which word won the prize for most important adjective. 2009 was the year in which "global" swept the rest of the political lexicon into obscurity. There were "global crises" and "global challenges", the only possible resolution to which lay in "global solutions" necessitating "global agreements". Gordon Brown actually suggested something called a "global alliance" in response to climate change. (Would this be an alliance against the Axis of Extra-Terrestrials?)
Some of this was sheer hokum: when uttered by Gordon Brown, the word "global", as in "global economic crisis", meant: "It's not my fault". To the extent that the word had intelligible meaning, it also had political ramifications that were scarcely examined by those who bandied it about with such ponderous self-importance. The mere utterance of it was assumed to sweep away any consideration of what was once assumed to be the most basic principle of modern democracy: that elected national governments are responsible to their own people – that the right to govern derives from the consent of the electorate.
The dangerous idea that the democratic accountability of national governments should simply be dispensed with in favour of "global agreements" reached after closed negotiations between world leaders never, so far as I recall, entered into the arena of public discussion. Except in the United States, where it became a very contentious talking point, the US still holding firmly to the 18th-century idea that power should lie with the will of the people.
Nor was much consideration given to the logical conclusion of all this grandiose talk of global consensus as unquestionably desirable: if there was no popular choice about approving supranational "legally binding agreements", what would happen to dissenters who did not accept their premises (on climate change, for example) when there was no possibility of fleeing to another country in protest? Was this to be regarded as the emergence of world government? And would it have powers of policing and enforcement that would supersede the authority of elected national governments? In effect, this was the infamous "democratic deficit" of the European Union elevated on to a planetary scale. And if the EU model is anything to go by, then the agencies of global authority will involve vast tracts of power being handed to unelected officials. Forget the relatively petty irritations of Euro‑bureaucracy: welcome to the era of Earth-bureaucracy, when there will be literally nowhere to run.
But, you may say, however dire the political consequences, surely there is something in this obsession with global dilemmas. Economics is now based on a world market, and if the planet really is facing some sort of man-made climate crisis, then that too is a problem that transcends national boundaries. Surely, if our problems are universal the solutions must be as well.
Well, yes and no. Calling a problem "global" is meant to imply three different things: that it is the result of the actions of people in different countries; that those actions have impacted on the lives of everyone in the world; and that the remedy must involve pretty much identical responses or correctives to those actions. These are separate premises, any of which might be true without the rest of them necessarily being so. The banking crisis certainly had its roots in the international nature of finance, but the way it affected countries and peoples varied considerably according to the differences in their internal arrangements. Britain suffered particularly badly because of its addiction to public and private debt, whereas Australia escaped relatively unscathed.
That a problem is international in its roots does not necessarily imply that the solution must involve the hammering out of a uniform global prescription: in fact, given the differences in effects and consequences for individual countries, the attempt to do such hammering might be a huge waste of time and resources that could be put to better use devising national remedies. France and Germany seem to have pulled themselves out of recession over the past year (and the US may be about to do so) while Britain has not. These variations owe almost nothing to the pompous, overblown attempts to find global solutions: they are largely to do with individual countries, under the pressure of democratic accountability, doing what they decide is best for their own people.
This is not what Mr Brown calls "narrow self-interest", or "beggar my neighbour" ruthlessness. It is the proper business of elected national leaders to make judgments that are appropriate for the conditions of their own populations. It is also right that heads of nations refuse to sign up to "legally binding" global agreements which would disadvantage their own people. The resistance of the developing nations to a climate change pact that would deny them the kind of economic growth and mass prosperity to which advanced countries have become accustomed is not mindless selfishness: it is proper regard for the welfare of their own citizens.
The word "global" has taken on sacred connotations. Any action taken in its name must be inherently virtuous, whereas the decisions of individual countries are necessarily "narrow" and self-serving. (Never mind that a "global agreement" will almost certainly be disproportionately influenced by the most powerful nations.) Nor is our era so utterly unlike previous ones, for all its technological sophistication. We have always needed multilateral agreements, whether about trade, organised crime, border controls, or mutual defence.
If the impact of our behaviour on humanity at large is much greater or more rapid than ever before then we shall have to find ways of dealing with that which do not involve sacrificing the most enlightened form of government ever devised. There is a whiff of totalitarianism about this new theology, in which the risks are described in such cosmic terms that everything else must give way. "Globalism" is another form of the internationalism that has been a core belief of the Left: a commitment to class rather than country seemed an admirable antidote to the "blood and soil" nationalism that gave rise to fascism.
The nation-state has never quite recovered from the bad name it acquired in the last century as the progenitor of world war. But if it is to be relegated to the dustbin of history then we had better come up with new mechanisms for allowing people to have a say in how they are governed. Maybe that could be next year's global challenge.
Wild Thing's commnet............
"Except in the United States, where it became a very contentious talking point, the US still holding firmly to the 18th-century idea that power should lie with the will of the people."
Well it does not seem so lately, not since Obama got elected. Obama and the dems have all been doing things with no concern of what the people want.
If it comes to global world government vs the people, I’d vote for bringing back the guillotine. OFF with their HEADS!!
The Book of Revelation is quite clear there will be a world government. It may come in a few years or hundreds of years from now but it will come.
This has been building and building and growing for the last 50 years, at least, if not longer. So, it's had plenty of time to build and put things and mechanisms in place, plus all the people in place to make it happen. Judges, lawyers, politicians and brain washing in schools in all grades and ages.
The march towards socialism, lawless open borders, intentionally flooding the country with millions of illegals and American hating foreign nationals, slanted trade policies, and the distribution of American wealth...the breakdown of our economy and the dollar, is sponsored by both these corrupt party's in D.C.... and has been for many years now. None of this was an accident.
I hate having the enemy among us.
We all are fighting this as much as we can. I do not intend to roll over.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at December 24, 2009 04:47 AM
Comments
The tip off to globalism came with Bush 41's reference to the New World Order. Our govt has been inundated with globalists since the end of WWII. They have been in both political parties. Yes, our open borders and liberal immigration policies have been a large contributor towards globalisnm. obama's contribution to wealth redistribution in the form of higher taxes will also be a major contributor to globalism as do his signing of international treaties.
Many Americans gave up a large chunk of their freedoms by voting for obama and his promises. Those promises were to give people something for nothing and to right perceived wrongs that barely existed. Well, the greatest liar since Bill Clinton has shown an unbridled tendency to actually want to destroy the constitutional republic and turn America into just another govt. run country. obama may actually want a global Marxist govt. to rule the entire world. Like a UN with unlimited powers. Only we Americans stand between that international socialist govt. and the freedom of Constitutional America.
Posted by: TomR at December 24, 2009 12:33 PM
The sad part is all the moderates(?) who voted for him are now running away in disbelief of what they are seeing and hearing.
Obama can't be blamed for that. He told America boldly what he was going to do...Fundamentally Change America... This reflects on the education system of this country and lack of verbal comprehension of what they were hearing. And in their hurry to get rid of Bush they voted for this Usurper. Now we are all stuck with this mess.
Posted by: Mark at December 24, 2009 12:43 PM
1. Non-Junk Science, formerly, "Science," in Latin: "Scientia," (=knowledge), starts with a hypothesis, and/or hypotheses, and within at least, some theoretical basis, if the actual field is new at the time, like, Nuclear Fission, Nuclear Power, Nuclear Fusion, Radioactivity, Atomic Bomb, Hydrogen Bomb, and Neutron Bomb, within Nuclear Physics and beyond, and later becomes "accepted theory," and established ways of making nuclear weapons, reliable ways to make nuclear power reactors, and accepted ways to measure radioactivity, but never as, "settled science" or "settled theory," as within AGW propagandists.
2. The AGW theory, and its various names, Global Warming Hoax, Climategate, MMGW, Global Warming, and Climate Change, states as a "scientific fact," that humans warms and destroy the earth, due to its Carbon Footprint, making it, e.g. the AGW theory, DOA, e.g. "Dead On Arrival," due to the fact its basis, is both non-scientific, anti-human, and anti-capitalism in its inscription, and should therefore be rejected.
3. Phil Jones (CRU/UEA), Michael Mann (PSU), James Hansen (NASA/GISS), Ben Santer (LLNL), in conjunction with the former, "1975 ´Endangered Atmosphere´Conference, Where the Global Warming Hoax Was Born," by Majorie Mazel Hecht, Special Report, Fall 2007, 21st CENTURY Science &Technology, at http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles%202007/GWHoaxBorn.pdf, and their respective names, Margaret Mead, Paul Ehrlich, Stephen Schneider, John Holdren (Obama´s Science Czar), George Woodwell, James Lovelock, and their #1 Propagandist, Mr. Al Gore, are all hysterical propagandists, with an anti-science ideology, with a foreseeable formula for a "no future" world.
4. SAY NO TO GLOBAL WARMING HOAX!!!
SAY NO TO CLIMATEGATE!!!
SAY NO TO GLOBAL GOVERNANCE!!!
SAY NO TO CAP AND TRADE!!!
SAY NO TO JUNK SCIENTISTS!!!
SAY NO TO FOLD AGW INTO NATIONAL SECURITY!!!
SAY NO TO COPENHAGEN!!!
SAY NO TO ALL!!!
SAY YES TO US SOVEREIGNTY!!!
SAY YES TO US CONSTITUTION!!!
Posted by: Anon at December 24, 2009 11:53 PM
Tom, your right, thanks for the input about
this. I had forgotten that about Bush 41.
Posted by: Wild Thing at December 25, 2009 12:46 AM
Mark, yes and many are finally seeing
what Obama meant by his word Change.
I wish they would have listened or
even cared to listen to the many
warnings.
Posted by: Wild Thing at December 25, 2009 12:49 AM
Anon, thank you for all of that and the
link too.
Posted by: Wild Thing at December 25, 2009 12:53 AM
