There is really nothing in Deng Xiaoping’s dream of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” that requires such butchery as Beijing has executed — against Tibetans, Uighurs, Falun Gong, Christians, democrats, mothers, etc. — but it is difficult to imagine the Chinese national-socialist project without it. There is, likewise, nothing in the substance of Obamaite policy thinking on health care that necessitates an all-out assault on Catholic institutions, but those attacks are of fundamental importance to the political project of which those health-care policies are a part. For the Left, politics is heroic — and every hero must have an antagonist. In 2013, those nominated to wear the black hats were Catholics, the wrong kind of business executives, insurance companies, one half of Congress, more than half of the nation’s governors, the Koch brothers and their allies (real and imagined), gun owners and enthusiasts, and people who cling to what was the president’s own view regarding gay marriage until 600 days ago.
We find ourselves, then, in a kind of crossfire: The battle between competence and incompetence rages on one front, while another war — one in which the participants understand themselves to be in an epoch-defining contest between good and evil — is fought perpendicularly.
Whichever side you find yourself on, know this: No sane person builds a widget factory in the middle of a battlefield.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member