Global Warming Up To Each Other

Global Warming Up To Each Other: a global, omnicompetent, governmental technocracy, the dangers of which were first explained by C.S. Lewis in the following essay, are now attempting to be brought into reality by Senator Obama. The following are excerpts from Lewis's essay "Is Progress Possible? Willing Slaves of the Welfare State."

"Again, the new oligarchy must more and more base its claim to plan us on its claim to knowledge. If we are to be mothered, mother must know best. This means they must increasingly rely on the advice of scientists, till in the end the politicians proper become merely the scientists' puppets. Technocracy is the form to which a planned society must tend. Now I dread specialists in power because they are specialists speaking outside their special subjects. Let scientists tell us about sciences. But government involves questions about the good for man, and justice, and what things are worth having at what price; and on these a scientific training gives a man's opinion no added value. Let the doctor tell me I shall die unless I do so-and-so; but whether life is worth having on those terms is no more a question for him than for any other man.

On just the same ground I dread government in the name of science. That is how tyrannies come in. In every age the men who want us under their thumb, if they have any sense, will put forward the particular pretension which the hopes and fears of that age render most potent. They 'cash in". It has been magic, it has been Christianity. Now it will certainly be science.

We have on the one hand a desperate need; hunger, sickness and the dread of war. We have, on the other, the conception of something that might meet it; omnicompetent global technocracy. Are not these the ideal opportunity for enslavement? This is how it has entered before; a desperate need (real or apparent) in the one party, a power (real or apparent) to relieve it, in the other. In the ancient world individuals have sold themselves as slaves in order to eat. So in society. Here is a witch-doctor who can save us from the sorcerers -- a war-lord who can save us from the barbarians -- a Church who can save us from Hell. Give them what they ask, give ourselves to them bound and blindfolded, if only they will! Perhaps the terrible bargain will be made again. We cannot blame men for making it. We can hardly wish them not to. Yet we can hardly bear that they should.

The question about progress has become the question whether we can discover any way of submitting to the worldwide paternalism of a technocracy without losing all personal privacy and independence. Is there any possibility of getting the super Welfare State's honey and avoiding the sting? What assurance have we that our masters will or can keep the promise which induced us to sell ourselves? Let us not be deceived by phrases about "Man taking charge of his own destiny". All that can really happen is that some men will take charge of the destiny of others. They will be simply men; none perfect; some greedy, cruel and dishonest. The more completely we are planned the more powerful they will be. Have we discovered some new reason why, this time, power should not corrupt as it has done before?"

--C.S. Lewis

I wonder why Obama is campaigning overseas? Why is he also insulating himself from the press and interviews, and also requiring security and background checks on those who are to be in his presence? From these behaviors, and from a discussion I had recently with Allan Saxe, it seems like Obama's government would be a closed paternalistic technocracy ruled by a man who considers himself an elitist. Obama was a Senator for 148 days before he began to run for the presidency.

Consider the following global group "The World Wants Obama". Here is an excerpt from their petition:

Senator Obama, we send you this gesture of respect and sign of hope from all around the world. Let's work together to stop climate change, protect human rights and prevent war, and help make the US a responsible and respected member of the global community again."

And here is an excerpt from Obama's recent speech, given in Berlin:

"People of the world - look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one… The fall of the Berlin Wall brought new hope. But that very closeness has given rise to new dangers - dangers that cannot be contained within the borders of a country or by the distance of an ocean… As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya… The poverty and violence in Somalia breeds the terror of tomorrow. The genocide in Darfur shames the conscience of us all… The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down."