The right-wing blogosphere is making a big deal about a video British comedian Russel Brand recently posted:
Brand is well know for his left wing politics and activism. Brand was apparently dumbfounded when he finally realized the whole Russia Collusion narrative was a hoax cooked up by the Clinton campaign and (knowingly) spread by the DC political machine. Apparently it was previously beyond his comprehension that the saintly Democrats and their media lapdogs would engage in anything so sordid and underhanded. My first reaction is, what the hell took you so long? Is your BS-meter completely broken? The Russia Collusion hoax is one of the dumbest conspiracy theories to emerge over the last few decades… right up there with 9-11 Trutherism and the Obama Birthers. But because the garbage media played it up and devoted countless hours to analyzing it, a lot of people just assumed that surely there must be something to it. Serious journalists wouldn’t waste countless hours fluffing a hoax. Would they? But I digress.
So, mind blown, Brand goes on to question what other narratives the left might by trying to use to cynically manipulate him. He goes on to question whether hot buttons like diversity, inclusion, and climate change are just a ruse for politicians to accumulate more power. OK, so far so good. He then goes on to lament that government is beholden to powerful special interests, and doesn’t represent the will of the people. He’s almost there. He has correctly identified all of the symptoms.
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely
– Lord Acton
But then Brand draws exactly the wrong conclusion. Unable to shake his collectivist mindset, the solution Brand offers up at the end is: more regulations. Where these regulators will come from, how they will be empowered to overrule the politicians, and why they will be immune to the money and power that corrupts everything else in government is left to the imagination.
Power is the root problem. Washington DC has too much of it. And they are constantly seizing more. The politicians want the power to control every facet of our lives. And why wouldn’t they? Power and influence are the commodity they sell to enrich themselves. The more of it they have, the more secure their positions become. And the more their bank accounts grow.
Government is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together
– Barney Frank
There is so much wrong with the Barney Frank quote above, that it would take an entire post just to unpack it. But to Russel Brand, and others with the collectivist mindset, the idea that we are all just one big happy family eager to work together to reach our shared goals is a fantasy too cherished to abandon. The idea that human nature is corruptible, and no amount of regulations will change that, is anathema to them. The fact that many Americans would just as soon use the power of government to subdue their fellow citizens as work with them is too difficult to bear. Like all the collectivists before them, they still believe that next time socialism will work. To the left, all that is needed are a few minor tweeks and the “right” people in charge, and Utopia can be just around the corner. It could never even occur to them that reducing the power of government, and empowering the individual, is the real solution.
Yet, sadly, my solution is just as much a fantasy as Brand’s at this point. The odds of the DC “elite” voluntarily giving back the power they have usurped over the last decades are pretty much less than zilch. In fact, the odds of us just keeping the freedoms we still have left are pretty grim nowadays. Seems the best we can hope for is to slow the downward spiral.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
– Thomas Jefferson