NYT Friedman compares US democracy unfavorably with China - Fjordman

American journalist and author Thomas Friedman has written several columns in The New York Times during the fall of 2009 where he questions the Western democratic system. There are perfectly legitimate reasons for criticizing certain aspects of the democratic system, but I'm not sure if his are the right ones.

If I recall correctly, Mr. Friedman applauded exporting democracy to an Islamic country such as Iraq, but he wants the democratic system abolished in the USA because it doesn't support his Leftist pet causes:Our One-Party Democracy

Friedman said, "Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion: There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today. 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. It is not an accident that China is committed to overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power."

Here is a quote from a column by Friedman from November 2009:Advice From Grandma

"California, which, as others have noted, is becoming America’s biggest 'failed state.' Californians had hoped they could overcome their dysfunctional system by electing an outsider, a former movie star, Arnold Schwarzenegger. He would slay the system, like the Terminator. But he couldn’t. Mr. Obama was elected for similar reasons. People had hoped that his unique story, personality and speaking skills could bring the country together, overcome paralysis and deliver nation-building at home. A lot of the disappointment settling in among Obama voters today is prompted by their dawning realization that maybe, like Arnold, he can’t. China’s leaders, using authoritarian means, still can."

The main reason for California's rapid decline is a decline in IQ among those who inhabit that region. This is again caused by mass immigration. The underlying structural problem for the USA now is that US national debt is rising even faster than US national IQ is declining. As long as this trend remains unchanged, continued US decline is all but assured. Mr. Friedman is an Ashkenazi Jew, which means that he comes from the one ethnic group on the planet with the highest average IQ.

Yet while he personally benefits from high IQ he does not want to talk about it. The same is the case for author Jared Diamond, another Ashkenazi Jew who thinks it is immoral and "loathsome" to mention IQ.As I concluded in my in-depth investigation of human evolution and culture, Why Did Europeans Create the Modern World?, while Jared Diamond’s book Guns, Germs, and Steel contains some worthwhile parts, the overall conclusion is almost certainly wrong. You can just look at the state of California to disprove it.

California was by the 1960s and 70s the economic engine of the USA and by the extension the world. By 2009 it is close to bankruptcy. The reason for this is not that the geography of California changed, nor its plants or animals to any significant degree. What changed was the demographic make-up of California. As long as it was predominantly inhabited by whites it was a dynamic region. As soon as it become inhabited by Mexicans and other lower-IQ Third World peoples it came increasingly to resemble a Third World region.

Diamond is currently a Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), which means that he can see clearly that his theories are flawed just by looking out the window.That being said, it is certainly true that the democratic system is not working well in Western countries today.

I remember hearing about a mother who tried to figure out how to deal with the concept of free will when dealing with her rebellious young daughter who wanted to wear clothes her mother didn’t approve. She came up with the idea of presenting her with two different sets of clothes, both preselected by the mother. This would maintain the illusion of free will while the mother had in reality made the decision beforehand.

This is essentially how Western "democracy" works. In the USA in 2008 you could vote for an open-border Leftist candidate or an open-border "right-wing" candidate who wanted to implement the Leftist agenda at a slightly slower pace, as Western "conservatives" have been doing for generations now.Once or twice every decade, Leftist writer Noam Chomsky says something worthwhile. One of his best quotes is that "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." This is exactly what Western elites are doing today.