Tom Friedman comes out of the closet

And admits to the world what most conservatives already know:

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. China’s leaders understand that in a world of exploding populations and rising emerging-market middle classes, demand for clean power and energy efficiency is going to soar. Beijing wants to make sure that it owns that industry and is ordering the policies to do that, including boosting gasoline prices, from the top down.

Our one-party democracy is worse. The fact is, on both the energy/climate legislation and health care legislation, only the Democrats are really playing. With a few notable exceptions, the Republican Party is standing, arms folded and saying “no.” Many of them just want President Obama to fail. Such a waste. Mr. Obama is not a socialist; he’s a centrist. But if he’s forced to depend entirely on his own party to pass legislation, he will be whipsawed by its different factions.

He goes on to write that if it weren’t for the evil GOP, President Obama and the Democrats could do ‘what’s best for America’ without any ‘hassle’ from the opposition. Questions? We don’t need to ask no stinkin’ questions.

Jonah Goldberg sez, in a nutshell, that liberal fascism has struck again:

So there you have it. If only America could drop its inefficient and antiquated system, designed in the age before globalization and modernity and, most damning of all, before the lantern of Thomas Friedman’s intellect illuminated the land. If only enlightened experts could do the hard and necessary things that the new age requires, if only we could rely on these planners to set the ship of state right. Now, of course, there are “drawbacks” to such a system: crushing of dissidents with tanks, state control of reproduction, government control of the press and the internet. Omelets and broken eggs, as they say. More to the point, Friedman insists, these “drawbacks” pale in comparison to the system we have today here in America.

I cannot begin to tell you how this is exactly the argument that was made by American fans of Mussolini in the 1920s. It is exactly the argument that was made in defense of Stalin and Lenin before him (it’s the argument that idiotic, dictator-envying leftists make in defense of Castro and Chavez today). It was the argument made by George Bernard Shaw who yearned for a strong progressive autocracy under a Mussolini, a Hitler or a Stalin (he wasn’t picky in this regard). This is the argument for an “economic dictatorship” pushed by Stuart Chase and the New Dealers. It’s the dream of Herbert Croly and a great many of the Progressives.

The Heritage blog calls Friedman an “Eco-Communist wannabe.” I’d say he’s not a “wannabe” – he’s already there. Make sure to read the full Heritage post to see takedowns of some of Friedman’s various ‘arguments’ – including one in which he recently defended 9-11 Truther and disgraced former Obama “green czar” Van Jones. One of the arguments Friedman used to defend Jones was his belief that the Internet is “an open sewer of untreated, unfiltered information.”

Well … at least Friedman’s latest column has come to us untreated and unfiltered, and the publishing of it has finally – at long last – made his fascistic tedencies officially official.

Now if only the rest of the NYT’s liberal columnists would follow suit. Just for the record.