How the Left and royalty shut down debate

 

Prince Harry’s speech to the United Nations on Monday was lamentable. But it was also useful because its mixture of humbug and ignorance was so clear. 

 

When the Left instructs the plebs to stop asking questions and accept unpopular policies handed down from above, it generally does a better job of veiling its disdain for the opinions of those who don’t agree. The prince tried to cover his arrogance with gauzy virtue and sought to project a simulacrum of thoughtfulness with a furrowed brow. But it did not work. 

 

Some 5 minutes and 45 seconds into the speech, he said, “We are witnessing a global assault on democracy and freedom.” This is a modish belief, and it even contains some truth. But the assault, though real, comes at least as much from those who agree with the prince as from those who don’t. And, as if to prove this point, the prince went on, 7 minutes and 35 seconds into the speech, “The right thing to do is not up for debate.” 

 

This is an outlandish assertion, but it is also commonly heard these days. Just listen to people on the Left and keep count of the times they say this in their efforts to prevent intrusion by any diversity of opinion. 

 

Prince Harry is a dim, orange bulb and cannot be expected to see through the Left’s self-serving rejection of the principle that democracy requires debate about what “the right thing” is. Two prerequisites of the democratic system to which he pays lip service are that governments be representative of the public they govern and removable by those same voters. That is, the people are sovereign. 

 

It is plainly false that climate change, one of the prince’s main subjects, permits only one opinion. There is a range of views, with expertise and evidence on each side. Deciding on what is the best way to tackle the thorny issue is properly a matter of dispute. There is no imperative for one side to capitulate but, rather, there is one for both sides to try and win the argument. 

 

Governments are elected to weigh and decide between competing demands from the people they represent. They are not there to stick their fingers in their ears and pretend that people who disagree with them have nothing interesting to say. Democracy is assaulted by those, like Prince Harry, who demand that dissenters sit down and shut up. 

 

Another element of the assault on democracy, the prince said, is “the rolling back of constitutional rights here in the United States.” He appears to have been referring to the Supreme Court’s rejection of arguments that conjured a constitutional abortion right out of thin air five decades ago. And his words on this matter were, if possible, more ignorant and arrogant than what he said about climate change. 

 

First, by implying that Dobbs should have been decided on the merits of abortion rather than on the meaning of the Constitution, he displayed indifference or misunderstanding of what the court is for. It is not there to pick and choose among policies and decide what would be a good idea. That is the job of elected politicians. Does the prince really think democracy is protected when unelected judges usurp political decision-making and wall off policy from consideration by elected politicians? 

 

Second, although Dobbs was based soundly on the Constitution, it also, coincidentally, reflected democratic opinion. While a majority of Americans say they disapprove of Roe v. Wade being overturned, a majority (61%) also tell pollsters they want restrictions on abortion. 

 

Thus, the public holds two mutually exclusive opinions on abortion, as it does on many other matters. But it rejects the fanciful idea that abortion simply involves “a woman’s right to choose.” With both constitutional and democratic propriety, Dobbs returned the issue of abortion to voters, and they will arrive at different conclusions in different states. 

 

This illuminates a crucial point that Prince Harry and the liberal half of the ideological spectrum find harder and harder to accept: that democracy is not the achievement of a particular set of policy outcomes. It is, rather, the process by which we arrive at the laws that govern us. 

 

It is perhaps unfair to expect the prince to have anything but a shallow understanding of how democracy works, for he was, ironically, invited to speak to the world on the subject only because he comes from a monarchy. Being given the podium was an undeserved accolade conferred on a man who sprang from a system in which such unearned accolades figure prominently. He walked away from that monarchical system a few years ago, but his U.N. speech showed that he did not at the same time walk away from the assumption of innate superiority on which it is built. 

 

 

Source: Washington Examiner