What can be more shamelessly, terrifyingly brutal than the righteous, benign mask of progressivism? After humiliating themselves before the universe as the tyrants that they are, the commissars at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital, unwilling to admit that stealing babies from their parents in order to murder them is unethical, have doubled down on their moral turpitude.

Still unwilling to "allow" Charlie Gard's parents to take custody of their own child (as though loving parents were criminals under a restraining order) in order to try to save his life against the wishes -- not the "judgment," but the wishes, let's be clear about that -- of doctors who have no personal stake in the boy's survival and therefore prefer him to be dead as soon as possible, the hospital has nevertheless cowed before near-universal condemnation from the entire human race just enough to allow an American doctor more expert than they to take a look at the child.

They have stipulated, however, that the Columbia University specialist must visit their hospital, and have tried to insist that his consultation with them occur in a meeting that excludes Charlie's parents. The reason for this exclusion? They believe the presence of the patient's family will restrict the doctors from discussing the case "freely."

Damn right -- and isn't that the whole point? Why should doctors have "freedom" to discuss life and death decisions about an infant without the parents being present? What twisted progressive notion of  "rights" does this exclusion of the child's family answer to?

The same notion, of course, that led the European Court of Human Rights to reject the parents' appeal to be permitted to take Charlie to America for treatment in the first place. In progressivism's alternative reality, "rights" are always a euphemism for government permission, government coercion, or government suppression of the individual. So in this case, the "right" involved is one conveniently ascribed to an unconscious infant, which must therefore be administered on his behalf -- not by the parents who brought him into the world and assumed responsibility for his care, but by the all-knowing State that "granted" him this right.

And what right is that? The right to die undisturbed by those oppressive parents with their irrational hopes of keeping him alive. (If you think I'm overstating the case here, read on.)

The State has declared, as a matter of principle, that it has the knowledge and the moral authority to decide what a sick baby would want if he were a rational adult who could speak for himself, and that what he would want is to die now, to save his doctors from being embarrassed by superior doctors overseas, and to save his great Owner, the State, from the hassle of having to admit a flaw in its tapestry of omniscience.

And how does a progressive authoritarian -- i.e., a cold-blooded dictator in modern "democratic" garb -- express this right? Here's how:

The hospital has said that "a world where only parents speak and decide for children and where children have no separate identity or rights and no court to hear and protect them is far from the world in which [Great Ormond Street Hospital ] treats its child patients."

How clever is that? The battle, you see, is not between government agents and parents. It's between parents and their children. Parental authority is a threat to children's rights. If "only parents speak and decide for children," then "children have no separate identity or rights." Therefore, the parents must not be allowed to speak or decide for Charlie Gard, because this would be oppressive of poor Charlie's "separate identity and rights." Charlie must be allowed to assert his own identity and rights against the tyranny of his parents' authority. Now, since Charlie happens to be eleven months old and unconscious, he is not able to stand up for his own separate identity and rights at this time.

Therefore, someone or something must step in on his behalf, to defend the poor child against his oppressive parents who wish to deny him his identity and rights.

And that noble task, of course, falls to the State, in this case operating through the heroic agency of the staff murderers -- shucks, was that too inflammatory? -- at Great Ormond Street Hospital. The hospital exists as a veritable bulwark to defend children's rights against those evil families who dare to presume they have the authority to make decisions on the children's behalf, thus denying the children's dignity.

Thus, in this case only the State stands between Charlie and the rape of his humanity. Since his parents oppressively insist on trying to keep him alive, the State must remain steadfast in defending his right to defy them by dying, thus asserting his separate identity as a corpse and his right to die helplessly and prematurely against his parents' wishes.

The hospital and the court, you see -- i.e., the progressive State and its henchmen -- exist to "hear and protect" these sick children when no one else will. Let's parse that, for those who still don't quite get it: the State must "hear" sick children's unspoken desire to be separated from their loving parents who want them to live, and must "protect" them against the threat of being saved by their parents (and non-socialized doctors who still think their job is to save lives) when they would prefer to die at the hands of the socialist death panel.

"How do we know they'd prefer to die?" you ask. What are you, some kind of child oppressor?

Thank God for progressivism. Thank God for the omnipotent and omniscient State. Thank God for the annihilation of the right of self-ownership, the right of self-preservation, parental authority, and the family as the basic societal unit. Thank God...well, heck, let's just come right out and say it, shall we? Thank God for Satan.

Aldous Huxley, if you could see us now...

Daren Jonescu writes about politics, philosophy, education, and the decline of civilization at http://darenjonescu.com/.