Let's Dialogue

J-Pod thinks it's obviously absurd to worry that American democracy will collapse and the country will adopt an authoritarian mode of government. Meanwhile, his colleague Mark Steyn explains that though he doesn't approve of fascism, he thinks Europe will probably turn fascist soon in response to the onrushing Muslim Hordes: "Indeed, Ralph Peters and I have already argued about this: the difference between us, as I explain here, is that I think any descent into neo-Fascism will be ineffectual and therefore merely a temporary blip in the remorseless transformation of the Continent."

My take: You really never know what will happen. It is, however, striking that the contemporary right has widely committed itself to the view that (a) presidential war powers during an undeclared, semi-permament war are essentially without limit, (b) political efforts aimed at curtailing and rolling back presidential war policy are essentially treasonous (see, e.g., Don Young's remarks about hanging members of congress), and (c) media reports that serve to undermine the popularity of presidential war policy are, similarly, treasonous. To discern the significance of all this in historical terms, I would need to know more about the history of the right-wing popular press. It's worth noting that as recently as the 1960s, African-Americans certainly wouldn't view the notion of an authoritarian form of government as outlandish.

Comments

I think patriotism can manifest itself in many ways. Circumstance may dictate an act deemed treasonous or criminal by those in power is viewed as heroic and patriotic by many in a nation and the outside world. Had Lt. Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg been successful in his attempted assassination of Hitler Germany and the rest of the world may have been spared much additional death and destruction. A similar act of patriotism in these times might spare today's world more grief.

Posted by: steve duncan on February 19, 2007 10:25 PM

A similar act of patriotism in these times might spare today's world more grief

Let's not get nutty. And I'm not sure that MY's being fair to JPod, as all Corner posts assume an otherwise Ideal World, and in the NR community, the Ideal World doesn't have African-Americans.

Posted by: SomeCallMeTim on February 19, 2007 10:30 PM

It astounds me that anyone would pay J-Pod or Steyn to write or pontificate, and amazes me that anyone would pay to read it.

Posted by: Jimm on February 19, 2007 10:32 PM

SomeCallMeTim, don't be presumptuous. There are many individuals in the world for whom my thoughts might be applicable. Some of them are even openly the object of just such sentiments (and plans?) by members of the U.S. government. Goose. Gander.

Posted by: steve duncan on February 19, 2007 10:37 PM

I second SCMT's "Let's not get nutty".

MY's post is typically ... insufferable.

Posted by: otto on February 19, 2007 10:38 PM

You know, first they tell us that the war on terror is a war for our very survival and the most important struggle in the history of civilization. Then they tell us that it's ridiculous to think American democracy could collapse. I'm soooo confused...

Posted by: Discoman on February 19, 2007 10:41 PM

come on, matt, you're being ridiculous. there's no way that the contemporary right has committed to b or c being treasonous, and the right is even split upon the truth of a. i dare you to cite mainstream conservative figures who have used the word treason in reference to b or c.

Posted by: Jamie Carroll on February 19, 2007 10:46 PM

Don Young is not only a mainstream conservative figure, he's an elected representative. He didn't use the word "treason" -- he said "saboteurs" -- but Yglesias didn't say he did.

Posted by: Matt Weiner on February 19, 2007 10:50 PM

jamie, i have no idea what you mean by the contemporary right, because it's certainly not mainstream conservatism, a tiny movement vastly overshadowed by a paranoid, authoritarian right-wing.

so yes, mainstream conservativism, insofar as it still exists, rejects a, b, and c.

but the contemporary right isn't mainstream conservatism, and one finds this kind of remark all the time on the corner, in the weekly standard, in the wsj editorial page, on talk radio, and on rightist blogs. actually, the question is who among today's rightwingers rejects these notions: i'm curious myself whom you can identify.

Posted by: howard on February 19, 2007 10:53 PM

I get this feed at work on my browser that shows me headlines for a bunch of news sources. U.S. News and World Report is one of them. What I saw was a run down on Mort Zuckerman's 10 worst presidents and nearly all of them were Civil War era figures. Their main sin from the excerpted copy I could see was an unwillingness to either crush the South, suspend Habeus Corpus on southerners during reconstruction, or the like.

My first thought was that it was a classic neo-conservative vs. paleo-conservative litmus test. There were a few crumbs of red meat thrown out there for the paleocons. Herber Hoover got a thumbs down for being a protectionist and of course that's why the Great Depression happened (it's unsaid but obviously the economic God of War was where FDR got saved). Other than that embracing reconstructionism as enlightened policy is anathema to paleocon history.

My second thought was that it was a sinister turn in rhetoric from the Bush loyalists. From Churchill to Truman fighting an unpopular (but in their minds at least) but necessary war to save the white race *cough* I mean Western Democracy to Lincoln fighting most importantly....copperhead democrats. That idiot from Alaska had gotten his talking points.

Posted by: Ed Marshall on February 19, 2007 10:56 PM

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, however, the rhetoric of the conservative movement marked an abandonment of this tolerant tradition. The charge of treason has been bandied about routinely against liberals in general and especially against critics of the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq. Examples include:
* After correspondent Peter Arnett gave an interview with Iraqi state television during the war in Iraq, Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning called for Arnett to be "brought back and tried as a traitor to the United States of America, for his aiding and abetting the Iraqi government during a war." Even after Arnett apologized for his remarks and was fired by MSNBC, Bunning declared in a speech on the Senate floor that "that's not enough for me.... I think Mr. Arnett should be met at the border and arrested should he come back to America."'
* Shortly after September 11, David Horowitz published a column calling anti-war professor Noam Chomsky "the most treacherous intellect in America.... Disruption in this country is what the terrorists want, and what the terrorists need, and what the followers of Noam Chomsky intend to give them ." A year later, Horowitz commented on a speech that Chomsky gave in Texas: "If the word 'traitor' has any meaning at all, Noam Chomsky is an American traitor, and in fact the leading advocate of the call for all progressive citizens of America to betray their country."
* In April 2003, Tennessee State Senator Tim Burchett drew cheers when he called for the deportation of war critics. "That's treason, not patriotism," Burchett said. "They ought to be run out of our country and not allowed back."'
* After a number of celebrities 'joined other prominent Americans in opposing the war in Iraq, the ProBush.com website urged visitors to "boycott Hollywood" and created a "traitor list" including entertainers such as George Clooney, Sheryl Crow, Johnny Depp, Danny Glover, Mike Farrell, Janeane Garofalo, Whoopi Goldberg, Madonna, Sean Penn, Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon, Martin Sheen and Barbra Streisand.
* The Clear Channel radio network pulled the Dixie Chicks from their playlists after the group's lead singer, Natalie Maines, told fans in London that they were ashamed to be from the same state as President Bush. Only a few days previously, Clear Channel Entertainment, the company I s concert tour promotional arm, had been enthusiastically promoting its co-sponsorship of 26 upcoming concerts in the Chicks' upcoming "Top of the World Tour."' In Colorado Springs, two disk jockeys were suspended from Clear Channel affiliate KKCS for defying the ban.
p183
Conservative pundit Ann Coulter's Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War-to, the War on Terrorism has perhaps gone further in this direction than any of the others. Her book derides Democrats as "the Treason Party," stating, "Liberals have a preternatural gift for striking a position on the side of treason. You could be talking about Scrabble and they would instantly leap to the anti-American position. Everyone says liberals love America, too. No they don't. Whenever the nation is tinder attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence.""' Coulter claims that liberals have been conspiring to destroy the nation for the past half century, beginning with the Cold War when "Democrats opposed anything opposed by their cherished Soviet Union."" In contrast with the Constitution, which declares that treason must be intentional, Coulter insists that it doesn't even matter whether liberals know they are betraying the nation. "They are either traitors or idiots," she writes, and "the difference is irrelevant."
Even former president Jimmy Carter's acceptance of a Nobel Prize makes him a traitor in Coulter's eves. Why? Because the prize was awarded in December 2002, both to honor Carter for his "decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts" and-in the words of Nobel committee chair Gunnar Berge-as an implicit "criticism of the line that the current administration has taken." By accepting the Nobel at a time when Bush was preparing for war with Iraq, Coulter declares, Carter betrayed the Country: "For any American to accept this award on the ground offered " she writes, "does sound terribly like adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."
exerpted from:
Banana Republicans
How the Right Wing Is Turning America into a One-Party State
by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber

Posted by: steve duncan on February 19, 2007 11:01 PM

Don't forget John Dean's book Conservatives Without Conscience. He includes info on how only about 1% of the left have authoritarian personalities in this country and a frightenly large part of the right does (somewhere between 25%-45%, but I can't remember exactly how much). That segment of the population pretty much overlaps with the base.

Andrew Sullivan had a pretty good post up recently on Steyn. While he doesn't exactly say Milosevic was the reincarnation of baby Jesus, he doesn't seem to have that big a problem with genocide as a moral issue.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/02/steyn_and_genoc.html

Posted by: Reality Man on February 19, 2007 11:25 PM

"To discern the significance of all this in historical terms, I would need to know more about the history of the right-wing popular press."

Well, trust me, there has often some extreme nuttery in the right wing popular press. I don't think the popular press is where to look for symptoms of impending troubles. The place to watch is the streets, which is what Dave Neiwert has taken on as a mission. Neo-Fascism or other organized widescale violence will be preceded in one way or another, by widescale unorganized thuggishness and individual acts of violence. As with for example the Klan in the 20s & 60s.

I am not seeing much of it yet. Neiwert sees more, and worries overmuch I think. I do expect another wave of violence out of Dixie/Red America within Matt's lifetime, but it may take a lost war or two and a depression before it gets going. I expect it, mind you, not fear it, but expect and predict it.

What is going on the righty media world may for now be more comparable to the 30s and 50s, which was not fun for their victims, but in no presaged a fascist period. Quite the opposite, these are people losing control, not grabbing it.

Posted by: bob mcmanus on February 19, 2007 11:30 PM

There are, I think a lot of indications that the Right is currently confronting a crisis point of the sort that democratic Leftists had to confront in the 1940s when they had to decide once and for all whether to cut bait with the Stalinists. There seems to be some kind of honest-to-God showdown brewing, in the current situation, between the Fascist and Nonfascist Right -- and the former has always been MUCH bigger, even in modern democratic societies, than any of us would like to think. (Just as one example, read some of National Review's more charming pronouncements over the decades.)

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw on February 19, 2007 11:30 PM

It sounds like the right in this country is comparable to Jean-Marie Le Pen of France and former Prime Minister Koizumi of Japan. Which is not at all intended to accuse Jonah Goldberg and the Corner gang of being fascists, because really the Left is much too hard on Le Pen.

Posted by: Sam L. on February 19, 2007 11:31 PM

alright, you have a stupid remark by bunning and a tennessee state senator. ann coulter does not represent the mainstream right in any way, shape or form. neither does david horowitz.
if i wanted to, i could sit here all day and pull out equally ridiculous quotes from the extreme left, but that's not the point. how absurd is it that you think boycotting the dixie chicks is the same thing as calling dissent treasonous, i think that example alone is nearly enough to discredit your entire argument.
there are certainly right wing blogs that mke idiot remarks, and the same goes for talk radio, but really the US is nowhere near authoritarian government and it is childish to suggest otherwise.
let's see where the wall street journal, or national review called dissent treason. yglesias is usually reasonable, but he's listened to the left wing echo chamber for too long.
let's see illegal actions bush has taken to suppress his domestic critics (no gitmo doesnt count unless you think padilla is a 'domestic critic').

Posted by: Jamie Carroll on February 19, 2007 11:35 PM

On second thought, I'm not funny enough to pull that off. I was trying to mimic Goldberg's Charles Lindberg comments about Matthew. I certainly think the Corner mimics some aspects of Le Pen's and Koizumi's philosophies, though perhaps with less explicit racism. It's terrifying, and we are lucky that it hasn't dominated this nation the way it has in Japan.

Posted by: Sam L. on February 19, 2007 11:38 PM

This is totally anecdotal, but about a week or so ago the St. Petersburg (FL) Times had a small blurb on the growth of the Klan in recent years, with a focus on illegal immigration. They specifically referenced it's growth in the rural counties due north of the Tampa/St. Pete metro area. But all that aside, I see no reason to believe that a neo-Fascist revival would emanate from Dixie anymore than other parts of the country. Remember the "Michigan Militia"?

Posted by: chris on February 19, 2007 11:44 PM

By the way, for the best coverage of the Steyn/Sullivan battle, see Mark Kleiman's blog:

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/terrorism_and_its_control_/2007/02/mark_steyns_final_solution_to_the_euromuslim_problem.php

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/_/2007/02/steyn_backs_off.php

(In fact, at the risk of self-advertisement, I'm pretty sure I was the one who first told Sullivan about Kleiman's initial message, and thus provoked Sully's own entry. He takes quite a few leads from me nowadays, although I'm not holding my breath until my Pulitzer arrives.)

Note the two most precious aspects to Steyn's "response" to Sullivan. First, his indignation that Sully could possibly think he's in favor of routine torture just because he frequently makes jokes about the silly people who oppose it. Second, his fake humility: why would anyone possibly be interested in the opinions of little old insignificant him? After all, it's not as though he widely broadcasts his views or anything. (Of course, that's after he's just seen another example of the kind of reception his views frequently get from the civilized world when they ARE broadcast...) This guy, really, comes off as a brain-damaged version of Evelyn Waugh.

Also note that fact that some of the respondents to Kleiman agree with what Steyn now says (unconvincingly) he wasn't saying -- namely, that genocide of European Moslems will be necessary for European non-Moslems to survive. Well, some time back Matt noted that the only possible justification for genocide is to avoid a greater genocide. And Daniel Pipes (whose credentials as an Islamophobe, as Kleiman says, are indisputable) says that by 2020 (assuming no further restrictions on immigration), Moslems will comprise only 10% of the population of Europe -- by which time God knows what changes will have occurred in the Moslem world as a whole, even if Europe doesn't dig in its heels by then, choke off further Moslem immigration and tax people for having large numbers of children. So much, I think, for Steyn's campfire spook stories. Sometimes, of course, it actually IS necessary to Think About The Unthinkable, but advocating the Unthinkable WITHOUT thinking about it is a definite no-no. If Europe is actually going to be forced to "cull" the Moslem population under those circumstances, we might as well all give up right now and start wearing burkhas.

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw on February 19, 2007 11:45 PM

Jamie, we have a remark by a Republican representative as part of a prepared speech on the floor of Congress. Calling for the hanging of represenatatives who oppose the war. If you can come up with anything comparable from the left, let's see it.

Posted by: Matt Weiner on February 20, 2007 12:04 AM

I think it's very likely, actually, that Europe could take a turn toward fascism...look at the strength of the British National Party, or Le Pen in France. It's a real worry...

Posted by: Mr. Noah on February 20, 2007 12:10 AM

sure, easy. howard dean's speculation that it's an 'interesting theory' that bush knew about 9/11 in advance. if that isn't an implicit accusation of treason, then i don't know what is.
and he's a lot more influential than bunning (head of the DNC and formerly a strong candidate for the democratic nomination). bunning was an idiot, i grant you that, but one stupid remark is in no way representative of the conservative mainstream, nor does it come anywhere close to proving matt's thesis that we might be close to authoritarianism, anymore than dean's quote proves the dems think bush knew about 9/11.

Posted by: Jamie Carroll on February 20, 2007 12:25 AM

That was a dumb thing for Dean to say -- but he was basically saying that Bush's mania for secrecy was helping rumors spread. He didn't say the rumors were true -- to his shame he didn't say they were false either.

And he didn't call for Bush to be HANGED, which is what Young did to the Democrats.

I'm not saying we're close to authoritarianism, but Yglesias is right that significant elements on the mainstream right accept a, b, and c. Deal.

Posted by: Matt Weiner on February 20, 2007 12:39 AM

America has already collapsed into fascism. That was 1993-2001. Remember when the fascists burned down innocent persons in a Texas compound? Remember when the fascists used force to return a 5-year old to a totalitarian government? Luckily, we got our democracy back when George Bush was elected.

Posted by: Al on February 20, 2007 01:10 AM

Fake Al -- on a roll!

Jamie, Bush probably did know about 9/11 in advance -- not the details of the actual plot, but it's on the record that the Bush administration ignored pretty specific warnings about the coming terrorist strike. Out of laziness and incompetence, not "treason", but there it is.

Folks like Jamie, who persist in minimizing the distinction between a very dangerous right-wing authoritarian movement and the American left, are the enablers of what is happening in this country. The difference between the American left -- mild, moderate, sane, and hardly even left by international standards -- and the American right is obvious for any unbiased observer to see.

There is a useful distinction to be made here between facism and authoritarianism. We are not near totalitarian facism yet. But the Bush administration has gone quite far in setting up the legal and propaganda basis for authoritarian government. It probably awaits a more competent, brutal, and ambitious leader, along with another terrorist strike, for this framework to be fully realized.

Posted by: MQ on February 20, 2007 02:07 AM

For the sake of argument I'm going to assume this is the real Al. Al apparently knows neither the meanings of the words fascism and totalitarianism. Whatever really happened at Ruby Ridge and Waco is so up in the air at this point with everything written about it infused with so much political bias it's really anybody's guess. I also wouldn't put down a confrontation between the government cultists who institutionalized rape and child molestation into their practices as representative of the 1990's. Neither was the Gonzalez case. I would say in both cases the government made the wrong decisions, but to point to these cases as manifesting a trend of fascism under Clinton is bogus.

I'm also not sure you can put Cuba into the totalitarian column. Castro has been a beast, but that does not make him Pol Pot. Totalitarianism is a very specific term and tends to refer to governments on the scale of Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, Democratic Kampuchea, North Korea, Myanmar, Sudan, Idi Amin's Uganda and others. You could possibly put Zimbabwe there as well. All of those countries have seen deaths on the order of hundreds of thousands to millions due to political repression, genocide and mass famine. I am not an expert on Cuba, but I do not recall Cubans dying en masse due to famine like in Ukraine under Stalin, the Great Leap Forward, Pol Pot's killing fields or North Korea in the 1990's. I would probably place Cuba somewhere between Russia proper and Burma or North Korea. Totalitarianism, like genocide, is a term that must not be abused so that it can retain its true meaning and power or risk becoming degraded in its usefullness and shock value. Tyranny and authoritarianism are terms that closer describe Cuba today, as well as Vietnam.

Posted by: Reality Man on February 20, 2007 02:23 AM

I think it's very likely, actually, that Europe could take a turn toward fascism...look at the strength of the British National Party, or Le Pen in France. It's a real worry..

Sorry, what? "Look at the strength of the British National Party"? Are you insane?

There are 646 members of the British Parliament. Guess how many are BNP? None.

None!
Not even one!

In the last general election it got less than 1% of the vote!

If this is an irresistible rise in fascist sentiment that is going to plunge Britain into the abyss of a new dark age, made more sinister and perhaps more prolonged by the lights of a perverted science, then it's doing a bloody good job of disguising itself, that's all I can say.


Posted by: ajay on February 20, 2007 05:41 AM

It was interesting that in the course of debate over the Patriot Act one of the Mainstream Right's arguments was that without those laws we ran a serious risk of another 9/11 and if such occurred then martial law would certainly be declared and civil liberties would then be more seriously curtailed. It was further pointed out that in such a case the Unitary Executive would be the sole and lawful authority in these United States.
As to those who insist that it can't happen here well we only need look at the steps taken to date. Recall that the President has been authorized to declare any person or persons to be "enemy combatants" and to secretly arrest and detain and torture or execute them with absolutely no recourse to appeal.
Recall that the Mainstream Right has declared that we are in a state of continuous war scheduled to last generations.
The remaining question is why the BushCheneyCo would seek such a state of martial law. And the simply answer, given their rule to date, is why ask why?

Posted by: tiptap on February 20, 2007 06:17 AM

Has Mark Steyn even been to Europe?

Can we get ourselves on the same page with what the complaint about Europe is? The usual talking point is that Europe is far too socialist for Americans. But now it's on the verge of fascism?

Europe knows the legacy of fascism much better than Mark Steyn does, and is in little danger of suddenly turning that way, even with the "threat of onrushing hordes of Muslims". Indeed, Tony Blair's steps towards authoritarianism are wildly unpopular in the UK, even after the terrorist strikes, and right-wing leaders in other countries like Italy and Spain have gone down to electoral defeat.

Posted by: RickD on February 20, 2007 06:50 AM

"Ruby Ridge and Waco"

Funny how thwe right always blames Clinton for Ruby Ridge, even though it happened during the Bush I adminstration . . .

"Remember when the fascists burned down innocent persons in a Texas compound?"

You need to take a hard look at how Waco happened. The militry's top two anti-terrorism experts--a pair of guys named Boykin and Schoonmaker, who you may subsequentlty have heard of--advised Janet Reno in strong terms that there should be no negotiations with terrorists, and that an immediate, all-out attack was a military necessity. To her discredit, she listened . . .

Posted by: rea on February 20, 2007 06:51 AM

The decent into an authoritarian state seems more plausible than absurd. It’s sort of like going mad though, we will be the last to recognize it. The signs are everywhere – and too numerous to recount. Fact is we’re an empire. As such we must necessarily lose some of our republic.

Irrespective of labels or defining cathartic political events, here’s what the future seems to hold:

1. A permanent state of war.

2. The rise of the security state; diminishment of civil rights.

3. The rise of the secrecy and propaganda state.

Posted by: Yehuda Cohn on February 20, 2007 07:37 AM

The "immediate, all-out attack" on the Branch Davidian compound lasted through 51 days of negotiations, attracted international tourists, nourished a host of small businesses selling t-shirts to tacos, and was a televised media circus.
You can reasonably argue that the ATF warrants and/or the attempt to serve them were stupid and/or illegal without rewriting the history of the siege.
But of course your scenario frees the Davidians of all responsibility for their fate which is after all the point of it.

Posted by: tiptap on February 20, 2007 07:54 AM

Geez, I didn't mean to get off on a tangent. The only purpose was to show that right wingers can be completely off the wall in accusations of fascism as left wingers.

Posted by: Al on February 20, 2007 08:29 AM

Mainstream conservatism has most definitely NOT rejected infinite war powers for the president. They've advanced it remorselessly. I'm sure there are some "mainstream" conservatives like Chuck Hagel whose CANT shows anxiety in that direction but who rarely, if ever, ponies up for a commitment to restricting it.

Posted by: Jeffrey Davis on February 20, 2007 09:12 AM

Hmmm... as soon as Boykin is brought into it, the right-wingers lose their tasted for supporting the Branch Davidians.

Posted by: Barry on February 20, 2007 09:46 AM

With more than 2,500,000 U.S. personnel serving across the planet and military bases spread across each continent, it's time to face up to the fact that our American democracy has spawned a global empire.

-- Chalmers Johnson, 2007

Posted by: Yehuda Cohn on February 20, 2007 09:51 AM

via kos:

During yesterday’s House debate on Iraq, Rep. Don Young (R-AK) made the case for escalation by citing a fabricated quote falsely attributed to Abraham Lincoln: "Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs, and should be arrested, exiled or hanged."

This morning, Young’s spokeswoman Meredith Kenny told ThinkProgress repeatedly that Young does not plan to take any action to correct the record or clarify his House statement.

Posted by: judson on February 20, 2007 12:51 PM

Reading the comments above, I find myself asking: "If any dissent is permissible, what exactly is treason in this time?" It seems to me that a claim that dissent is somehow privileged means that nothing can ever be called treasonous, for treason is by definition dissent. This means that we've essentially abandoned the notion of treason entirely, even though it is very clear that there are some actions by individuals that genuinely harm their own country.

In this area it is interesting to look at Abraham Lincoln's real words (as opposed to the misquote Don Young used, given above). A senator from Ohio, Clement Vallandigham, had spoken against the war against the south, and was arrested for his pains. Lincoln defended this arrest in a letter from 1863 as follows:

"Long experience has shown that armies can not be maintained unless desertion shall be punished by the severe penalty of death. The case requires, and the law and the Constitution, sanction this punishment-- Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wiley (sic) agitator who induces him to desert?"

It's very clear that from Lincoln's point of view, being anti-war during a time of war was treasonous. Dissent to him, then, was not privileged at all...

Posted by: Micah Smith on February 22, 2007 09:11 AM

Regarding a drift towards fascism - Fascism was "created" as a response to growing communism in Europe. It's a many varied thing but basically it's almost a predictable nationalistic response to socialism. Fascists, first and foremost, are ardent anti-communists. They started as such and thrived the most as such. When a culture or people see themselves as put upon by a group within their own culture, who share the same culture, but constantly insist on "changing" that culture, certain individuals within the culture will resist it by any means necessary. In pure semantics, then, a violent response to "the Muslim hoards" can not be called fascism, but must be called something else –neo-nationalism perhaps. However, if a group decides to make war on the faculty at Berkeley for example, or the denizens of the ACLU or punch Bernie Sanders in the face - that could accurately be called fascism.

For now I still think Orwell had it most right:

“Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.”

Posted by: Joseph Iruku on February 22, 2007 02:54 PM

I found your site by accident, indeed, from finding something from Steyn. I have to say - and this is just a comment from one person to another as we live amid the dark night of existence.... you are really wasting your time - you should take a step back and think about the meaning of your actions - and if they are not self-defeating. If your culture is so important, create - read philosophy, Heidegger for one, and perhaps Wittgenstein... you all sound like a bunch of idiot frat boys without a clue. Read Adonis, for instance - I am simply awestruck on how people inauthentically waste their time

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