Who's the Real Fascist Here?

Re: "What the Daily Show Cut Out" by Jonah Goldberg which appeared on latimes.com on 22 January 2008

There still seems to be much stock placed in the old stereotype of slacker pot head graduate students coming up with crazy Utopian liberal ideas. But now the reality is that true market in crackpot ideas is amongst conservative readers. They love to read books about liberals who are godless, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, and traitors, Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism, and how Lincoln was a monster for trying to maintain the union, Lincoln Unmasked: What You're Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe. Jonah Goldberg has written such a book with the fun title Liberal Fascism with a happy little Hitler on the front. Who really can blame him. If he didn't write it some other Joe would be be cashing those checks. I would advise that when he hawks the book he talks about how much fun he had writing it and what a nice car or whatever he was able to buy with with advance. But, don't expect to be taken seriously.

I myself am a life long teatotaller but I could well imagine that after a late night of chatting with with friends and enjoying a little bit of herb that one might think that this sort of a book was a really great idea. After all it is not as though there the concept is totally and completely without any support at all. There are some pithy facts that are interesting. For example Hitler sent representatives to New Orleans to inspect the public transport system because at the time it was known as a town where the trains ran on time. And, liberals at the time had some truly bad ideas. Hitler was much impressed with Americas innovations in eugenics which involved mass forced sterilizations of those considered for one reason or another deficient.

But the argument itself is complete unadulterated crap. Goldberg often mentions the Nazi party has the word "socialist" right there in its name. True enough. But to argue from this that socialist are actually like Nazis is like arguing that compassionate people are neoconservatives because Bush ran as a compassionate conservative. But just as Bush played on the common misconception that a compassionate conservative pursued conservative ideals in a more compassionate manner when the term really means that conservatives believe their tough policies are more compassionate, Hitler played upon the popular brand of Socialism to rise to power. On the night of long knives he killed all the prominent socialists in the party.

Though socialists and Fascists both attempt to use government controls to influence the economy, socialists use government help the disadvantaged while fascist attempt to control the economy to increase the incomes of the already spectacularly well off. In this sense Nazis shared some of the ideas of the Radical Republicans who went on a government spending spree to promote commerce with all the direct benefits going to the wealthy investor class.

And while conservatives cry a river over adult students who have to listen to an occasional wacky lecture, are tut tutted for foolishness such as stamping on the name Alla, or forced to smoke outside in the rain these are mere social conventions. There are conservative universities aplenty. There are still plenty of places where you a free to commit suicide by any means that pleases you, and stomping on the name of someone's god is just rude.

Police states involve things like secret detentions without charge. They also involve massive unregulated surveillance, sham trails, and institutionalized torture. We are certainly not there now. But conservatives have been instrumental in developing an infrastructure that could be rapidly expanded to accommodate a police state. The main course of liberalism is clearly differentiated from the goals and methods of Fascism. To claim otherwise is simply not a serious or even interesting argument.