You're all a bunch of Fascists! At least that's what the left keeps calling everyone who attempts to reason from the classical conservative perspective.
But the issue of who is a Fascist can't be addressed by any measure from the modern philosophical left because their fundamental tenet is the lie. For them, that's the first principle of the art of war. They use it, they excuse it, and they in fact worship at its feet. They are the masters of deception, the political prestidigitators of the modern age. War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength. And one of the truly clever feats of magic the left has perpetrated was convincing John and Jane Q. Public that Fascism is necessarily a product of the popular definition of the "far right."
And of course we can argue definitions from now to eternity and never get anywhere if we reason from the contemporary postmodern perspective. Whether we use the Nolan analysis to determine political positioning, the French memory of left and right chambers of government, or the anarchy-to-dictatorship continuum, we still wallow around in the rhetoric of abstraction. In the real world of non-revisionist history, the problem of politics has always been the diametric polarization of the individual and a governing elite. It's been a battle over who has ownership of human rights - who possesses innate sovereignty - the individual or the state. And the state has most often won this argument by virtue of either deception or sheer force.
"The use of the word 'royalty,' as fee to a proprietor for the exploitation of a work or property, derives from the period when the sovereign assumed title to all wealth of the realm. It was the struggle for freedom from these encroachments of the state that chiefly marked the Nineteenth Century, and established everywhere constitutional regimes of limited authority. In the Twentieth Century, however, we have witnessed a gradual and almost unrestricted movement back to state authoritarianism, primarily in the economic sphere, accompanied by the spread of state monopoly and intervention."
Elgin Groseclose,
Money and Man: A Survey of the Monetary Experience
Groseclose was right. But since he wrote that back in 1961, the advocates of the Collectivist State have significantly expanded their hold on power beyond the economic sphere. Almost daily they claim eminent ownership of some new aspect of our lives. While they're still perfectly willing to license these plundered liberties back to us as a privilege and for a fee, the bipartisan, politically correct, authoritarian American left has finally begun to behave like the Fascists they actually are.
But we dare not admit this openly, for the phenomenon of mass denial has become our very own sacred cow. Don't touch it. Don't question it. Just do it. So trudging along through the lowland of cultural mediocrity, most on the Democratic left are no longer even aware of the grand deception, or that others before have made almost the same miscalculation. And also completely buried in the doctrinal deception, a majority of those on the Republican right also have no idea they have long subscribed to the same paradigm. They smugly deny that the illusory quagmire of collectivist quicksand has dragged down the minds of great individuals with an almost blind indifference.
Responding in ignorance and addicted to the fraud of the "free lunch," the public has taken to opposing the only prescription in history that has ever even remotely remedied Fascism, which in fact is the traditional American conservatism of the classical constitutional republic. That is the ideology of the so called "far right," where the individual makes the sovereign claim to all basic human rights, and empowers the collective state only by consent and practical limitation to manage, police, and protect those rights.
Fascism - Any program for setting up and centralizing an autocratic regime with severely authoritarian politics exercising regulation of industry, commerce and finance, rigid censorship, and forcible oppression of opposition.
Webster's Unabridged Dictionary
Writing in The New Australian on January 24th, 1999, James Henry noted that, "The state of American education being what it is, the vast majority of people are totally incapable of recognizing a fascist economic program, even when it is used to slap them in the face. This is because they have not been taught that fascism means state direction of the economy, cradle to grave "social security", complete control of education, government intervention in every nook and cranny of the economy - and the belief that the individual belongs to the state."
And just in case you think you aren't included in that latter chattel, consider that the popular expression used to describe labor these days is human resources. Members of the executive committee of the White House Health Project under Hillary Clinton's failed effort to monopolize medicine were even excited about proposals for the mandatory implantation of livestock identification micro chips in your body. If you didn't submit you wouldn't qualify for any licensed health care. Now admit it. Weren't there any myopic advocates on the left that even momentarily felt like sheep at that proposal?
And in a January 26, 1999 piece for WorldNetDaily, Joseph Farah wrote in "Moving Toward a Police State" that, "President Clinton has declared more 'states of national emergency' than any of his predecessors. And he's done it in an era he boasts about as the freest, most peaceful and most prosperous time in recent American history. President Clinton has issued more executive orders than any of his predecessors. His top aides have even boasted of using them as a political strategy to go over the heads of the legislative branch of government. 'Stroke of the pen, law of the land,' boasted Paul Begala of the plan. 'Pretty cool, huh?'"
Pretty cool all right. If there's any sensible readers from the left still with us, they're probably beginning to squirm uncomfortably by now. So let's step back and broaden our perspective. Where do we get the word Fascism anyway? Isn't it associated with the Roman "fasces," the bundle of wooden rods covering the battle-ax Roman magistrates used as a symbol of their authority? And wasn't Benito Mussolini the man who took as his symbol the "fasces" of classical Rome, and in doing so gave the modern world the term, "Fascism"? And what was the political slant of Mussolini? Was he a republican constitutional conservative, a product of the "far right?" Or was he a socialist like Adolph Hitler?
"At first the claims of the propaganda were so impudent that people thought it insane; later, it got on people's nerves; and in the end, it was believed."
Adolf Hitler,
Mein Kampf
Liberal revisionists insist that Mussolini was a product of the political "right wing." In fact, there's strong indication that he was for years an orthodox Marxist, who (like Hitler) came to power through democratic means. His dictum was "Everything for the State, nothing outside the State, nothing above the State." So it's a little unnerving that the symbol of the fasces also appeared on the reverse of the "Winged Head of American Liberty" or "Mercury" dime in 1916. That just about coincides with the period the Marxist tenet of progressive income tax became an American institution, and the Federal Reserve Corporation was inserted as a central banking monopoly inside the American banking system. The schizophrenic symbolism of the Liberty Head obverse and the fasces reverse on that design of the American 10-cent coin reflects the very disturbance of opposing forces in American culture that we are discussing.
And what do we really remember of Mussolini and Hitler from today's university history? Do we remember that socialist icon George Bernard Shaw highly praised Mussolini for his collectivist policies, or that the venerable Mahatma Gandhi called him a "superman?" Gandhi's term became the catchword description of Mussolini for the cultural elite of his day. And we've forgotten that the chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Relations Committee told his colleagues in 1926 that Mussolini "is something new and vital ... It will be a great thing not only for Italy but for all of us if he succeeds." And we for some reason can't remember that in the 1930's prominent banker Otto Kahn said that the world owes Hitler "a debt of gratitude." Or that Arnold Toynbee thought he was a "man of peace," or that the French intellectual Andre Gide said that he "behaves like a genius ... Soon even those he vanquishes will feel compelled ... to admire him." Neither can academia recall that in 1934 the president of Hunter College in America declared that Hitler was "destined to go down to history as a cross between Hotspur and Uncle Toby and to be as immortal as either."
Well, Hitler went down to immortal history all right. That much we all agree on.
And yet, in a fit of modern denial, collectivist apologists compulsively and erroneously distance themselves from the age of Neville Chamberlain. They blithely forget the doublespeak of Giovanni Gentile, one of Fascist Italy's leading philosophers stating that, "The maximum of liberty coincides with the maximum of state force." Once again they fail to remember that Mussolini's thesis was: "If historic fact exists it is this, that all of the history of men's civilization, from the caves to civilized or so-called civilized man, is a progressive limitation of liberty." Somehow our educational system fails to remind them that the collectivist advocate Herbert Matthews, a New York Times writer who was instrumental in bringing Castro to power in Cuba, claimed that he was "an enthusiastic admirer of Fascism."
The quasi-intellectuals of the left boldly proclaimed that the 1996 Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole was a "Fascist" for criticizing violent, sexist rap music. But don't ever point out that Mussolini was fundamentally a socialist, or make any reference to Hitler at all. For if you do, they insist that you lose the argument by default. Then they either smugly pick up their toys and march home, or arrogantly shout you down. Sorry, kids, but Fascism is historically associated with National Socialism, and National Socialism was a centralized, collectivist federal authority. Fascism is an institution of statism, and unbridled statism is antithetical to the true conservative thought of those on the "right." And as much as tight-eyed crypto-Marxist intellectuals on the collectivist American left may try to deny it, Marxism is unbridled statism.
"Basically National Socialism and Marxism are the same."
Friedrich A. Hayek
Nobel Laureate
F. A. Voigt, after years of close observation as a foreign correspondent prior to and during WW2, wrote that, "Marxism has led to Fascism and National Socialism, because, in all essentials, it is Fascism and National Socialism." After spending twelve years in Russia as an American correspondent only to have his own socialist ideals shattered, W.H. Chamberlin concluded "socialism is certainly to prove ... the road not to freedom, but to dictatorship and counter-dictatorships, to civil war of the fiercest kind." According to author John Toland, Hitler himself said, "We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic ... system." But the children of the lie, those on the modern left, know that perfectly well. The idolaters of the collectivist icons Emperor Clinton and Empress Hildabeast just want the next collectivist dictatorship to end up under their control. Their god is power, not truth.
"We are the priests of power - do not forget this, Winston - always there will be the intoxication of power ... If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."
O'Brien, Inner Party member of the collectivist oligarchy and brain washing specialist in the final scene of Orwell's 1984
Can't you hear them barking, "Oh, but get real! We're not National Socialists. We're International Socialists!" Well - excuse me. But if we rub the sleep from our pretty little eyes, what do we remember of International Socialism? Besides Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and Kim Ill Sung of course. I know, I know. It's bad enough to have brought Mussolini and Hitler into the argument, but completely unfair to bring the litany of International Socialists into the picture as well. For years, if you dared to point out liberal inconsistencies by analogy to certain historic personalities, your own argument was painted an ad hominem, illogical appeal to passion. But the times are a-changing.
Even ultraliberal Jewish Harvard law professor and O.J. Simpson defender, Alan Dershowitz, publicly stated before an assembly at Yale that he'd defend Adolph Hitler. Furthermore, he insisted, he'd win. So relax and consider concert pianist Balint Bazsony, author of America's 30 Year War. He survived not only National Socialism under the Germans, but International Socialism under the Stalinists as well. And here's what he tells us about his years in America after escaping collectivist Hungary.
"During the late 1960s, I watched in despair as my brilliantly gifted [American] piano students suddenly began to speak as if someone had replaced their brains with prerecorded tapes. They spoke in phrases - repeated mechanically - which were neither the product of, nor accessible to, intelligent consideration. At first, these tapes seemed to contain only a few slogans about "love and peace." Fruitful conversation became impossible, but that was merely regrettable. The situation became alarming when the "tapes" began to include words and phrases that had become familiar to me in Hungary during the Nazi and Soviet occupations, and which contributed to the reasons for my decision to escape. Worse yet, the words and phrases were soon followed by practices of similar pedigree.
"Reactionary," "exploitation," "oppressor and oppressed," and "redistribution" were some of the words taken straight from the Marxist repertoire. The term "politically correct" first came to my attention through the writings of Anton Semionovich Makarenko, Lenin's expert on education. Adolf Hitler preferred the version "socially correct." Then came the affirmative action forms which classified people by ancestry - first signed into law in Nazi Germany - and the preferential treatment of specific categories, introduced by the Stalinist government in 1950."
That's all very well and good, but Bazsony's students were just children of the sixties. So be serious. What could America under Liberal Democracy possibly have in common with the Fascist, dictatorial policies of National or International Socialism? Well not much, I suppose. Unless you include centrally monopolized banking, militantly enforced progressive income tax, the involuntary military draft, affirmative action for special cultural, racial, or political groups, oppressive regulation of the environment, oppressive regulation of business, oppressive regulation of commerce, a call to national service, a call for a national identity system, a call for nationally monopolized health care, a progressively intense call for a ban on private ownership of firearms, a call for state assisted euthanasia, a call for legalizing postpartum infanticide (can you imagine people dragging their toddlers down to the "State Euthanasia Center for Baal Worshipers," complaining that "this brat's got a bad attitude?"), a call for a national police force with Pentagon assistance, the creation of statutes by centralized executive order, nationalized public education emphasizing radical collectivist and politically correct propaganda, a centralized and progressively unaccountable central government, personal and real asset forfeiture for all manner of infraction, interest bearing State-monopolized fiat money, a two-tiered legal system (one emphasizing an apologetic waiver for cultural icons and bureaucrats on the left, and quite another for "conservatives" on the right and the common man), a phalanx of central ministry "alphabet soup" agencies attacking everyone from licensed physicians to health food store proprietors, political assassination, government cover-ups, Gramscian destruction of dissenting traditional culture, disregard for the constitutional rule of law by the appeal of popular propaganda or "democratic" expediency, a shouting down of dissenters and objectors, redefinition of political terms to suit the power elite, a call for the popular globalization of these "progressive" institutions, and - well I don't know. As I said, not much. Except that every one of these proposals appears to be fact.
"For government consists in nothing else but so controlling subjects that they shall neither be able to, nor have cause to do it harm."
Nicolo Machiavelli
Joseph Farah recently reminded us that, "America is not slouching toward totalitarianism, it is rushing headlong toward it." And if so, are there any apologists that can sincerely argue that a people rushing toward a totalitarian police state aren't seriously flirting with that harlot we call Fascism? And if we are, then denial herself is the brutal, silent, black leather-clad dominatrix of the entire affair. History would suggest she is an indifferent whore, much to the tragic sadness of those throughout the ages who insist on getting involved with her. She's just as likely to strike down her most powerful despots and ideological advocates as she is the powerless and innocent.
Still, no matter how much you try, you can never backtrack after considering these notions. There's a legitimate contention for reasonable limitations to the possible abuse of central power. That goes for the most justifiable causes, including nationally or internationally homogenized education, health care, or militant police protection.
There's a popular line of reasoning circulating these days arguing that governments are basically in the business of selling protection. Protection from poverty, foreign invaders, thieves and other common criminals, "class injustice," our "inability" to provide for ourselves, those who would insult us, environmental degradation, our propensity to drive without fastening our seat belts or ride without our helmets, anything and everything they can think of. So when they come to sell you this protection you may ask them what happens if you decline their monopolized services. What happens if you should like to shop elsewhere for these "necessities," in a more competitive market? What happens if even from a reasonable posture, you refuse to unilaterally allow the federal, state, or local authorities to take your money in exchange for limiting your freedom to negotiate with them? Well, there's a strong possibility that they'll read you your "rights" and flat out tell you that then you'll need protection from them. That this fact so reminds any reasonable thinker of the protection rackets of organized crime should cause any rational person to look at the entire matter from a different perspective.
"In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant."
Charles de Gaulle
While to a certain degree the views presented here may be considered an oversimplification, or hyperbole for the benefit of illustration, they still color every further thought we might have about government. The worst thing about seeing our aging collectivist king without his clothes is that you can never get his fat, hairy, greasy image out of your mind again.