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You may be wondering why, having spent the past month ordering people to quit comparing everyone to the Nazis, I have suddenly started talking about–and encouraging you to read–the works of David Neiwert and Jonah Goldberg, who appear to have simply made essay and book-length arguments, respectively, for why their political enemies are like Nazis.

The reason is that Neiwert and Goldberg both approach the subject with some degree of seriousness–it’s not just mindless name-calling. Therefore, I think they deserve at least a more serious critique than the ones I give to those who simply use “Nazi” as an insult. If they are engaging in Reductio ad Hitlerum, they are at least trying to go about it by gathering and presenting evidence in a thoughtful manner.

That said, I really do think they are wasting their time. Neiwert thinks right-wing militia groups and pundits are bad; my advice is: “Say why; don’t waste time comparing and contrasting them with various other things.” Likewise, Goldberg thinks liberals are bad; to him I say: “Say why, don’t waste time comparing and contrasting them with various other things.”

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One of the problems with the Neiwert essay I linked to the other day is that he (like Jonah Goldberg) frequently mistakes the tactics of Fascist movements for their core nature. He spends too much time discussing how Fascists demonize their enemies and are willing to go to any lengths to destroy them.

Well, that’s what movements do. I mean, you can’t really have a political movement unless you think you’re right and your enemies are wrong, and therefore your enemies must be stopped. It’s not some unique characteristic of Fascism.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s a fascinating essay, and worth reading. But at times, you’d think anyone who ever wished the people who disagreed with him would go away was a fascist.

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In the mean time, though, I direct you to read this essay by David Neiwert. I came across it while searching on Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism, and I thought it was a rather interesting idea, especially when compared and contrasted with Goldberg’s definition of Fascism.

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“Anti-Europeanism has always been part of American exceptionalism, which defined itself in contrast to European history, politics, and society.”–Patrick Chamorel. 

And, as the article that quotes him notes, Europeans hate the US, too. Although, I don’t think it’s as simple as: the European Nationalists hate the US, and the American nationalists hate them. Rather, I suspect that it is the Cosmopolitan outlook they have which looks down upon American Nationalism.

This is sort of odd, actually, because in general Nationalists hate all the other nations, and Cosmopolitans  “praise, with enthusiastic tone… every country but their own.” and yet I have never gotten the sense that European animosity towards the US is animated by National Pride,Continental, or even Cultural Pride. The last thing I’d expect is for Cosmopolitans to hate some other country’s Nationalists. Yet, I think that’s happening here. From the same article:

“‘They [the Europeans] are weak, petulant, hypocritical, disunited, duplicitous, sometimes anti-Semitic and often anti-American appeasers,’ Garton Ash wrote of America’s implicit disdain for its allies. Social trends seem to constantly reinforce that opinion. Rising secularism and spreading, ultraliberal social attitudes in Europe contrast ever more sharply with a perceived new American Puritanism.” 

Strange.

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NewsBusters is upset over the fact that Janet Napolitano seemingly referred to Haley Barbour as the Governor of Alabama, when in fact he is the Governor of  Mississippi.

Speaking as one who has never liked Napolitano, and who has repeatedly called for her to be fired, I have to say that this does not seem to be a horrifying gaffe like they’re making it out to be.

One day, commentators are going to have to learn: People misspeak. It happens.

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I read Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism when it first came out in 2008, but now that it is part of the Tea Party canon, I thought I’d try to go through it again. Besides which, I’ve posted numerous times on here about many of the issues Goldberg discusses in it, so it may be useful to go over it again.

There are two major errors I can recall just by skimming through it, both of which undermine some of its rather interesting observations:

  1. Goldberg puts too much stock in labels. So, those who called themselves “Progressive” in the early 1900s are of the same “family tree” (to use Goldberg’s metaphor) with those who do so today. The most fundamental instance of this problem is Goldberg’s oft-repeated use of the standard “Right vs. Left” dichotomy across both time and cultures; as in the chapter “Adolf Hitler: Man of the Left”. This is a mistake for reasons which I explain here, and I think it undermines the entire thesis to an extent.
  2. The issue of Nationalism and how it relates to Fascist movements is one which Goldberg does not spend enough time examining. This is a very dangerous thing to do, considering that what we classically think of as “Fascism” (Mussolini, Hitler) is very nationalistic, which, if Liberals are supposed to be Fascists, does not mesh well with the common Conservative idea that Liberals are anti-American. (When asked about this in an interview, Goldberg responded: “I just would want to emphasize that that ultra-nationalism comes with an economic program of socialism. There’s no such thing as a society undergoing a bout of ultra-nationalism that remains a liberal free-market economy. The two things go together…Today’s liberalism, there’s a strong dose of cosmopolitanism to it, which is very much like the H.G. Wells “Liberal Fascism” I was talking about … These trans-national elites, the Davos crowd who really want to get beyond issues of sovereignty…I think that is much more of the threat coming from establishment liberalism today, but I do think there is a lot of nationalism there too.”)  

Still, these issues aside, it makes for an interesting read. Perhaps I’ll post more in-depth points later.

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South Korea has placed robots with machine guns along the North Korean border. The most interesting/troubling quote:

 “Techwin spokesman Huh Kwang-hak was quoted as saying by Stars and Stripes: ‘But these robots have automatic surveillance, which doesn’t leave room for anything resembling human laziness. They also won’t have any fear (of) enemy attackers on the front lines.'”

 Yes, can’t leave that sort of thing up to the meatbags, can we?