Matthew Franck liked Jonah’s book
Edmund Burke in 1775, in what seems to be the first defense of partisanship in Western political thinking, argued that party loyalty and striving for victory over one’s opponents is a good thing, so long as loyalty to one’s own did not lead each party to attempt the “proscription” of the other. My second and last question prompted by Jonah’s Liberal Fascism is, how real is the prospect that one of our parties may try to proscribe the other. And which is more likely to try it?
It is a standard charge of left-wingers who claim to see “fascists” on the right that conservatives want to crack down on dissent and stifle freedom of political speech. But if, as Jonah powerfully argues, our fascists are liberals and many of our liberals are fascists–while fascism is much more weakly present (if at all) on the right–then it should not be surprising that we find the left to be the maker of speech codes, hate crimes laws, political correctness, indoctrination programs in all levels of education, campaign finance “reform,” and so on. Can anyone recall any similar campaigns by conservatives for the repression of dissent in the last several generations? (And no, efforts to revive now-lost prohibitions on obscenity and pornography don’t count.) Proscription of its opponents’ views–a classic great-party gambit by those who wish to unmake and remake regime-question settlements–seems to be the agenda of the American left, not of the right.
It’s not just fascism that is redefined by the book, but the words “left” and “right” as well.
>Can anyone recall any similar campaigns by conservatives
> for the repression of dissent in the last several generations?
Is Senator Joseph McCarthy an example?
No.
The people McCarthy was after weren’t “dissenting.” They were actively supporting our enemy, and attempting to subvert the nation, in a time of war.
There will be an immediate comparison with the more obscure parts of the Patriot Act and similar legislation. I don’t know if those arguments are legit or not – I still haven’t have had allegations of govt suppression proven to my satisfaction – but I suppose the possibility exists.
BTW – McCarthy was in the 50s – that’s 50 years ago, but within the parameters of “several generations” [60-80 years] I suppose. And he was subsequently proven correct in many/most instances. There are many more egregious examples of totalitarian behavior – Political Correctness being the foundation of many.
There will be an immediate comparison with the more obscure parts of the Patriot Act and similar legislation.
While I’m not a big fan of it, there is nothing in the Patriot Act that suppresses dissent.
>The people McCarthy was after weren’t “dissenting.”
>They were actively supporting our enemy, and attempting to subvert the
>nation, in a time of war.
Since the amistice for the Korean War was signed in July 1953, I suppose you are referring to the Cold War.
In 1954 McCarthy went after US Army Brigadier General Ralph W. Zwicker, who was hardly supporting our enemy or attemting to subvert the nation.
In 1954 Edward R. Murrow said of McCarthy “His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between the internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty..”
In response, McCarthy went after Murrow!
It isn’t really any stain on the Conservative movement to admit that McCarthy was despicable in his attempt to suppress dissent. Many Conservatives think so.
And what about the Hollywood Blacklist and House Un-American Affairs Committee? Loyalty oaths? Talk of outlawing the Communist Party? The Red Scare wasn’t the right wing’s finest hour.
I didn’t say that McCarthy wasn’t despicable. I just said that he didn’t suppress dissent. I don’t know what “went after” means in this context.
I never noticed that Murrow was hauled off in chains, or forced to recant, or attend a reeducation camp (all things that the left did in countries that it ran and runs, and the latter two things that it does regularly on college campuses in this country).
There was a person who rounded up people and incarcerated them for their political beliefs, though. His name was Woodrow Wilson.
Oh, I personally doubt that McCarthy did it purely out of love of country. And that’s what brought about his downfall, and with it, tarnished with a massive brush all of what he had been actually right about.
Meanwhile, most folks will never know that he was, for the most part, right all along; that little fact has long since been quietly swept down the Memory Hole.
Big D. If you go to the Wikipedia article on McCarthy, you can read the “ongoing debate” section, where Ann Coulter’s defense of McCarthy is discussed.
The article notes that most scholars, including right wing scholars, dispute Coulter’s claims, but at least the controversy is aired, and not swept away.
You know, to some extent we can be greatful to have an opposition party that points out our deficiencies. I know of some camps in the Republican party that wouldn’t hesitate to abuse power.
I think they’re minorities, and don’t have too much control over the direction the whole party takes, and I don’t think it likely they will build that sort of power any time soon. I also think holding back (and hopefully rolling back) socialism and defending our national interests is important enough to risk it and vote Republican.
But without the opposition pointing these people out, I doubt they would remain as “fringe” as they have. Of course, claiming we’re all fascists isn’t very helpful (especially since the vast majority of us on the right aren’t trying to weld the nation into a vindictive mass-movement to remake society).
This guy’s been cutting and pasting that “alarm bells” screed everywhere. I say he’s a troll and I say the hell with him.
Obviously a Fascist troll.
Once again, someone who thinks GWB using the Patriot Act to look for terrorists, is fascism. But the left shutting down free speech by calling any dissenting opinion hate speech is the way we should act.
He’s a nut.
Every time that idiotic screed gets posted here, I’ll delete it.
No offense, but McCarthy and the “Red Scare” is an excellent example. Just because attempts by McCarthy and others with significant political power (for example, J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI) to suppress dissent weren’t very successful shouldn’t disqualify.
There are the Jim Crow laws that were overturned only in the fifties or so. Many protests were brutally suppressed. The proponents of such laws tended to be Southern and conservative. Later on, there were several cases of poorly trained National Guard troops being used to suppress student protests (sometimes with live ammunition and bayonets) on several college campuses.
There is the current “war on Drugs” which has resulted in the incarceration of millions over the past few decades. The proponents of sterner drug enforcement laws tend to be conservative. While you may feel otherwise, I view the widespread, deliberate breaking of law by millions of people to be a form of dissent, though not one with constitutional protection.
Finally, there is allegations of recent hanky panky by US law enforcement agencies versus various protest groups in the past few years. I read of claims of Low level harassment like being inserted on “no fly” lists, eavesdropping, and “free speech zones” that isolate protesters from media. I view some of this credible enough to warrant inclusion in this list. Much of these allegations are dirrected at conservative political forces (like the Bush administration).
While we can quibble on whether some of them are really legit (the last case in particular can be blamed on certain parties opportunistically paranoid imaginations), but I think it’s important to dismiss the bizarre notion that conservatives are somehow immune to authortarian leanings and to the suppression of dissent by some form of force.
I shall respond to the poster’s fourteen-point list. I haven’t seen that he’s spammed the list elsewhere, and if he has then that sucks, but the points can be viewed on their merits.
Because it takes too long to type out “HG Wells-style liberal fascism” all the time, I will abbreviate “LFism”.
I can split apart three areas: one in which the poster is talking about a side effect, one in which the Liberal Fascist is just as bad, and on in which the LFist has chosen an opposite which is just as bad.
We’ll get the side effect out of the way first. Fortunately there is just one.
13. Cronyism and corruption. The Fascist complains about corruption among his opponents when useful, leverages their corruption where possible. But since he must somehow keep his opponents from doing the same in reverse, he would prefer NOT to have crooks in his movement; and will purge them where possible (Night of the Long Knives, etc). Corruption becomes a problem in fascism more than in other governments, firstly because fascism subordinates the rule of law to the greater good but mainly because fascism relies on bunk and attracts cynics. The same dynamic is at work in LFism too, needless to say.
In the just-as-bad file:
2. Human rights. We now have the concept of a “hate crime”, and of tribunals outside the court system to handle them. Since LFists are better people, non LFists are worse people. When someone claims offense from a non LFist, it must be ascertained what the non LFist was thinking when he offended. Accused sexual harassers and rapists shouldn’t have the right to face their accuser in court.
3. Scapegoating. Neocons. Neocons. NEOCONS!!! Oh, the LFist hates him some neocons. He doesn’t like Christianists either. If only a certain shitty little country would concede, and if only those damned Christianists weren’t so stubborn, everything would be so much better. And then there is Big Oil. Big Tobacco. Big Pharma. Not at all like the LFist, who stands up for the little guy.
6. Controlled mass media. If the mass media is fully entwined with a given party, the “better sort” of schools, and the institutional civil service – then it’s not “controlled” for the purposes of LFism. But when all the right people are in charge of all the above then I assert there is no difference.
8. Church and state. LFism boasts a number of unscientific beliefs. For the LFist, differential evolution ended at precisely 70,000 BC when the first East Africans departed for the Yemen. Once-scientific papers publish wild speculations about the dire calamities which might happen IF “global warming” is happening; the proof-by-hellfire argument which they mock when they hear it from the heirs of Pascal. National policy reacts according to the former belief and increasingly to the second.
9. Power to corporations. A “corporation” is a large group with defined limits of sovereignty. The LFist tries to get around this by rewriting the dictionary: If the corporation is an LFist pressure group, then it isn’t a corporation. Left-wing churches, government labour unions, terrorist mafias abroad, LFist governments abroad, and NGOs NGOs NGOs – they don’t count. Business corporations who work for LFists are also off the hook as long as they toe the line.
11. Disdain for intellectuals and the arts. The Fascist loves fascist intellectuals and he supports fascist art. Likewise the LFist loves LFist intellectuals and he supports LFist art. Otherwise – see #8. Watson, half of the Watson and Crick team which discovered DNA, is no longer welcome. Larry Summers is no longer a university president. And just try submitting a pro-Bush poem into your university magazine…
12. Obsession with crime and punishment. The LFist has a list of thoughtcrimes, mostly, but some actual crimes do make the list. Rape, for instance. The LFist twist to it is that whether a rape was actually committed is secondary; the accused is styled a “rapIST” rather than a ravisher, and if there was no rape or even sex then still he “must have done something”. The LFist doesn’t believe in punishment, but he does believe in re-education – to the point of obsession. The LFist hates it if you duck out of the Seminar or the Workshop, because then he’ll have to punish you.
14. Fraudulent elections. Illegal immigrants voting, multiple voting, stolen ballot boxes, stuffed ballot boxes, and intimidation are all justifiable to LFists as to Fascists.
In the alternative-which-is-just-as-bad file:
1. Nationalism -> tribalism. LFism substitutes for nationalism other forms of group identity. The LFist has a list of approved foods, approved clothing, and approved – uh, “catchy slogans”. (Please Recycle! Celebrate Diversity!) So the LFist has a look and an attitude, signifying membership in the larger tribe. The analogy in the Near East is the ‘Abbasid co-optation of the Arab fascism exemplified by the Umayyads (and ‘Ali) into a universal Islam; everyone is expected to act like a 7th century Bedouin, not because they want to look like Arabs but because they want to look “like Muslims” (whose prophet happened to be Arab).
As for xenophobia, where LFists reach a level of prominence they are astonishingly intolerant of unbelievers, heretics, and apostates. Because LFists are better people.
4. The military -> the guerrilla. The fatigues for the LFist is the masked revolutionary; in Chiapas, in Gaza. They fight for the little guy. In actual fact, the guerrilla is a secret police for enforcing LFist goals.
5. Sexism -> anti-sexism. The LFist aims for equality of outcome between the sexes. The LFist has tried to undercut males through legal and extra-legal means. I’ve already mentioned sexual harassment codes; we can add to this Title IX and the suffocating of straight talk about male / female differences. This is causing non-LFist males to drop out of the academy; and good riddance, the LFist would say.
7. National security -> progress. The LFist can’t abide an obstruction in progress. I would also say that The Environment comes into play here, particularly when the word “global” comes up.
10. Power of labour suppressed. In LFism, labour is partly subordinate to the state in the form of income taxes.
Karl is right about fascism in Cold War America. In 1954 the House unconstitutionally turned the “Pledge of Allegiance” into a religious oath and forced it into schools. McCarthy did perform “witch” hunts; that in his case “witches” did actually exist does not absolve him. The South was in a grip of a form of fascism under Jim Crow, although the militaristic pageantry there was more LFist in its regard to the irregular KKK over the uniformed Confederacy.
But Jonah Goldberg would probably agree with him. According to his interviews, he has become more a libertarian than a conservative these days, while researching his book.
(I dispute that quelling student protests in the late 1960s counts as fascism. I call it a muddled reaction to events. There were riots, at least one armed takeover of a building in Cornell, growing crime – all while trying to keep Indochina away from the hell which Mao had inflicted upon China and North Korea. You should assume the good faith of any person unless, as with McCarthy and the segregationists, they prove themselves villains rather than fools.)
I shall respond to the poster’s fourteen-point list. I haven’t seen that he’s spammed the list elsewhere, and if he has then that sucks, but the points can be viewed on their merits.
It’s not his list. It’s just something cut and pasted (repeatedly) from a wacko web site. He has nothing original to say on the topic (or much of anything else), and when confronted with a brutal refutation of it the first time, had no response except fulmination and ad hominem.
In 1954 the House unconstitutionally turned the “Pledge of Allegiance” into a religious oath
What about the Pledge of Allegiance makes it an “oath?”
An ‘oath’ is technically binding.
I don’t believe the POA is binding.
Pledging allegiance is taking an oath. Demanding that the pledger acknowledge that his nation is “under [one single] God” makes it a religious oath as well.
And given that the nationalist Pledge’s original author Bellamy was a socialist, that would make it a pledge of national-socialism. Liberal fascism, in short – except, less liberal than fascist.
Like I said: Karl is right. There is a fascist temptation in all political creeds, and conservatives can fall victim to it too.
There is a fascist temptation in all political creeds, and conservatives can fall victim to it too.
A point that in fact Jonah makes very clearly in his book.
what about the Hollywood Blacklist and House Un-American Affairs Committee?
What about them? The Hollywood Blacklist was actually invented by the left. Morrie Ryskind (author of many of the Marx Brothers screenplays) was blacklisted, for example, because he refused to cooperate with the Communist Party.
The left did not find blacklists unacceptable until they were turned against the left.
> There are the Jim Crow laws that were overturned only in the fifties or so. Many protests were brutally suppressed. The proponents of such laws tended to be Southern and conservative.
No – they were ALL Democrat populists.
Governor Clinton’s mentor, Senator Fulbright, is a typical example.
The 60s civil rights acts passed because northern Repubs supported them.
People who want to white-wash the fact that segregation was Dem policy often “forget” that the south was solid dem until the mid 70s. Even today we’re still seeing “first repub to win {office} since reconstruction”, aka the early 1870s.
Dems have always been and continue to be the racial discrimination party. The only thing that changes is which race they’re discriminating against.
Race and power are the only consistent Dem issues.
Andy: It was possible to be a Southern conservative populist Democrat. Democrat does not equal leftist or liberal, Republican does not equal right winger or conservative, particularly when looking backward from the 1960s toward the 1870s. The original claim was about “conservatives”, not Republicans.
Edward: The Hollywood Blacklist and the House Committee on Un-American Activities eventually became anti-communist. If their origins were not examples of the Right Wing suppressing dissent, so be it — by the 1950s, they became examples of the Right Wing suppressing dissent. No one in this thread is arguing that the Left has clean hands. The argument is whether, for the last few generations, the Right Wing in the USA has ever engaged in fascist tendencies. The Red Scare was provided as an example, and this only shows that the Right Wing is not somehow immune to fascist tendencies. The existence of this example is not a condemnation of the right wing’s philosophies, and certainly not any reason to favor the left over the right.
The Red Scare was provided as an example, and this only shows that the Right Wing is not somehow immune to fascist tendencies.
No, this only shows that you don’t know what the term “fascist” actually means.
No one who was truly innocent had a need to take the Fifth Amendment, let alone be blacklisted. As Robert Heinlein said, “Are you terrified? I am not, yet I have in my background much political activity well to the left of Senator McCarthy
>No one who was truly innocent had a need to take the Fifth Amendment
Sure. And while the Fourth Amendment guarantees that Americans are protected against unreasonable search and seisure, no one who is truly innocent has a need to hide behind the Fourth Amendment either, right? Gosh, I wonder what other constitutional protections can be ignored, since the only the guilty would need them…
How about the Sixth Amendment? The Sixth Amendment guarantees trial by jury, but heck, if you are truly innocent, you probably don’t need a jury!
In all seriousness, I’m more humble than I might sound — I admit I don’t know a lot about that era. But my understanding is that people who took the 5th (or simply refused to answer questions from McCarthy or the Un-American Affairs Committee) weren’t necessarily guilty of anything more than having politcs which were to the left of the mainstream.
Background reading on Senator McCarthy vs US Army Brigadier General Ralph W. Zwicker and Capt. Irving M. Peress:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy#Investigating_the_Army
and
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/04/nyregion/04peress.html
no one who is truly innocent has a need to hide behind the Fourth Amendment either, right?
Wrong. The Fifth Ammendment, which protects the guilty; the Fourth protects the innocent.
Do you not see any difference?
my understanding is that people who took the 5th (or simply refused to answer questions from McCarthy or the Un-American Affairs Committee) weren’t necessarily guilty of anything
Your understanding is deficient.
The only legal basis for taking the Fifth Amendment is to avoid giving an answer that would incriminate you (provide evidence that you have committed a crime).
Not an answer that would embarrass you, inconvenience you, harm your political party or political beliefs, or incriminate someone else. None of those are grounds for refusing to answer a question under oath.
If you’re asked whether you are a member of a certain political party, answering yes or no is not incriminating because there is nothing criminal about belonging to a political party.
If you’re asked whether you beat your wife, on the other hand, your answer might be incriminating — if you do beat your wife. If you don’t beat your wife (and you answer truthfully), then your answer is not incriminating.
Edward,
Regarding the Fifth Amendment, you are wrong.
In 2001, “the United States Supreme Court handed down a per curiam opinion in Ohio v. Reiner, holding that the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination protects the innocent as well as the guilty.”
The quote is from http://writ.news.findlaw.com/colb/20010328.html
My understanding of the article linked to above is that you can incriminate yourself even if you are innocent! Innocent people can be convicted of crimes. If you are innocent of a crime, and you know that circumstantial evidence will point toward your guilt, you may plead the 5th to avoid providing that circumstantial evidence.
There are two broader questions here:
1) Why did people at the McCarthy hearings plead the 5th?
and
2) Did McCarthy attempt to suppress dissent?
I’m still preparing my answers to those two questions, but I thought I would first post an answer to the more narrow question of what the Fifth Amendment is for.
My understanding of the article linked to above is that you can incriminate yourself even if you are innocent!
Technically, yes. A person can lie to incriminate himself in a crime he has is innocent of, but few people want to do that. Those that do want to are not going to take the Fifth Amendment.
All of which is irrelevant, because the question they were asked — “Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?” — is not legally incriminating. Being a member of the Communist Party is not and was not a crime.
If the Supreme Court said Pi equals to 4, would you believe that Pi equals 4?
1) Why did people at the McCarthy hearings plead the 5th?
To protect others. Former witnesses have stated that time after time. Or simply to win the adoration of the press.
2) Did McCarthy attempt to suppress dissent?
No, he was simply attempting to gain publicity for himself. If he wanted to suppress dissent, he would have passed something like the McCain-Feingold Act.
>All of which is irrelevant, because the question they were asked — “Are you
>now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?” — is not
>legally incriminating.
>Being a member of the Communist Party is not and was not a crime.
The question “Were you at Joe’s house?” doesn’t sound like a legally incriminating answer either. Being at someone’s house is not and was not a crime. The problem, as the article I cited above explains, is that being at someone’s house (or joining their political party, etc) can provide circumstantial evidence for a crime even when the person is innocent of any crime. For example, if Joe was murdered and you were there at the right time and you have a known motive, but you simply didn’t kill Joe and don’t know who did, you may be well advised to plead the 5th. If you didn’t read the article, I recommend reading it – it was written by a former Supreme Court clerk, it is very short, and quite well written.
As my work permits today, I’m reading about the McCarthy era, as well as the 5th amendment. From what I’ve read so far, it is indeed clear that, as you say, people at the McCarthy hearings invoked the 5th to avoid naming names (as well as more human reasons such to look cool, etc). But in the climate of those times, it would be crazy to not invoke the 5th amendment. If you do believe that McCarthy was right and that Communists had infiltrated all sectors of American society including the US Army’s officer corps, than it would be even more pertinent to invoke the 5th, as one might have inadvertently associated with actual traitors.
For a modern (but unfortunately very long) discussion of the 5th amendment, see the http://volokh.com/posts/1174946183.shtml which discusses the recent Monica Goodling/Scooter Libby situation. The blogs authors seem to more or less would agree with you, but many of the comments discuss many good reasons for Goodling to have invoked the 5th. There is a long discussion of perjury traps.
Back to McCarthy: One of the people who refused to answer McCarthy’s questions wrote a document on “Why the 5th amendment” http://www.trussel.com/hf/fifth.htm He discusses the same issues regarding perjury, although he maintains that someone could have been lying about him, McCarthy might have believed the liar, and then would gain ground to convict the author… Regardless of that particular author’s guilt or innocence, I think it is pretty clear that many of the people who refused to answer McCarthy’s questions were not traitors, and hadn’t associated with traitors. General Zwicker and his superiors weren’t traitors. Do you think that Capt. Irving M. Peress was a traitor?
Finally, I can’t believe that you think McCarthy’s actions (regardless of his personal motives), the Hollywod Blacklist (circa 1953), and the House Un-American Uffairs Committee didn’t have a chilling effect on political dissent in this country. Do you?
If you do believe that McCarthy was right and that Communists had infiltrated all sectors of American society including the US Army’s officer corps, than it would be even more pertinent to invoke the 5th, as one might have inadvertently associated with actual traitors.
That depends on your values, I suppose. If I was inadvertently associated with a traitor, I would do everything in my power to expose him and see that he was sent to jail or the gallows.
I’m confused by your question, though, since you’ve previously said there were no actual traitors.
Finally, I can’t believe that you think McCarthy’s actions (regardless of his personal motives), the Hollywod Blacklist (circa 1953), and the House Un-American Uffairs Committee didn’t have a chilling effect on political dissent in this country. Do you?
Perhaps you should ask the Kennedies. The infamous “right winger” John F. Kennedy was one of McCarthy’s strongest supporters. Strangely enough, I seldom see any criticism of JFK for that (or anything else, for that matter).
Then there are the tactics of McCarthy’s enemies, including publicly accusing staffers of having “unnatural (homosexual) relationships” (probably true, FWIW). I’ve seldom seen any criticism of that, either, but I can imagine the response if Republicans used such tactics.