The Dictatorship of Hope and Change

Roger Simon at Pajamas Media calls it nostalgie du fascisme ("The Culture Wars are Turning," May 24, 2010). Woody Allen tells a Spanish magazine that Barack Obama needs to be given dictatorial power for just a "few years" to get us out of what he sees as our various messes.


Sentiments such as Woody has expressed indicate a liberal impatience with messiness of free government, which is in part the necessity of persuading your neighbors in sufficient numbers to bring your views into law. It also indicates a liberal arrogance that precludes democratic compromise.

I would be tempted to dismiss these as the ridiculous babbling of a Hollywood comedian, except that liberal columnist Thomas Friedman, the winner of three Pulitzer Prizes (1983, 1988, 2002), recently said the same thing on Meet the Press, and veteran journalist Andrea Mitchell agreed with him.

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MR. GREGORY: I want to follow up on one point, though, Tom Friedman, which is when you have such activism on the left and the right, what does that do to the political center and how do you govern in that respect? Bob Bennett, the senator who was defeated in a nominated convention in Utah, wrote this in The Washington Post this morning, "The tea party movement's ... two strongest slogans," he writes, "are `Send a message to Washington,' `Take back America.' I know both very well because they were the main tools used to defeat me ... two weeks ago. ... Yet when the new members of Congress whom these slogans elect in November take office ... will they stand firmly on partisan sidelines continuing to shout slogans? Or will they reach across the aisle in the interest of the country? ... If they want their movement to be more than a wave that crashes on the beach and then recedes back into the ocean, leaving nothing behind but empty sand, they should stop the `gloom talk.' These are not the worst of times we have ever faced, nor is the Constitution under serious threat." Where is the center that actually does something, that actually achieves things in Washington if this is what we're creating?

MR. FRIEDMAN: Well, David, it's been decimated. It's been decimated by everything from the gerrymandering of political districts to cable television to an Internet where I can create a digital lynch mob against you from the left or right if I don't like where you're going, to the fact that money and politics is so out of control--really our Congress is a forum for legalized bribery. You know, that's really what, what it's come down to. So I don't--I, I--I'm worried about this, it's why I have fantasized--don't get me wrong--but that what if we could just be China for a day? I mean, just, just, just one day. You know, I mean, where we could actually, you know, authorize the right solutions, and I do think there is a sense of that, on, on everything from the economy to environment. I don't want to be China for a second, OK, I want my democracy to work with the same authority, focus and stick-to-itiveness. But right now we have a system that can only produce suboptimal solutions.

MS. MITCHELL: And, in fact, Tom, you're absolutely right. One case in point, the Financial Regulation Bill, which we can get to...

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

MS. MITCHELL: ...but Chris Dodd realized that Bob Bennett, with whom he wanted to work, the ranking member on the Banking Committee, was so swept away by his fight back home in Utah that he could not work across party lines, and that there is so much punishment for anyone who works across party lines to try to come up the best solutions so they end up with things that are not optimal.

MR. GIGOT: We'd all be in jail if we were China for a second.

MR. FRIEDMAN: No, I--it's--I understand. I don't want to be China, I want our system to work, though.

We all know what's right, apparently. It's just our hopelessly broken democratic process that's getting in the way. They speak as though we're the Weimar Republic. And what do you think of someone who laments the disappearance of the political center while at the same time longing for dictatorial powers? Notice that it took the Wall Street Journal's Paul Gigot to step in with the obvious: The cameras are rolling, and you're talking like crazy people.

Friedman, the prophet of the broadsheet, expressed the same fascinating political proposal to Tom Brokaw in 2008, again on Meet The Press.

MR. BROKAW: You have an intriguing proposition in this book. You'd like to be China for a day, just one day.

MR. FRIEDMAN: Well, it comes from actually a dialogue I had with Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, and Jeff was making the point that, you know, really almost out of exasperation of a company that's been trying to be an energy innovative leader, saying, "Look, Tom, we need is"--what Jeff said is we need a president who's going to set the right price for carbon. Set the right standard, set the right regulation. Shape the market so it will be innovative. Everyone will kind of whine and moan for a month and then the whole ecosystem will take off. And I thought about that afterwards and I said to him, "You know, Jeff, what you're really saying is, `If only we could be China for a day. Just one day.'" So I wrote a chapter called "China for a day, but not for two." Really, about what we would do if for one day we could impose, cut through all the lobbyists, all the amendments, all the earmarks, and actually impose the right conditions to get our market to take off.

As he indicates in the interview, he was summarizing the point he makes at the beginning of chapter 16 of his book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, "China for a Day (But Not for Two)."

As far as I am concerned, China's system of government is inferior to ours in every respect--except one. That is the ability of China's current generation of leaders--if they want to--to cut through all their legacy industries, all the pleading special interests, all the bureaucratic obstacles, all the worries of a voter backlash, and simply order top-down the sweeping change in prices, regulations, standards, education, and infrastructure that reflect China's strategic long-term national interests, changes that would normally take Western democracies years or decades to debate and implement (pp. 372-373).

In other words, China's system of government is inferior to ours in every way except for the totalitarian power the rulers have at their disposal. It's like saying you deplore apartheid except for the way it treats the races.

But the source of their annoyance is not really those nasty Republicans. At bottom, it is the dumb sheep they represent--chief among whom are country people and Evangelical Christians. Elizabeth Scalia reports more fully on this at First Things, including this nice observation:

The leftist party that these people support is currently in control of both houses of congress and the White House (and they are well-represented within the federal judiciary) and yet, it is not enough. The power is not pure enough, it is not invincible enough; their power is diluted because, dammit, those little people crowing about the constitution all over the internets are mucking things up!

Republican government, that is, self-government by a free people, unlike mere democracy, requires a people who has the collective capacity for self-government. They need a minimal level of education generally, an understanding of their system of government and of the value of their liberties, and a moral restraint that in most cases comes by devotion to a religion that is compatible with republican government. People who long for these sorts of emergency powers--or perhaps only the power to "deem" major health care reform bills into law--think of most Americans as comparable to the poor, tribal, historically tyrannized, and culturally slavish people in "developing" countries who are not quite ready for democratically accountable government. This is one reason there is a Tea Party movement storming its way across the American political landscape, heading for November and beyond.


Click on the blog's "fascism" label for posts during the 2008 election season observing fascist tendencies on the left in general and among Obama supporters in particular.

Also, have a look at Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism.

Under the Loving Care of the Benevolent Obama

David brings back to these pages our concern for the resurgence of fascism and the fascist tendencies of modern democrats in his post directly below, Obama's Chavez Envy. Lord knows there is plenty of material out there. He asked for other examples besides the co-opting of the arts establishment, the threatenings of free speech in the Humana scandal, and the bizarre outreach to the Honduran Chavez wannabe. Here goes.

One of the things on the list of priorities for any political order is the education of the young, since they are its future citizens. The education is designed to create to the extent possible the ideal citizen, fit to defend and extend the values and principles of the founding of a given regime. For very young children, those ideals and values must be put into succinct, clear form, reduced to essentials in order to form the basis for their further reflection. Thus, in days past, elementary school included the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, the elements of which, like the Lord's prayer in that other venue, generally escape them until they are older. Yet like memory verses in the bible, this early drill and memorization does give the basis for more mature reflection. In our free society, education has been guided, however tenuously, by the precepts and purposes established by the liberal arts of the classics--the main purpose being to produce freedom-loving citizens able to question their culture, society, and government. This questioning and challenging of authority is also a contribution from the Old Testament--many of the jeremiads of the prophets were against the kings and priests in authority over the Jews, a thing unknown and unthinkable to the pagan societies surrounding them, since for them there was no higher authority than their ruler, who was generally considered at least semi-divine.

Much as been made, and rightly so, of the deification of Obama, and his silent allowing of it. David sensibly asked once what kind of Christian allows himself to be equated with the Savior; to ask that question is to answer it. Thus, this most recent example of school children singing the praises of Obama, being instructed to give their allegiance not to the flag, nor the republic, nor the constitution; and not to venerate the office of the president but the president himself, is just another questionable exercise by those whose devotion to the charismatic leader reeks of past fascism.

Fascist regimes are not interested in criticism from informed individuals free to seek their own good--they want mass consciousness and blind devotion to the leader and the collective. Thus the recurrent technique of devotional songs to the virtues of the leader common to all collectivist regimes.

The charge of fascism has been so promiscuously (and illegitimately) thrown around (Bush=Hitler) that it is almost meaningless now that there is actually some basis for it (another technique pioneered by totalitarianism). The latest bit of indoctrination, which has absolutely no connection with the history or essentials of our uniquely formed polity, makes Obama the hero of American life, and subtly suggests that all that has gone before him has been wrong--kind of like the coming of a savior to a benighted nation. And note the sly co-optation of the Sunday school song--"red and yellow black and white, they are equal in his sight" the original of which only a very few of these children could be expected to know--maybe not even many of their parents. Whether they know the original or not, the effect is the same--Obama is somehow above everyone else, and is who we are to adore and look to for god-like beneficence.

This surreptitiously captured video comes out just after the president's ill-advised (and latterly revised) speech to the nation's school children. The teacher's guide that went out from the Ministry of Propaganda--I mean Department of Education--gives the lie to the claim that all the president was doing was encouraging good behavior and self reliance. (Rush Limbaugh acutely pointed out that Obama would never give that speech to the American people at large, since he is busy reducing risk-taking and self reliance by destroying capitalism and free government).

Compare this with the songs and indoctrination taught to the little would-be Nazis in the old videos from the Third Reich below, which expressly make Hitler the savior of Germany and the volk.




Mm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said that all must lend a hand
To make this country strong again
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said we must be fair today
Equal work means equal pay
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said that we must take a stand
To make sure everyone gets a chance
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said red, yellow, black or white
All are equal in his sight
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

Yes!
Mmm, mmm, mm
Barack Hussein Obama

Song 2:
Hello, Mr. President we honor you today!
For all your great accomplishments, we all doth say "hooray!"

Hooray, Mr. President! You're number one!
The first black American to lead this great nation!

Hooray, Mr. President we honor your great plans
To make this country's economy number one again!

Hooray Mr. President, we're really proud of you!
And we stand for all Americans under the great Red, White, and Blue!

So continue ---- Mr. President we know you'll do the trick
So here's a hearty hip-hooray ----

Hip, hip hooray!
Hip, hip hooray!
Hip, hip hooray!




This video showcases the Norks', the Nazis', and the Stalinist's efforts at early indoctrination:




Just for the sake of overindulgence, here is a song reproduced in a slim volume that should be more widely known by Gene Edward Veith, Modern Fascism: The Liquidation of the Judeo-Christian Worldview, p 67:

We are the happy Hitler Youth
We have no need of Christian virtue;
For Adolph Hitler is our intercessor
And our redeemer.
No priest, no evil one
Can keep us
From feeling like Hitler's children.

Not Christ do we follow, but Horst Wessel!
Away with incense and holy water pots.
Singing we follow Hitler's banners;
Only then are we worthy of our ancestors.
I am no Christian and no Catholic
I go with the SA through thick and thin.
The Church can be stolen from me for all I care
The swastika makes me happy here on earth.
Him I will follow in marching step;
Baldur von Schirach, take me along.

Admittedly, we are not seeing this sort of unambiguous blasphemy, propaganda,and indoctrination, but what we have seen is way outside what a free society with an elective republican form of government should ever see. This strange and threatening departure from our traditional political values is part of what is angering so many people, and arousing them to action.

Vigilance is the price of freedom.

Obama's Chavez Envy

During the 2008 election campaign, Harold and I discerned fascist tendencies among the Obama people and in the candidate himself, even more than one normally does among Democrats. (Go to: "Radical Fascist Chic," "Foreshadowing Liberal Fascist Violence," "Just The Beginning," "(Not So) Distant Early Warning," "The Dark Night of Fascism," "Obama Youth Brigade Sings For Change," and the entire "Political Idolatry" collection.) Of course, the most noteworthy and thoroughly stated warning came in Jonah Goldberg's book, Liberal Fascism.   Some people rebuked us for what they considered inflammatory language. And yet, buds of fascism are what we see. Keep your freedom-loving, vigilant eyes open for more signs like these. (Do you have any to add?)

The fascists commandeered the arts for state purposes. Andrew Klavan writes in City Journal ("The Art of Corruption") about the administration's abuse of the National Endowment for the Arts to promote Obama policies.

[T]he more areas of life are funded and regulated by government, the less free you are, and the more corrupt and servile you ultimately become. ... [This administration] seeks, as statist government always seeks to modify and control human behavior through the doling out and withholding of money and favor.

Notice also the vindictive response to health insurance company Humana Inc. by the Democrats when that company voiced a word of disagreement. Bloomberg News reports, "At Baucus’s request, Medicare officials are investigating letters in which Humana told customers that senior citizens may lose benefits under a health-care overhaul. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in a Sept. 18 letter to Humana, ordered the health insurer to stop the mailings and remove the materials from its Web site."



Why this government wrath? Humana merely informed their aged customers of what may arguably result for them if current Congressional plans for health care insurance reform become law. In other words, they were uttering political speech with which Sen. Baucus disagrees and which he found politically disadvantageous to him and his party.

“It is wholly unacceptable for insurance companies to mislead seniors regarding any subject - particularly on a subject as important to them, and to the nation, as health-care reform,” Baucus’s statement said.

Add the White House call for citizens to inform on any of their fellow citizens whom they discovered circulating “fishy” arguments against the health plan.

Then there is the administration's odd determination to return the leftist Chavez crony, Manuel Zelaya, to the Honduran presidency, despite a judgment by that country's Supreme Court that his removal from office was constitutionally justified and followed constitutional procedures. Mary Anastasia O'Grady's column, "Hillary's Honduran Obsession," points to America as the country with the thuggery problem in all of this.

But it may be that Americans should be even more concerned about the heavy-handedness, without legal justification, emanating from the executive branch in Washington. What does it say about Mr. Obama's respect for the separation of powers that he would instruct Mrs. Clinton to punish an independent court because it did not issue the ruling he wanted?...It seems that Mrs. Clinton is peeved with the court because it ruled that restoring Mr. Zelaya to power under a proposal drafted by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias is unconstitutional. Thus, the State Department decided that in defense of the rule of law it would penalize the members of the Supreme Court for their interpretation of their constitution. Fourteen justices had their U.S. visas pulled.

And those are just the few things that come to mind.


One might object that this is hardly a coup d'etat. This is hardly the burning of the Reichstag. True, but it is evidence of an attitude toward the law and politics that is more at home in the Venezuela of Hugo Chavez than in the republic of American patriots.

Our Bodies, Ourselves

In that 1970's tract of feminist political thought masquerading as a medical self help book, women were encouraged to regard their bodies as the battleground where the forces of reaction--the Establishment patriarchy grounded in Christianity and capitalism, warred against the progressive, enlightened socialism of the New Left. The same seminal, revolutionary moment brought the slogan that helped collapse the important distinction between what is private and what is public, and what is the legitimate extent of government control and intrusion into private lives: The personal is the political. The Supreme Court almost at the same time famously derived a right to privacy from the "emanations of penumbras" of certain of the articles of the Bill of Rights which finds a right to privacy, and which disallows states from legislating restrictions on abortion, validating in one way the right of a woman to her own body (skipping over of course the baby's right to hers--that, apparently was an emanation not appearing in the particular penumbra examined by Justice Douglas.)

It is interesting then to find that same tender concern for the privacy rights of individual bodies kicked to the curb deep in the legalese of the House bill conjuring universal, affordable, non-budget busting health care for all God's children. The bill contemplates boards of experts to advise--no, rule on--both what treatments are necessary and feasible, and which citizens are worth spending the republic's limited treasury on. (Funny--for other purposes, the Treasury is always unlimited--no end to the Blue Sky projecting for the goodness of what the Congressional shepherds intend for its little flock, or what the Congress spends on itself.)

The Congress' insistence on making government the provider of health services forces the logic of the distortion of the public/private distinction to its ugly end: your body is not your own, if the government is paying for its upkeep. It's hard to think of a deeper intrusion into private right than the loss of control over one's own health and life, because, well, there isn't one.

Our Bodies, Our Selves co-author (there were twelve) Nancy Miriam Hawley said of writing the book that "We weren't encouraged to ask questions, but to depend on the so-called experts. Not having a say in our own health care frustrated and angered us. We didn't have the information we needed, so we decided to find it on our own." This laudable, and I should say, quintessentially American attitude, helped foster a take-it-back kind of can-doism recognizable in many aspects as what makes America great and exceptional. And of course that is exactly what is under attack in so much of the legislation of this radical left Congress, unleashed under the aegis of the age of Obama.

It occurs to me that this is not merely an assault on the Constitution and way of life of these United States, a solemnly constituted people, although that is serious enough. It goes beyond the Constitution and self understanding of the people of the United States as encoded in our official public documents, all the way to the natural rights philosophy that grounds the constitution and that self understanding itself. It undercuts the first principle of freedom, articulated most famously by John Locke in his theory of labor, property, and freedom. A person has a natural right to what will sustain his life because he owns his body, his self. He has absolute dominion (humanly speaking), and property in, his own person and body. All property right, and all right whatever, follows from that fact. Personal freedom, personal property, constitutional government by consent, and the rule of law all begin in this natural right to one's own self. This is the basis for the well known triad of Lockean natural rights in the Declaration, of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (or property, as Locke has it).

The intrusion into what one may do with one's body, is, like the intrusion into what one may do with one's property, fraught. There is some State interest in restricting property rights in the interest of the greater public good. Pig farms, abattoirs, and salvage yards are not permitted in residential neighborhoods. Likewise, ingestion of narcotic drugs is restricted because of the danger to the public from people out of their minds on them. To the extent that your personal actions or the property that you control is a threat to the health, safety, or welfare of other equally endowed rights-holders--that is to say, every other person, it falls within the province of the public legislation to limit it. Against such legislation seen to exceed these limits, the Supreme Court has established a benchmark which must be met or overcome--strict scrutiny. The Court will apply strict scrutiny to any law thought to impose an undue burden on any fundamental right, or thought to bring invidious discrimination to groups or individuals based on race, sex, religion, and a growing list of things. The restrictions on abortion that Roe swept away were thought to impinge just such a fundamental right--the right of a woman to choose whether or not to carry a baby to term, not withstanding the state's interest in the protection of life and the interest in the ongoing generation of citizens.

Yet now we begin to see legislation restricting what we consume, starting with trans-fats and tobacco. Sugar, alcohol, and non-organic milk are soon to follow. If Congress is paying for our health care, they will certainly not blanch at serving up as laws and regulations all kinds of good ideas about how we should live. (For a fuller discussion, go here) The property we have in our bodies--literally, what is proper to us, and us alone--is, under the health care monstrosity being considered, about to be taken, in much the same way as real property is taken, via something like eminent domain. The government in such cases abrogates personal property rights in favor of a public good--new highway or sewer line needs to run through your yard, so out you go--thanks for playing.

This seems to be what is in prospect for our most personal property, our bodies. We will have restrictions on choice of procedure and drug regimen based on what an expert panel decides is right (read cheapest) for situations like ours--not even a revue of the actual case at hand, just categories of cases, rated first and foremost by age and ability to contribute. Anyone recall just now the Nazi propaganda initiative against the "useless feeders"--disabled, retarded, insane, aged, etc? Anyone not full of Aryan health and vigor was given the heave-ho. But that's really unfair isn't it, to bring in all those Nazi comparisons. Although they didn't cotton to any natural rights either did they? Everyone created equal? Capable of self government? Government by consent? Freedom for self-actualization? I can hear Hermann Goering cocking his pistol at the very sound of those ideas.

The natural right basis of our Constitution is to be overthrown to accommodate the State's spurious interest in equalizing health outcomes. We will all be made miserable at the same rate by government employees masquerading as health professionals who give a damn. Oh, except for Congress. And their staffs of thousands. And the entire federal workforce. And Hollywood and Silicon Valley elites. And all unionized workers. (want to rethink that offer of union representation at your workplace now?) All the rest of us will queue up and wait for whatever rationed bit of drug therapy or surgical expertise is left over, and our right of personal decision over what is most personally proper to us, our bodies, will have been taken under something very much like the doctrine of eminent domain, where the State's interests supersedes our own.

Makes you wish for the timely publication of a good feminist tract regarding personal body decisions and our right to make them. Oh wait--they've got their abortions paid for in this thing, so we won't be hearing any objections from them this time about "experts" or patriarchal intrusion into personal lives.

If only we had a Court that could look for some more penumbral eminations...

Your Children Will Arise and Turn You In

In an earlier post, "Life Under the Regime of Science," I shared this MasterCard "Priceless" ad to which Jonah Goldberg in The National Review drew my attention. It features a child instructing his father in how to shop in an environmentally responsible way. But the father is not asking for the advice. The cute child is presented as wiser than his young, unshaven, slightly goofy looking father who we are supposed to believe is clueless and careless. "Making dad a better man: priceless."



A reader in Ottawa, Canada, alerts us to a similar ad that was aired in our neighboring country to the north where individual liberty is viewed as a dangerous notion among those who think only politically pure thoughts.



Mr. Glennie shared these insights:

In Canada here, there are `public service announcements' that feature the `scientist' / TV host / environmental nut David Suzuki.

In this spot, Suzuki is seen sitting (in a treehouse, apparently in the middle of the night) with a group of children, who are letting him know how they are `reducing their carbon footprint.'

Then, one of the children whispers to Dear (Leader) David: `Jimmy's parents don't believe in conserving...'

Beyond the obvious question as to why a 70-year-old man would be in a treehouse at night with a group of children unrelated to him, it shows the totalitarian mindset behind present-day `environmentalism'.

After all, the lad isn't informing on "his own" parents, but those of someone else.

It is startling that neither Suzuki, the producers of the spot, nor yet the energy company that subsidizes the production cost, would have stopped to think about these things.

There is an interesting little detail they throw in. When one of the children addresses him respectfully as Dr. Suzuki, he interrupts and insists that she call him "David," and then the conversation continues. Why would Powerwise* take this extra step in undermining adult authority among children? (This "Call me David; Mr. Suzuki is my father" attitude is common enough as it is.)

*According to their website, powerWISE is funded by the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, Ontario Power Authority and local distribution companies.

AIG and The People's Republic of America

Let's not be fooled. A politician's outrage is generally a trick skillfully employed either to profit politically from someone else's wrongdoing or to cover up his or her own malfeasance.

The Democrats now running--and at the same time ruining--the country have opened wide all the valves of their outrage now that the A.I.G. bonus payments they approved have become public.

In this clip, Shepard Smith of Fox News lays out the facts exposing the present government's indignation as a contrivance to distract attention from their complicity in the scandal itself. "They could have stopped this. They made it happen." This is an impressive and passionately delivered step by step account of Congressional incompetence and cover-up. Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and their pals have been like 10-year-olds driving an 18-wheel rig.



With the proposed 90% tax on executive bonuses in select companies, Congress is abusing their power to grab particular people's money in righteous indignation, either feigned or real, or a bit of both. This tax system is for funding legitimate government activity. Often it is also used for social engineering. This is neither. It is just grabbing the money of people you don't like. Government orchestrated lawlessness of this sort makes places like Russia and Africa regions that scare off investment, and thus become places of poverty that should be prosperous. Mark Steyn ("The Outrage Kabuki," National Review Online, Mar. 21, 2009) makes this point.

The massive expansion of government the president is planning is forever, and will ensure you that end your days in what Peggy Noonan calls “post-prosperity America.” More immediately, what message do you send to the world when legal contracts can be abrogated by retrospective confiscatory bills of attainder? You think that’s going to get anyone investing in America again?

The investor class invests in jurisdictions where the rules are clear and stable. Right now, Washington is telling the planet: In our America, there are no rules. Got a legally binding contract? We’ll tear it up. Refuse to surrender the dough? We’ll pass a law targeted at you, yes, you, Mr. Beau Nuss of 27 Plutocrat Gardens, Fatcatville. If you want a banana republic on steroids, this is great news.

The danger in all of this concerns not only economic liberty, but also political liberty. Here is Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) demanding the names of people at A.I.G. who received the bonuses. CEO Liddy is concerned not only for the privacy but also the safety of these people. Frank doesn't care. He needs to put faces on the public enemies and give them names for fear that the face might become his. These people have broken no law. They are entitled to the protection of the law, and to the service of their government in enforcing contracts, not abrogating them.



John Hinderaker at Power Line asks, "Are We a Banana Republic?" (It's short, forceful, and right. Read the whole thing.)

If the Pelosi bill is actually enacted into law (which I still think is doubtful) and upheld by the courts, there is no limit to the arbitrary power of Congress. In that event, we have no property rights and there is no Constitution--no equal protection clause, no due process clause, no impairment of contracts clause, no bill of attainder/ex post facto law clause. Instead, we are living in a majoritarian tyranny.

Harold and I have written in this blog about the fascist or tyrannical tendencies of the Obama people in particular and the Democrats in general when they are fully empowered, as they are now. Once they identify you as an enemy or as an impediment to what they want to accomplish, they target you for destruction with every instrument of the public trust at their disposal, whether it is to silence you (conservative talk radio) or plunder you (the top 1% of income earners).

Our founding generation was certain of at least two things: the value of liberty because of human nobility, and the value of limited government because of human depravity. By contrast, radicals like V.I. Lenin and his Bolshevik cadres were entirely certain not only of the perfectibility of man through politics according to Marxist theory, but also of their own righteous incorruptibility on account of their ideological commitment. For this reason, they concentrated power in the state without restraint or scruple.

The Democrats who control Congress and the White House today are convinced that human vulnerability in a system of liberty is morally unacceptable, and thus that concentrating power in hands of the federal government is politically unquestionable. But in these certainties, they are closer to Lenin than Madison philosophically. The eager abandon with which they are concentrating and wielding power in Washington betrays an unblinking confidence in the implicit and unwavering public spiritedness of politically empowered Democrats--but only Democrats because the Democratic party is the People's Party.

That is not the political theory that has preserved liberty and generated prosperity for the last 220 years.

The Hitch in Beirut

Readers of this blog will want to know, if they haven't already heard, of Christopher Hitchens' dust up in Lebanon with the brown shirts of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, on a trip there with independent journalist Michael Totten. Totten's first person account gives a view of the seamy underbelly of life in a place overshadowed by these throwbacks of the 1930's fascist era.

Briefly, Hitchens and Totten were strolling on a Beirut street discussing the posters and flags the SSNP had plastered all over Lebanese cities in the wake of the Hezbollah takeover last May. Their symbol, a modified swastika, rightly enraged Hitchens, who was surprised to turn a corner and see the very thing, on a marker commemorating the brave assassination of two Israeli soldiers buying coffee on that spot by SSNP goons. Hitchens attempted to tear it down; failing that, he defaced it with a black marker. Thugs appeared immediately, and he was beaten soundly while onlookers, including police, averted their eyes.

Fascism is alive and well in many parts of the world, and is being spread under the aegis of its blood relative, radical Islam (even though the current instance is of the SSNP in Syria, which is an Orthodox Christian movement-may God damn them). Civilized people are easily cowed--note the people with the biggest Islamic radical problems are the Brits, the Dutch, the Belgians, the Swiss, the Canadians, the Swedes, the French, and the Spanish, though they all think they have bought off their antagonists with their bowing and scraping and preemptive obedience. They are all counting on their Western civility and Anglo sense of fair play to restrain the worst impulses, and speak to the better angels of, their fascistic intruder/guests. That tactic will make every city in Europe a Beirut.

The only rational response to such threatenings is Hitchens'--early and often. It remains to be seen if there is enough starch in the broad American body politic to stiffen the fabric against the fascistic impulses just beginning in our country. Arm yourself with the truth--read Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism and Jonah Goldberg's recent Liberal Fascism and get up to speed on the 21st century version of the bright shining "movement of the future" circa 1930. Everything old is new again, as we enter another low, dishonest decade.

Please read Totten's full and chilling account here.

The State and the Stateless

The anonymous psychoanalyst blogger at http://shrinkwrapped.blogs.com/ puts forward this analogy by Robert J. Lewis to illuminate the Palestinian/Israeli relation:

Let us hypothesize a small man, weighing 150 pounds, who is unarmed. Facing him is an Arnold Schwarzenegger type, 250 pounds of sinew and muscle, who also has a machine gun slung over his broad shoulders. Since the two don’t like each other, you would expect the smaller man, as an act of self-preservation, to act in such a way so as not to rile the bigger man. But instead, throwing caution and IQ to the wind, the little man begins throwing rocks -- some of which are sharp enough to lacerate -- at the bigger man. He repeats the rock throwing the next day and then the next, seemingly intent on making a rite of a wrong. A neutral observer would conclude that only someone intellectually deficient would expect his bigger and more heavily armed adversary, now bleeding, to do nothing indefinitely, that at some point the big man is going to say enough is enough and pick up the little guy and hurt him bad, which is what he is doing now, in Gaza – without apology.

Though his commentary following (which I highly recommend, by the way) is insightful and bears accurately on the genocidal fantasy of Jewish extermination incited in all Arab cultures, it leaves out of account something Hannah Arendt developed in her post-war reflections on the twentieth century disasters of Stalinism and Nazism.

These totalitarian regimes hit on a technique reminiscent of a good chess move--i.e., one that accomplishes both an offensive and a defensive objective. The bi-focal and multi-functional move made by the Russians and the Germans in the 1930's was to create a class of "stateless peoples", undesirables, who were made culpable for the suffering of the true volk (and whatever the Russian equivalent was)--Jews primarily, but also Gypsies and Slavs. These people were driven out, propertyless and without rights, and most importantly, without citizenship. They were essentially made non-persons, since a human being before the awful edifice of the modern fascist state is nothing more than his legal status, as defined by the state. Thus, the home country was rid of "useless mouths" and putative troublemakers, and at the same time made to be the enemy's problem by their sheer numbers. Thousands--even millions--of such stateless people wandered across the borders of eastern and western Europe during the '30's, causing hardship and suffering at both the individual scale as well as the national and political scales of the countries, nominally Christian, forced to deal with unwanted refugees. The doubling of the effect was diabolical, emotionally and psychologically crushing these unwanted people while at the same time inflaming the local populations to acts of hatred and violence against the hapless intruders.

And it is this technique--if it were a chess move it would gloriously bear someone's name-which has been learned to great effect by the Islamists across the Middle East, who, following the example of their fascist teachers, have made of the Palestinians stateless people. If there were truly a Pan-Arabism afoot, or anything like an Arab brotherhood, wouldn't you think their Palestinian brothers--who are full-fledged Arabs after all--would find a home in Jordon, or Saudi Arabia, or Egypt, or Syria, or...name the Arab country without either excessive oil wealth or exceedingly generous Western (read American) subsidy. Why has not a single Arab nation come to the rescue of the Palestinians, to help build an actual nation--the sine qua non for the chimerical "two state solution"? No, what has been going on, and what continues under the tutelage and tyranny of Hamas and Iran, is the stateless persons move perfected in the 1930's.

And the inarguable logic in it is this: when something is working for you, you stick with it.

(Not So) Distant Early Warning

How will our new totally Democrat government "rule" (to use a little of their own fascistic lingo.)? Here's a heads up from J.G. Thayer over at Commentary magazine's blogsite. Three events unfolding simultaneously, under direct Democrat party management are once again telegraphing what the hard left thinks of the liberties and rights our country was founded with. Actually these are illustrative of the difference between "governing" and "ruling", where the regime is based on the liberal values of openness, transparency, respect for individual rights against government, and consent of the governed--principles not shared by the hard Left. Here is Thayer's list, which I'm afraid will only lengthen as this presidency unfolds:

• The so-called "Employee Free Choice Act", which is actually intended to discourage free choice in voting in union representation by discarding secret ballots; Democrats are for this? Oh wait, we're talking about the Stalinist wing of the party here...but as Thayer says, "Thank heavens that unions have no history of violence, intimidation, corruption, or deception. Because if they did, the potential for the abuse of this system would be instantly realized"

• Proposition 8 in California, where for the second time, those bigoted, hard core conservative Californians voted to preserve the ancient definition of marriage under their Constitution. Prominent supporters are being targeted now for revenge--with what we have been instructed are hate crimes when done unto homosexuals and other favored groups. Interestingly too, in this Alice in Wonderland world abuilding, the "n" word is absolutely justified when spewed by gay rights advocates. The people of California who dared to exercise this particular opinion must be made to pay, and be made an example of for any future move not to the liking of the newly ascendant "rulers."

• The Norm Coleman/Al Franken Senate election, being stolen right out in the open for all to see. Al Franken? What are you people thinking? Democrats, in the wake of the elections of 2000 and 2004 have worked to capture as many Secretary of State offices as possible--these are the officials, like Catherine Harris in Florida, who certify the votes and decide discrepancies. The massive fraud we already know about in this case makes it hard to believe this is happening in America, but there is only more of the same brown shirt shredding of state and the federal constitutions in store for us.

The New New Left is constrained, it appears, only by the limits of their own audacity, because as it happens, way too many state and federal benches are held by radical sympathizers for there to be much of a judicial backstop for the rule of law-our law. So, as the rule of law goes by the boards, the rule of the Rulers oozes into its place, and we will see what a government paid for with hundreds of Soros millions looks like.

As Bob Dylan saw in a moment of twilight clarity, It's not dark yet, but it's getting there.

Obama's National Civilian Security Force

When I heard that Obama was proposing a national civilian security force that was to be "just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as our military, I couldn't believe my ears. It sounded like something between a Praetorian Guard and the groundwork for a civil war. But then I heard the man himself announcing it:



He says: "We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." But if he is planning the overthrow of the constitution in this way, then...

(1) why would he announce it in a campaign speech,

(2) why wouldn't the press pick up on it (sorry, that's a stupid question), and

(3) why would he not just use the courts as liberals have been doing for years?

The answer to all these questions is that he is not actually planning a para-military organization, and, if he is, he hasn't told us.

Here is the twenty-four minute context missing from the seemingly incriminating clip that you just viewed. He is talking about a specifically non-military civilian service. His idea is that our national security depends not only on military might but also on serving one another at home, international goodwill in response to kindnesses rendered abroad, and some nonsense about saving the planet.

Colorado Springs, CO; July 2, 2008: [As] president I will expand AmeriCorps to 250,000 slots [from 75,000] and make that increased service a vehicle to meet national goals, like providing health care and education, saving our planet and restoring our standing in the world, so that citizens see their effort connected to a common purpose.

People of all ages, stations and skills will be asked to serve. Because when it comes to the challenges we face, the American people are not the problem – they are the answer. So we are going to send more college graduates to teach and mentor our young people. We'll call on Americans to join an energy corps, to conduct renewable energy and environmental clean-up projects in their neighborhoods all across the country.

We will enlist our veterans to find jobs and support for other vets, and to be there for our military families. And we're going to grow our Foreign Service, open consulates that have been shuttered and double the size of the Peace Corps by 2011 to renew our diplomacy. We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set.

We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded. We need to use technology to connect people to service. We'll expand USA Freedom Corps to create online networks where American can browse opportunities to volunteer. You'll be able to search by category, time commitment and skill sets. You'll be able to rate service opportunities, build service networks, and create your own service pages to track your hours and activities.

This will empower more Americans to craft their own service agenda and make their own change from the bottom up. (FactCheck.org)

For those who have the time, here is the twenty-four minute clip of Obama's speech.



Having cleared that up, however, there are rumors that Obama plans to establish a mandatory national service program, something like a draft, or what in Britain they called National Service. Under the British program (do they still do this? is it just for men?), people had to complete a particular period of military training. I have pictures of my dad in Scotland, all skinny and precious in his uniform with a gun over his shoulder. They do the same thing in Israel and Switzerland, except much more seriously, for obvious reasons.

We're looking into it.

Just the Beginning

"A black man is going to win no matter what."



This is only the first such story today. It will not be the last, or only. Fascism steps out into the open under the banner of change.

UPDATE:

Isn't this illegal also?



Then there is this:

GOP Election Board members have been tossed out of polling stations in at least half a dozen polling stations in Philadelphia because of their party status.

A Pennsylvania judge previously ruled that court-appointed poll watchers could be NOT removed from their boards by an on-site election judge, but that is exactly what is happening, according to sources on the ground.

UPDATE:

Are we surprised? This guy voted twice, admits it on tape---and the CNN correspondent says it's "OK"...no problem

Foreshadowing Liberal Fascist Violence

Here is another example of the sort of violence that seems to come naturally to the left, and without the slightest moral hesitation. Most of this is Sarah Palin's "political reading" interview with Katie Couric, but then a football player suddenly creams her, and then shouts condemnations over her broken body. Get it? That's funny! Well, some people think so, but we won't be laughing after the election. Palin's crime, of course, is daring to stand in Obama's way to the White House.




This Terry Tate linebacker fellow assaults the Alaska governor in this video too. Advance forward to the one minute point. The "hit" comes at about 1:21.




Part of the shock for me is that he hits a lady. She whimpers pitifully that she's hurt, but he just shouts down at her that she talks too much. We can't have people talking, can we. Certainly not if they are blaspheming the Prophet Obama or undermining political progress. Isn't the freedom of speech that is guaranteed by the First Amendment only for people who say things that are true? In other words, understanding the Constitution as a living document and thus interpreting its provisions in the context of our more enlightened age, shouldn't the value of social progress outweigh the individual right to free speech when that speech threatens our social progress, for example electing Barack Obama to the White House?

Oh, hold on. That's a European view.

**********
Follow-up: A reader has drawn my attention to a possible alteration of these Terry Tate videos since I posted them. (By the way, I got them from RedState.com.) I'm hearing no "saucy comebacks" to which he refers, but a voice-over adds "No Governors were hurt in the filming of this video." Of course, that makes doesn't change how appalling these videos are. Of course, the viewer knows that Tate's hits are just video trickery. But it is still the intentionally shocking image of a huge man assaulting a lady, a public official, and a rival to his political favorite.

More political violence from the Obama's de facto Sturm Abteilung.

John McCain backer: Mugger carved 'B' in me after noticing my sticker in Pittsburgh (October 23, 2008)
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A woman robbed at knifepoint at a Pittsburgh ATM told police her attacker knocked her down and carved a ‘‘B’’ in her face after noticing a John McCain sticker on her car.

Police say the victim refused medical attention for the wound. An officer saw the injury, but a police report does not describe its size or severity. Authorities say the woman is from Texas, but aren’t identifying her.

Pittsburgh police spokeswoman Diane Richards says the woman was withdrawing money at 9 p.m. Wednesday when a man approached her from behind, put a knife to her neck and demanded money. She says she gave him $60.

The woman told police the robber then noticed the bumper sticker, punched her in the back of the head, knocked her down and carved a ‘‘B’’ on her face.

****************

Update:

The carved "B" incident was apparently a hoax, i.e. a lie. What was this silly girl thinking?

It is sad, however, that her fabricated story fit into a larger pattern of violent Democratic rhetoric, including the visual rhetoric of hanging Gov. Palin in effigy.

Radical Fascist Chic

Ed Driscoll has a great video piece up at his site making the following argument:

This past summer, Rick Perlstein, the author of the new biography called Nixonland, looked back on the period leading up to Richard Nixon's 1968 election and told Reason magazine that in his opinion, "Bonnie and Clyde was the most important text of the New Left", adding: "It made an argument about vitality and virtue vs. staidness and morality that was completely new, that resonated with young people in a way that made no sense to old people. Just the idea that the outlaws were the good guys and the bourgeois householders were the bad guys--you cannot underestimate how strange and fresh that was." It certainly was strange, compared with the nation's politics at the start of the 1960s.

In the latest edition of our Silicon Graffiti videoblog, we take a look back at the film, its radical chic times, and its champion--Pauline Kael of the New Yorker, who would reject traditional culture for "trash cinema." And we'll also look at Bobby Kennedy's Fascist Moment--and even a Bonnie & Clyde-related excerpt the fourth edition of Austin Bay and Jim Dunnigan's A Quick And Dirty Guide To War. Which sounds like one meaty, beaty, big and bouncy little video to me.

Tommy guns and fedoras are optional, of course.



Violence, wedded in a most ironic way to righteousness, is at the core of fascism. It is the default impulse of the powerless, as Hannah Arendt pointed out in On Violence. and also of the mindless. The Nazis glorified irrationality and will over cold, bourgeois reason. The New Left, and now the New New Left, mirror that preference: note the presence of violent agitators that has become expected at all political conventions and meetings of transnational organizations. Most of the protestors don't even know what the organizations are, what they do, or what is being discussed. They show up for the mindless violence and to join a mass expression of the will to destroy whatever exists. They are the shock troops intended to spread chaos and distrust of institutions and leaders, in order to make way for the strong man or party to step in and restore order. A fascistic order, that precludes that over-rated bourgeois value, freedom.

Obama Youth Brigade Sings For Change

Evidence of the political Messianism that surrounds Barack Obama continues unabated. Here is a creepy video of children singing out the One. A child sings, "We're gonna spread happiness. We're gonna spread freedom. Obama's gonna change it. Obama's gonna lead 'em. We're gonna change it, and rearrange it. We're goin' to change the world."



Obama's going to bring freedom, but not for people to pursue happiness. The freedom will come in the happiness that he provides. He will do this by rearranging the world. This is consistent with the messianic claims his more enthusiastic follows have made for him. The song's expectation that he will "rearrange" the world is consistent with his claim that it is not politics that is broken (as McCain claims), but America itself. His wife, Michelle, says, "our souls are broken." Perhaps he will re-arrange our souls.

If Obama is sworn in as President, can we expect an Obama catechism for children, either issued by the White House or initiated by the public schools with the approving sufferance of the White House?

Nazis and Communists have been known for this blend of patriotism (a thing that is healthy in itself), Utopian political hopes, and personality cult. I thank the Belmont Club blog for directing me to this nightmarish scene from Cabaret that depicts a wholesome young man singing a seemingly apolitical song expressing love for his fatherland. The scene slowly transforms into a passionate, mass devotion to the Fuhrer and his personal agency in uniting these people with what they believe to be the beautiful future they deserve. It is called "The Future Belongs to Me."



Consider also this Leninist exploitation of children for political purposes. (Thanks again to Belmont Club.)



I can't vouch for the translation in the sub-titles, but it sounds like Mao's Cultural Revolution and today's North Korea.

[Note: Actually, my colleague at The King's College, economist Alex Tokarev, is a native Russian speaker, and he says the words have nothing to do with what the children are singing in this video, and the reference to Lenin's little potatoes doesn't sound credible even for socialist propaganda of the period. Always go to the source, and to the original language if you can!]

Of course, this is quite distinct from the love of country that we instill in our children, though within measure, even through patriotic songs such as "America, the Beautiful" and the National Anthem. It's worth reflecting on the difference between the cultivation of patriotic sentiment in young hearts and the propagandizing of children in totalitarian states that we see in these videos.

There appears to have been difficulty keeping the "Sing For Change" video publicly accessible, as Belmont Club attests. ("BTW, the original YouTube video was withdrawn from public sharing and the embedded video stopped working for a time, but someone has reposted it (HT Sobieski) and I’ve re-embedded. There may be a struggle to keep the video visible to the public in the coming days. Who could have foreseen it would be harder to keep a video criticizing Obama up than one criticizing Hitler?") Perhaps the thugs from Obama's "truth squads" have been busy.

Of course, the other side of messianic political movements and figures is their actively fascistic (yes, I use the word advisedly) intolerance of any criticism. We observe this in American political liberals in general, as Jonah Goldberg has documented in his book, Liberal Fascism, and as Barack Obama himself has already begun to demonstrate. See Harold Kildow's post "The Dark Night of Fascism."

The Dark Night of Fascism

One of our readers took me to task recently for describing the Left in this country as having fascist tendencies. It lowers the level of discourse, I believe was his claim. I have seen several examples come and go since then, but this story coming out of Missouri is truly chilling, and indicates the fascist intentions of elements within the Obama campaign and in.

Last Tuesday without any fanfare, the Barack Obama campaign announced Jennifer Joyce and Bob McCulloch, the top prosecutors in St. Louis city and St. Louis County, were joining something called an Obama truth squad. They plan to respond immediately to any misleading advertisements and statements that might violate Missouri ethics laws.

The story itself is scary, in that the reporter's sarcastic tone shows he sides with the Obama campaign in threatening free speech--he obviously thinks his speech rights will never be threatened. Governor Matt Blunt of that state was sufficiently alarmed to issue a statement concerning the threat of law enforcement officials signing up to deter what they consider untruthful campaign ads against Barack Obama.

What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words, the party that claims to be the party of Thomas Jefferson is abusing the justice system and offices of public trust to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment.

This abuse of the law for intimidation insults the most sacred principles and ideals of Jefferson. I can think of nothing more offensive to Jefferson’s thinking than using the power of the state to deprive Americans of their civil rights. The only conceivable purpose of Messrs. McCulloch, Obama and the others is to frighten people away from expressing themselves, to chill free and open debate, to suppress support and donations to conservative organizations targeted by this anti-civil rights, to strangle criticism of Mr. Obama, to suppress ads about his support of higher taxes, and to choke out criticism on television, radio, the Internet, blogs, e-mail and daily conversation about the election.

What response would be appropriate from a prosecutor to paid advertising, which I believe still falls under the First Amendment? We do still have a First Amendment, right? What business do prosecutors have, in their official capacities, being part of a "truth squad"? I'll bet Ernst Rohm, the community organizer in charge of Hitler's Brown Shirts, would admire that one.

Organized intimidation: now an approved method in American politics, and the jihadis haven't even gotten warmed up here yet.