Conservatives against Fascism

Two conservatives note the growth of fascism. 

Thank God for state's rights, then. 

One conservative writes: 

Apparently, Rush Limbaugh and National Review think there is a liberal media because the prison torture scandal could not be suppressed and a cameraman filmed the execution of a wounded Iraqi prisoner by a US Marine. Do the Village Voice and The Nation comprise the "liberal media"? The Village Voice is known for Nat Hentoff and his columns on civil liberties. Every good conservative believes that civil liberties are liberal because they interfere with the police and let criminals go free. The Nation favors spending on the poor and disfavors gun rights, but I don't see the "liberal hate" in The Nation's feeble pages that Rush Limbaugh was denouncing on C-Span.

 

In the ranks of the new conservatives, however, I see and experience much hate. It comes to me in violently worded, ignorant and irrational emails from self-professed conservatives who literally worship George Bush. Even Christians have fallen into idolatry. There appears to be a large number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George Bush.

 

The Iraqi War is serving as a great catharsis for multiple conservative frustrations: job loss, drugs, crime, homosexuals, pornography, female promiscuity, abortion, restrictions on prayer in public places, Darwinism and attacks on religion. Liberals are the cause. Liberals are against America. Anyone against the war is against America and is a liberal. "You are with us or against us."

 

This is the mindset of delusion, and delusion permits no facts or analysis. Blind emotion rules. Americans are right and everyone else is wrong. End of the debate.

From the American Conservative a more tempered but wary approach:

the very fact that the f-word can be seriously raised in an American context is evidence enough that we have moved into a new period. The invasion of Iraq has put the possibility of the end to American democracy on the table and has empowered groups on the Right that would acquiesce to and in some cases welcome the suppression of core American freedoms. That would be the titanic irony of course, the mother of them all—that a war initiated under the pretense of spreading democracy would lead to its destruction in one of its very birthplaces. But as historians know, history is full of ironies.

Lew Rockwell, a libertarian writes: 

No, today, the clear and present danger to freedom comes from the right side of the ideological spectrum, those people who are pleased to preserve most of free enterprise but favor top-down management of society, culture, family, and school, and seek to use a messianic and belligerent nationalism to impose their vision of politics on the world.

Via Plastic

Here's one that connects Christianity with Fascism.  And one by my favorite Political Theorist, Sheldon Wolin. 

I don't think that we're about to become a fascist country - although fear is the dominant political argument.  There are too many alternate organizations [we are, after all, a polyarchy].  But the seeds are there, as some desire the destruction of all liberal organizations - like liberal churches.  Conservatives take note.  Those who love liberty, the US, democracy and free-enterprise its time to move away from those who've taken over the Republican party.  Its time for conservatives to restor an old conservatism to the voice of America.  It's time, perhaps, for conservatives to become liberals.

Comments

[Kevin Powell]

What I find most troubling about the direction my neigbours to south is taking (I'm in Canada) is how Bush is using words like "freedom" and "liberty" while very few people are asking what those words mean in light of Homeland Security and other similar measures to "fight terrorism."

My fear is that the rhetoric will not match the reality and the USA will become more fascistic while believing itself to be free.

I simply don't get the evangelical love affair with Bush. Even Reagan didn't inspire such devotion.

Grace and peace,

Kevin

[David Huff]

Man, I'll have to admit that when I first saw the title "Conservatives against Fascism," part of my brain threw little blue sparks of cognitive dissonance. It was like seeing "Porn stars against illicit sex" or something ;)