The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Republican Fascism And Raaaaacism

Posted on | December 17, 2011 | 11 Comments

by Smitty

Yet another superb Bill Whittle outing:

Now that you have a clear idea of the historical basis for ‘fascism’, here goes Larry Johnson:

The core of conservatism is the belief in the inalienable rights of the individual and the limits imposed on Federal power in order to protect and preserve those rights. But none of the Republicans, with the exception of Ron Paul, believe in the limited power of government. To the contrary.
All willingly embrace the claim, first by the Bush Administration and now by Obama, that the Federal Government can declare a person a “terrorist” or a “terrorist supporter” and hold that person indefinitely without recourse to a court. If you are younger than 38 years old you probably do not remember much of the Cold War with the Soviet Union and Communist China. But there was a time when the United States resolutely opposed and fought against those authoritarian regimes. Yes, fascists and communists. Those governments insisted they could declare someone an enemy of the state and, by virtue of their declaration, do whatever they wanted to that person.

Johnson’s theory seems to be that the United States Constitution was somehow ratified everywhere, and that the rights of our citizens apply universally. The nearest I can come to agreeing with Johnson is saying that, yeah, the notion of the Laws of War is firmly rooted somewhere in the past, probably in the roaring ’20s, before they got around to outlawing war in the early ’30s, and proceeded to gear up for WWII.

Yes, one can largely agree with the complaints about Senate Bill 1867, especially where it seems to blow by posse comitatus. Or at least the some Congressmen can explain the missing nuance here:

Racism was another topic in Whittle’s essay. On that topic, Stogie over at Saberpoint actually has links to Ron Paul’s (in)famous newsletters, which end up being kind of ho-hum, for a bit of light perusal:

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I am not a supporter of Ron Paul. Paul is a paleolibertarian, and as such, holds foreign policy views that seem similar to those on the far left. For that reason, I cannot support him as a candidate. However, truth is truth and fair is fair. Ron Paul’s views on race are often tactless and unhelpful, but not necessarily wrong.

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Category: Conservatism 101, Culture, Ron Paul

Comments

  • http://www.lisagraas.com Lisa Graas

    Oh, my. Have you not read the newsletters?

  • http://theothermccain.com smitty

    From the first couple of links on Stogie’s site, I was concurring with Stogie’s comment that I pasted in.
    I have not sighted and exhaustively read every single thing Paul ever published.
    What concerns me, given the Herman Cain experience most recently, is that there is copious finger-pointing going on, with precious little sourcing of any evidence.

  • http://www.lisagraas.com Lisa Graas
  • Pathfinder’s wife

    It’s heartening to see that maybe, maybe the GOP will address their own flirtations with fascism and the like — aka. their flirtations with progressivism at the expense of liberty.

    Racism may be another matter: the GOP has started to take on many of the characteristics of the Democratic party in regards to identity politics.  This has to stop as it does no good for anyone.  W’s line about the soft racism of low expectations was a good comment — pity it didn’t get followed up on.  Certain ethnic communities do have huge problems.  That those problems were caused and excerbated by progressivism is a given, but nonetheless they now exist and to the detriment of us all  – to pussy foot around them is merely kicking the can down the road which will lead to a bigger problem that must be addressed in the future.  In our drive to be goody two shoes non-racists we condemn people to second class status as a result and our children and grandchildren to cleaning up the mess of our making.
    I’m rather pessimisstic that any brave confrontation of these sticky facts will be forthcoming.

  • http://twitter.com/Juliezzz Juliezzz

    why do you want to play the racism card much like Chris Mathews does on a daily basis?

    Haven’t we had enough of that?

  • Anonymous

    “Johnson’s theory seems to be that the United States Constitution was somehow ratified everywhere, and that the rights of our citizens apply universally. ”

    While the former is incorrect, the latter was the basic argument of the Declaration of Independence and the clear intent of the bill of rights was to impose upon the federal government (and in some cases the state governments) the burden of adhering to that logic.

  • Anonymous

    First of all, it’s Larry Johnson, the one who said we had terrorism was a manageable problem, in July 2001! second
    he cites Glenn Gleenwald who defended a Nazi klan wannabe lawyer who ended up convicted for killing a Judge,

  • Anonymous

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  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    It’s heartening to see that maybe, maybe the GOP will address their own flirtations with fascism and the like — aka. their flirtations with progressivism at the expense of liberty.

    Wonderfully succinct distillation of the Truth and of the hope many of us have.

  • Quartermaster

    There are a few problems with this edition of Firewall.

    First, the Democrats did not found the Klan in 1865. It was founded as a joke by 5 idle former Confederate Junior Officers as a joke. It’s why the officers are named in buffoonish way they are. It was co-opted as a resistance movement against the Yankee Occupation as the occupation became overbearing. It lasted until the Hayes-Tilden election and quickly died out as the Yankee Army was withdrawn as part of the deal to settle the election. It was rumored that Nathan Bedford Forrest was the head of the Klan, but that was simply a rumor. He was probably very influential in it, but that would have been true of any other prominent Confederate Officer.

    Now the new Klan, which was established about 1915, was established by Democrats. It took the same names and type of organization. It also became very strong and openly marched in Washington DC and other places. It was actually far stronger in the north than in the south. IN the early 90s the largest member ship in any branch of the Klan was actually in Ohio, with Indiana and Illinois fairly close.

    Alas, we do have Fascists in the GOP as well. Before it’s over we will see Romney, and much of the establishment is Fascist. That’s a major reason why they are demonizing Paul, rather than dealing with the issues. In so doing, they are marginalizing the very issues that we need at the fore – the problem of FedGov and spending. The Anti-Paulbots have fallen into their trap.

    Other issues like the Color of Crime, which is blowback from the welfare state, and the antipathy towards dealing with illegal immigration by simply enforcing the law, are tearing the GOP down as well.

    The GOP is simply pulling defeat from the jaws of victory again.

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