Newt Gingrich: The Liberal Fascist H.G. Wells Was Waiting For

The original Progressive laughing.

Reason had a good article the other day tracing Newt Gingrich's ideas on how to manipulate the US court system to those of the Progressives of the past.  It is worth the read.

A Liberal Fascist laughing.

An even better read is from a little earlier than that at National Review.  Mark Steyn spends four wonderful pages recalling Gingrich's comments about himself and plots involving massive government expense.  High speed maglev rail is kid stuff compared to what this National Socialist superman has in mind for the federal treasury ant your hip pocket.  This in particular Romney quote about Gingrich caught my eye (emphasis mine):

Vote for Newt and work with me in the mines.

With his numbers sinking, Mitt was driven to go negative. Asked where his policies differed from Gingrich’s, Romney cut to the chase: “We could start with his idea to have a lunar colony that would mine minerals from the moon.” You can’t tell the players without a scorecard, folks. Both leading conservative candidates have supported government mandates on health care. Both leading conservative candidates have supported massive expansion of entitlements. But they differ on the critical issue of whether we should use large numbers of welfare claimants to mine unpasteurized green cheese from the dark side of the moon. To be fair to Gingrich, he’s generally sounder on economic issues than Romney: Mitt’s reforms would leave us with a corporate-tax rate twice as high as Newt’s, and, in contrast to the Gingrich abolition of taxes on capital gains, Romney is proposing to end them only for those making under $200,000 because it would be wrong to “spend our precious tax dollars for a tax cut.” When “conservatives” think tax cuts are government “spending,” who needs Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank?

If you think Steyn and Romney are puffing a bit, let's cut to the video of Newt defending his moon mining idea, straight from a Jules Verne novel:

Of course, now it is "for the children".  Children who saw the original Star Trek, or the reruns, and thought that the government could send rescue workers through a transporter to the Louisiana Superdome in the aftermath of hurricane Kartrina can dream of working beside sexy moon maidens, or for them.

Mining the moon with the technology we have today carries with it an incredibly negative return on expenditure, especially as a public works project.  If government would just get out of the way (including their habit of picking favorites with tax dollars), then the free market will find a way to visit heavenly bodies and extract marketable material for use wherever people want to use it, when it is practical to do so..

In the 1930s, H. G. Wells coined the term Liberal Fascism:

H.G. Wells's ‘Liberal Fascism’

Philip Coupland

Abstract

During the 1930s H.G. Wells's theory of revolutionary praxis centred around a concept of ‘liberal fascism’ whereby the Wellsian ‘liberal’ utopia would be achieved by an authoritarian élite. Taking inspiration from the militarized political movements of the 1930s, this marked a development in the Wellsian theory of revolution from the ‘open conspiracy’ of the 1920s. Although both communist and fascist movements evinced some of the desired qualities of a Wellsian vanguard, it was fascism rather than communism which came closest to Wells's ideal. However, in practice, despite the failure of approaches to parties of the left and centre as possible agents of revolution, Wells rejected the British Union of Fascists. The disparity between Wells's theory and his actions when faced by the reality of fascism echoes the unresolved tension between ends and means at the heart of the concept of ‘liberal fascism’.

Jonah Goldberg of National Review rediscovered the phrase and used it to title a book about the liberal roots of both fascism (National Socialism) and Progressiveism.  I now own the domain Liberal-Fascism.Com.

The more Newt Gingrich talks, the more he fits the mold of the Wellsian Liberal Fascist Superman to swoop down and save us all with technology, backed by massive monuments to government.

Interestingly enough, Newt Gingrich is quoted as commenting on Goldberg's book here:

Of the book former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says: 'Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism will enrage many people on the left, but his dire thesis deserves serious attention.... Goldberg will lead you to new understanding and force you to think deeply.' Following Goldberg's remarks, a panel of experts will present their commentary on the book.

Maybe if he actually read the book he might have used different words.

See the video of Jonah Goldberg on  Fora.tv: