Goldberg's Critics are Maddening

Okay folks, I need to quit doing things like this, but I don't think this post will be the last one like it.

Via a post by Jonah Goldberg about one of his critics, I found this big pile of crap at the History News Network: Poor Scholarship, Wrong Conclusions by Matthew Feldman
After a paragraph about Feldman's credentials, he opens with this:

"Fascism is definitely and absolutely opposed to the doctrines of liberalism, both in the political and the economic sphere," proclaimed Mussolini in his co-written The Doctrine of Fascism from 1932, for this is the century of authority, a century tending to the "right", a Fascist century. If the nineteenth century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the "collective" century, and therefore the century of the State. It is quite logical for a new doctrine to make use of the still vital elements of other doctrines.

"But what did he know? Had Mussolini's co-author been a pugilistic journalist like Jonah Goldberg rather than a fascist intellectual like Giovanni Gentile, that keystone of texts on fascist ideology would have sounded more like this . . ."- Dr. Matthew Feldman

And he goes on and on calling Jonah Goldberg a dimwit for daring to notice that Mussolini would be called a Liberal and a Leftist today.  The people Mussolini was "right" of were Stalin, Hitler and Trotsky.  He might have been barely left of FDR, which is open to debate.

Perhaps the fine man of letters, an Oxford Research Fellow no less, did not make it all the way through the passage he quoted.  This seems like a key bit: If the nineteenth century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the "collective" century, and therefore the century of the State. It is quite logical for a new doctrine to make use of the still vital elements of other doctrines.

Update 11 June 2012: Even Wikipedia has this correct -

The term classical liberalism was applied in retrospect to distinguish earlier 19th-century liberalism from the newer social liberalism.[10] Libertarianism has been used in modern times as a substitute for the phrase "neo-classical liberalism", leading to some confusion. The identification of libertarianism with neo-classical liberalism primarily occurs in the United States,[11] where some conservatives and right-libertarians use the term classical liberalism to describe their belief in the primacy of economic freedom and minimal government.[12][13][14]

What is the modern Liberal (Leftist) all about today?  Collectivism!  In the 19th century "Liberal" was about the individual, now every Liberal west of Iceland and east of the International Date Line calls for big government control of every aspect of our lives.  Show me one American Liberal who wants to abolish the minimum wage and if you find one in the wild, go search for one in the United States Congress.  They are all for legalizing marijuana as long as nobody makes a buck off of it, in stark contrast to the Liberty embracing libertarians who don't care if you grow it, smoke it, buy it, sell it, or use it.  If you can manage to make a living from it, so be it.

Update II: 11 June 2012: How the Oxford English Dictionary defines the political Liberal  (no entry for Classical Liberal) - Pronunciation: /ˈlɪb(ə)r(ə)l/

adjective
     1 willing to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one’s own; open to new ideas: 

• (in a political context) favouring individual liberty, free trade, and moderate political and social reform: a liberal democratic state

Yes, Mussolini was squarely against that and so are the current self-identifying American Leftists (self labeled Liberals).  In the USA, where Goldberg is from and his books are published, a British Liberal is known as a Classical Liberal.  As David Horowitz says about people who call themselves Liberal in the USA, "The only things they are liberal about are hard drugs and sex."  They have no tolerance for individual liberty and mentioning free trade to them is like feeding garlic to a vampire, just like Mussolini was his entire life.

American Liberals are Leftists and Statists.  The current crop of American Liberals running the federal government are as corporatist as Mussolini.  Just witness their General Motors antics and two terms, with a party swap, of showering car companies, 'green energy' firms, banks, investment firms, and insurance companies with bailouts.  Real ones, not the 1979 Chrysler variety.

For evidence of Mussolini's consistency  on Fascism being the opposite of individualism, see my page about Liberalism that includes the Fascist Manifesto.

Firing Line: A Distinction Between Left And Liberal By Malcolm Muggeridge, Plus Other Buckley Videos

William F. Buckley, Jr. talks with Malcolm Muggeridge about the distinction between Left and Liberal. Bonus, how Mrs. Roosevelt did more damage than Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler, i.e, how Liberalism is bad. Strikes me as similar to how Libertarians view things.

Here (sorry, no embed), Buckley talks about Getting it Right just after its release in 2003.  His introduction to the book is great, covering "the conservative scene" of the 1950s.  During question time, an audience member from AP informs him that Daniel Patrick Moynihan has died and asks Buckley for a few words.

Added bonus. William F. Buckley objects to being called a "crypto-Nazi" by Gore Vidal and threatens to hit him so hard that he will "stay plastered." Over the years Buckley's phrasing has been twisted into "stay stoned."

Gore Vidal: As far as I'm concerned, the only sort of pro-crypto-Nazi I can think of is yourself.

William F. Buckley: Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi, or I'll sock you in your god damn face and you'll stay plastered.

Only included because I have been looking for this clip for years and finally found it.

Still looking for a speech Buckley gave about how "the Left has won" in our society.

Coming soon to a gun show near you!

Would You Like Borders With That Socialism? Progress and Background

I think that I have most of this book in my head now.  The only hurdle is writing it down in a manner that others can follow, or at least stand to read.  The experience is a little strange, because I used to write papers, studies and long reports when I made my living as a defense analyst.  However, those writings were not for that broad of an audience.  There was always someone around to proof read too, and I am doing this solo.  My other books are fiction, set in the future, which is easier and harder than doing this.  It is easier because, in fiction, I invent the world that the characters populate.  Fiction is harder because In have to remember what I made up throughout a series.  I have no problem with consistency in non-fiction, but Socialists and Leftists have none of these problems, because they do not let that pesky consistency bother them.

Actually, the vetting of anything I touched in defense was reviewed, proof read, shot at, blown up, rewritten, and required approval of so many other analysts that it was nearly impossible for it to escape into the wild as bad work.

I am still reading Jonah Goldberg's book, Liberal Fascism.  I cannot stress enough what a must read book this is for any Libertarian, libertarian, conservative or Conservative.  Small confession here, when I began this writing project I sought out a copy of Liberal Fascism only as a reference source for my new book.  There was one, and only one, copy at Barnes & Noble and my only intention was to find a few important references that Jonah mentioned when he was speaking to the Heritage Foundation.  Being generous here, I will estimate that it took all of ten minutes for me to decide this paperback needed to be on my bookshelf.  It has been my constant companion, second only to my fiancee, for the past week.  See my YouTube channel under Favorites for video of Jonah Goldberg speaking before Heritage and at the Rio Grande Foundation.

One "problem" with this project is, like many other things, I thought of or observed many things that others have written about already.  Liberal Fascism covers more of things I thought of, within the scope of modern political divisions and their roots, than any other book I have found.

If that were all there were to it, I could just pass around writers and essays that match what I like and believe, help others to see the fallacy of Socialism, and be done with it.  Well, there is something else that I hope to bring to the table.  I see other connections that others seem to miss, or at least they do not connect them together.  Sticking with Liberal Fascism, Jonah writes at length about the Leftist/Socialist connection to Moscow.  There is a lot more to that than most political writers seem to acknowledge.

For this post, I leave you with yet another misuse of Fascist/Nazi combined with disinformation all rolled into one.  A video clip I shot 10 OCT 2010 that includes a Lyndon LaRouche supporter 30 seconds into the video.  If you do not know, the Lyndon LaRouche camp are the Democrats who show up at rallies with photoshopped posters of Obama wearing a Hitler mustache.  I allowed the LaRouche supporter to give his spiel about what they stand for.  Basically, they are for everything the Nazis were for, minus the genocide, but they paint Obama as Hitler.  I think the better image for Obama would be a black shirt with that cute little Il Duce cap and fasces.