Thread: Jonah Goldberg: "Liberal Fascism"

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Have you read the book or just reviews of it and where?

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

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Have you read the book or just reviews of it and where?

I've read dozens of reviews. I don't plan on reading it because it's in the realm of Coulter, Moore, etc.

Equating Hitler's National Socialism, and Mussolini's concept of Fascism (which both wrote extensively about) and equating it with the Classical Liberalism in the USA (which doesn't really exist) is way over the top.

The Dutch are left-wing. The Swedish Left-wing.

They don't like Hitler and Nazi National Socialism. Go ask them sometime.


The definitions are not even accurate.

Goldberg is not a fool. He's joining the ranks of the polemicist entertainers in order to make a buck. Glenn Beck does it. Anne Coulter Does it. Michael Moore does it. Now it's Goldberg's turn.

Hi premise is correct tho...the ranks of Liberal hatemongers are becoming more shrill by the day. Liberals by definition should be tolerant respectful of opinions by others but that's certainly not the case is it?

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Hi premise is correct tho...the ranks of Liberal hatemongers are becoming more shrill by the day. Liberals by definition should be tolerant respectful of opinions by others but that's certainly not the case is it?

I agree, Boon.

That's why I'm sick of the polemicists.

The Black or White, but no gray.

Right vs. Wrong.

Or, people must be "stupid" because of an opinion they hold.

Calling people names.

Yelling on TV.

Yelling on the radio.


Some Liberals are in a little cliquey club. Same with other groups.


I think the vitriol has affected the attitudes of many Americans, because they are inundated by these shrill mongers on both sides, and all sides of any cultural or political debate.

I'm tuning out.

This book is a nuclear missile of logic poked right into the eye of the unhinged left!

^ there is no left in the US.

It's in Europe. And in Europe people are vehemently opposed to Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism.

Try to present some fact. If you do, I will, also.

Just as pigs screech when they smell the blood of their pals on the way into the slaughterhouse, so too right-wing Conservatives, themselves far closer to Fascism, screaming and bleating 'cause they're going to lose everything next election, and they know it.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

This book is a nuclear missile of logic poked right into the eye of the unhinged left!

So, have you read the book then, further than the pic on the cover?

It's the first I hear about it, but I have discussed the claim that Hitler was "left-wing" and the Nazis socialists on several forums. It's a very persistent myth, mostly told on the other side of the Atlantic. It does not withstand historic and ideological examination.
To look at the "socialist" in the name, and populist socialist policies is very myopic, specially when concentrating on the 1920s only. For starters, "Capitalism" here should not be confused with the Marxist concept of it, for the Nazis this was a term which invoked conspiracies of Jewish capital world domination.

Almost the entire German Left was opposed to the Nazis, and they were the first to be persecuted, along with the Jews.

The claim gets really absurd in relation to US liberals or the Democrat Party - there is no common ground with classical nor modern Liberalism.

"Liberal Fascism" as a label registers as a concept at about the academic level of a daytime talk show (therefore slightly above Fox news). Just because the Nazis called themselves "National Socialists" doesn't mean they actually were.

The basic premise of the book as far as I can see is that Far Right Fascism and Far Left Socialism are essentially the same. Whereas of course, they are diametrically opposed.

Who would pay any opinion to this book except someone who considers Ann Coulter an intellectual?

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

The media is overwhelmingly 'Left' - a well-known and admitted fact

How you repeatedly claim that as "fact", much less a "well-known" one, when it's nothing of the sort boggles the mind. It's the constantly repeated yet unsubstantiated refrain of right-wing blogs. There is no 'proof', there is no 'fact'.

A lie often repeated still remains a lie, albeit a pervasive one.

Originally Posted by sabang

The basic premise of the book as far as I can see is that Far Right Fascism and Far Left Socialism are essentially the same. Whereas of course, they are diametrically opposed.

Who would pay any opinion to this book except someone who considers Ann Coulter an intellectual?

Well, all you have to do - if so inclined, is to check out some of the left-wing blogs like the Huffington post, kosfiles etc and see how incensed they are? This book hits a nerve...for sure.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Well, all you have to do - if so inclined, is to check out some of the left-wing blogs like the Huffington post, kosfiles etc and see how incensed they are? This book hits a nerve...for sure.

Well if you're going to use that rationale, it would appear that Hillary Clinton is the greatest living politician and has the potential to be the best ever President of the US.

Left or right, you really need to read further afield than blogs Booners...

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Well, all you have to do - if so inclined, is to check out some of the left-wing blogs like the Huffington post, kosfiles etc and see how incensed they are? This book hits a nerve...for sure.

Well if you're going to use that rationale, it would appear that Hillary Clinton is the greatest living politician and has the potential to be the best ever President of the US.

Left or right, you really need to read further afield than blogs Booners...

Lame..again
The left-wing blogs do not hold the Hildebeast in high regard.
Try again...

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

The left-wing blogs do not hold the Hildebeast in high regard

Yes and neither do the right. In fact they vertiably slam her any given chance. So by your rationale all this incensed ranting about her somehow speaks to her veracity.

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

The left-wing blogs do not hold the Hildebeast in high regard

Yes and neither do the right. In fact they vertiably slam her any given chance. So by your rationale all this incensed ranting about her somehow speaks to her veracity.

Veracity - she has none. Getting off-topic here.
But, by the same token, Ann Coulter must have lots too, eh?

The premise of the book in question is the lunatic left is becoming fascist in its own right.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Getting off-topic here.

You're the one who brought the issue of blog reactions into this.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

The premise of the book in question is the lunatic left is becoming fascist in its own right.

I take it you haven't actually read it though?

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

I take it you haven't actually read it though?

By the extreme reactions of some of the folks, it's a controversial book that provides more grist for the lunatic left to bash conservatives & by that, I congratulate M/M for the OP.

I shall be reading it in its entirity once I can obtain a copy.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

I shall be reading it in its entirity once I can obtain a copy.

Ahh yes so as I thought you haven't, as per, actually read it...

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

This book is a nuclear missile of logic poked right into the eye of the unhinged left!

... so what's all this about then?

Coming back to the Nazis and socialism, the figure of Gregor Strasser is highly relevant here, who was the leader of the Nazi left wing (yes, there was such a thing) until he was murdered by the Gestapo in 1934 - they didn't take too well to socialism, if it went beyond popular vote gathering.

Originally Posted by stroller

Originally Posted by Hootad Binky

"Liberal Fascism" as a label registers as a concept at about the academic level of a daytime talk show

A quick look in any dictionary for "liberal" and "fascism" will show how ridiculous this term is.
Is the US 'right' really that intellectually impoverished that they embrace Coulter and now this crap?

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

But, to take a quote from Goldbergs's book re Nazis and anti-Semitism:

"One of the more under-appreciated motives of the Nazi extermination campaign against the Jews was how it was driven by paranoia. Nazi anti-Semitism wasn't merely bigoted, it was conspiratorial. The Nazis and affiliated intellectuals firmly believed that the Jew was behind the scenes, pulling strings, manipulating events, rigging the system — even the language — in profound and pernicious ways. ...

Correct, as I alluded to for the term "capitalism". But what does this have to do with "liberals", if anything at all? What's your point here, BM?

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Carl Schmitt — quite popular on the left today — was tasked with the job of purging the Jewish spirit from the law."

"Popular" isn't quite right, but intellectuals of the left as well as the right have found his work relevant. What do you know about Schmitt? -or is this just a cheap attempt as defamation by association?

Deny it ain't so? Nazis were shit-scared of the Heeeb - right or wrong?

So? Scared or not, what is your point?

Originally Posted by sabang

The basic premise of the book as far as I can see is that Far Right Fascism and Far Left Socialism are essentially the same. Whereas of course, they are diametrically opposed.

This notion has merit, the two meet in the extreme, for example, communists and Nazis collaborated for a while (before they were fighting each other to the death). The resulting authoritarian intolerance is similar, see Stalin and Hitler.
But, once more, no relevance at all to US liberals, or "the left" as such.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Well, all you have to do - if so inclined, is to check out some of the left-wing blogs like the Huffington post, kosfiles etc and see how incensed they are? This book hits a nerve...for sure.

Yes, for its utter stupidity and the fact that it is taken seriously.
Right-wing blogs are 'incensed' at every notion of Bush=Hitler, does that make it true?

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

The premise of the book in question is the lunatic left is becoming fascist in its own right.

Once and for all, Booner:
The extreme left is not "liberal".

Let's put aside the terms 'liberal' & 'left' for a moment within this discussion. Principally because, after all this time, you cannot grasp the distinction used in the states (recall John L's lectures) vs. what y'all on the 'continent' are familiar with.

As I've pointed out ad nasuem, the liberals if you will are becoming evenmore 'left' within the US. The old Democratic Party is unrecognizable today. Fair enough, there is the Ann Coulter element on the right but getting back to Goldberg's book - his main point as I understand it, is that those on the left today are becoming 'fascist'. Many examples: Intolerance of disenting opinions, editorial pages of MSM bleeding into the 'news'. Unhinged, extreme BDS as evidenced by the 8 millon dollar 'study' to insure Dubya's poll numbers don't go up. The list goes on and on.

I don't claim to be too close to US domestic politics, but in recent hisory Democrat governments have been much more fiscally and monetarily conservative than Republican. This is backed up by hard facts such as US government debt, trade deficits, overall debt levels in the US economy, and softer facts such as corporate covernence scandals, the performance of the USD, even the fact that no senior White House official remains in this administration bar Bush & Cheney.

What am I missing?