A New Libertarianism of Paranoid Revolt
Lee on Aug 02 2008 at 5:05 pm | Filed under: Lee's Page, Libertarianism
Jordan Page (who is a kind of Ronpaulist Joan Baez) reflects on the “Revolution March,” a July 12th Ron Paul protest rally in Washington DC, in part organized by Adam Kokesh (who of late believes the Washington police are involved in a clandestine conspiracy against him).
Now, I grew up in the libertarian movement such as it was. Although I no longer consider myself a libertarian out of respect for the philosophy, I think I knew it well. My libertarianism was of the rightish sort, but fundamentally a movement for liberty through reason. A movement of the great economists and political philosophers of the Austrian School and the University of Chicago. The movement of Mises and Friedman. But this paranoid, revolutionary rubbish presented by Page as libertarianism, is utterly unrecognizable to me.
Page’s essay is in fact functionally indistinguishable from an editorial in Dissent or Political Affairs; suffused as it is with a language and politics more common to Marxist revolt. All the discreditable aspects of doctrinal ideology Milosz called “the captive mind” can be found within it. The messianic idolatry of the oppressed glorious leader, the paranoid ramblings about all-powerful invisible forces aligned against the enlightened, the Trotskyist penchant for exaggeration to the frontiers of schizophrenia, the mindless orthodoxy of slogans and fear, and the manufacture of an entirely fictive police state in a free society, strictly to serve as an organizing principle.
Dr. Paul is a candidate who has been campaigning against the grain of corporate American imperialism.
[...]
I’m talking about a widespread movement to combat the rise of fascism in this country through awareness and public cohesion.
[...]
I was inspired and angered listening to Naomi Wolf clearly outline the ten steps that historically bring an open free society into the darkness of totalitarian dictatorship. A process through which America is currently undergoing.
(Huffington Post)
This isn’t a contemplative intellectual movement that seeks limited government and a deregulated society. It’s a ripped off Marxist power cult. A politics worthy of a half-assed delusional rebel movement in a hollow nation-state on the Congo, rather than the United States.
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These guys aren’t really libertarians. They may like markets (and I am not even sure of that with someone like Page) but human freedom as a whole doesn’t interest them at all. Like the nut jobs at Llewellen Rockwell’s place, who justify non interventionism (a position that can be reasonably held, a la Friedman) by throwing bouquets at Milosovic and Putin amongst others. Not coincidentally, Rockwell and Paul are close friends and associates (it was almost certainly Rockwell who wrote the bizarre racist tracts that appreared under Paul’s name.)
I have had to conclude that Paul and his cohorts are to libertarianism, as Lyndon Larouche is to Democrats. Unfortunately, the Libertarian Party just can’t seem to marginalize these guys. I feel personal remorse at not having looked into Paul all these years more closely.
I share that. On a certain level perhaps I feel a bit like Lionel Trilling, belatedly recognizing the excesses of the New Left and its decisive break with the Old Left.
More needs to be written on this subject I believe. By libertarians, rather than weirdo conservative-moderates like me. There is a real danger of this ideology being redefined as libertarianism. Not without reason either, when they’re attracting substantial crowds.
Good point. I wrote some stuff about this strain back when the newsletter’s hit the fan, and Tom Palmer has been writing on it for a long time, but yeah, more needs to be done.
In part you are, of course, quite correct. In part you appear to be dead wrong. Yes, the people hanging around Ron Paul [at least the "national organizers" like Ernie Hancock], and many of the people that hang around Lou Rockwell, are certifiable. That is particularly true of Justin Raimondi, who is one of the worst paranoid antisemites I’ve seen in decades.
Having said that, your apparent belief that it is ridiculous to characterize what is going on in this county as fascism is, if anything, a worse denial of reality than that engaged in by the most fringe like of these people. Let’s see: pre-emptive wars on nations which are not conceivably a threat to the U.S. resulting in invasion and long term occupation for no apparent purpose other than to allow the federal government to proclaim “we’re at war.” Torture as a method of investigation that those at the top fight to retain. Denial of the most basic forms of due process, like habeas corpus, on an “enemy combatant” rationale, with “enemy combatants” including people who are indisputably American citizens picked up on the streets of Chicago. Massive increases in federal control and budgets. The principal public policy agenda comprised of xenophobia over “illegal” and persecution of homosexuals.
Sure sounds like classical fascism to me. But I guess some people need to be seized by roving gangs of brown shirted toughs and have laxative forced down their throat before they see the parallel. I must admit that I’m beginning to look forward to those incidents in the case of many purported libertarians and conservatives who have supported these trends.
And yet… you can look forward to it all you like and it’s not happening.
That’s not to say that liberty in America isn’t threatened. Not at all. But the things it’s threatened by are not at all the things you’ve listed, Craig. Nor are the things you’ve listed fascism of a classical sort or otherwise. Nor are the things you’ve listed unprecedented in this country if one has a clear eye toward history. Nor is the so-called persecution of various groups in the US worse now than it was before.
And this is where it truly gets into fantasy! When someone starts to insist that people (such as homosexuals) are *less* able to live openly and speak freely or that there is some element of stifling of political dissent or persecution of those who oppose the current administration.
In order to make those claims one is forced into the realm of conspiracy where one must insist that evil masterminds are leaving, oh, the Loose Change morons free and unfettered in an attempt to lull the rest of us into complacency.
They are not just hanging around them, that is what they themselves believe.
As for fascism in the US, even if accepted how you formulated your description of the policies you describe, and I do not, to compare that with actual fascism trivializes the term.
As evidence of that, none of the things you discuss are new. In fact, our past is worse in almost every regard on each of your complaints. Each complaint is at least as bad, or even more relevant in regards to Europe. So, if this is Fascism, then we have been a fascist state for quite some time, and the rest of the west even moreso.
This is a topic we have discussed quite a bit here, and we have certainly made the parallel between modern western governance and the amount it borrowed from fascism, and if you can drop the paranoid rhetoric, it is worth discussing even more.
Wishing for harm to those of us who find these trends bothersome in many ways, but do not share your perspective on, isn’t a great start.
Of course you are. The dream of the apocalyptic dispensation, in which the prophecies of atrocity are meted out and you’re proven to have been right all along, is the dream that sustains the paranoid ideology. It’s also true that the simple notion that instead of leading this nice, safe, boring life in a secure free society, the precipice of the abyss is at hand, is a strong motivational element. This is nothing new in fringe politics, I can assure you.
Fortunately for you, me and the entire country, it’s a blatant fantasy which in the practice of your life you are certain to act as though you knew it were entirely false. Living in a genuinely fascist society you don’t march on the Mall, you’re afraid to whisper dissent to your own brother. You have no idea what it’s like to live under fascism and while you might wish to do so, in order to have something to supply an extreme politics with meaning, I’m very glad for your sake and mine that you don’t know what it’s like. That you can’t recognize what it is to look squarely at its absence.
Interesting how all I’m getting in response is conclusory denials and defamation disguised as psychological analysis. Reminds one of the tactics of another totalitarian ideology of a few decades back, but then, they’re all basically alike. Enjoy that indefinite anonymous “detention.” guys.
With all due respect, Craig, you’re giving your inquisitors short shrift. We’ve explored fascism in more than one post here, with plenty of historical analysis, and I’m confident in saying that we (they) have a much better grasp of the subject than you. That doesn’t mean you don’t have legitimate concerns, or that you have no point to make whatsoever. You’re just going off a bit half-cocked.
In addition, you seem to assume a great deal when it comes to legal analysis that just won’t stand up to scrutiny. Disagree with whatever policy positions you like, and you might even find broad acceptance of many of your views. But to cursorily dismiss the criticisms and views expressed here at ASHC is not going to advance the ball.
Well, I’d say that when the ASHC guys start sounding like totalitarians to you, that’s pretty convincing evidence you’re seeing Nazis everywhere who aren’t there.
“all I’m getting…is conclusory denials and defamation.”
That is all? My complaint with your assertion was based on historical fact. For your statement to be true I must assume that, homosexuals are less free now, we have rounded up tens of thousands of our own citizens based on ancestry as in WWII, we have set up neighborhood and community organizations in order to spy, intimidate and inform on anyone who would spread dissent just like under Woodrow Wilson. Oh wait, we haven’t done any of those things.
That is just three ways in which today, if you wrapped up everything Bush has done, or just accused of doing, it just doesn’t compare to the past. In any period studied I can come up with a large list of abuses under the standards of today that are far, far worse, or if very recent, comparable, especially considering recent events.
For example, even assuming that all the charges on torture are correct, and that is unlikely, without having experienced a 9/11 or been involved in two wars, the Clinton administration employed rendition. I see no reason to prefer from a human rights viewpoint rendition over the types of things of which this administration is accused.
That isn’t to excuse this administration, though their behavior might be excused, but just to point out that this is not new. To put it another way, if Bush is a fascist, then Roosevelt is tantamount to Hitler and Wilson Pol Pot. All three are exaggerations of course, and you know it as well as we do. When the next election is held Bush will step down, no brownshirts will appear and the next President will take office, regardless of who wins. No modern President, Bush, McCain or Obama will pursue policies anywhere close to the kinds of Roosevelt or Wilson, most of whose abuses I have not gone into here.
History is important. It’s not an excuse to stop trying to make things better, fairer, more free, of course! But it’s IMPORTANT to understand, Historically, what is BETTER and what is worse because if we don’t we’ll be holding off an illusory army at the front door while we are overtaken from the back.
Which is why the “pending theocracy” and “Bush is fascist” stuff is so upsetting to me.
Nearly all, if not all, of the big privacy and freedom upsets of the last years have been, not lies in fact, but lies in the act of the outrage itself. That pisses me off some, if I was the sort to get pissed. More clearly, the outrage was manufactured as something to oppose Bush. With an Historical view absolutely nothing that he did was new or unusual. If there was something unusual it is that his administration has been so restrained in war time.
Being unable to see this means that the threats to freedom and liberty that DO exist are being ignored. Only, ONLY, the issues having to do directly with Bush are getting any attention at all and we can expect, utterly, that once “King Bush” and his hoards of Brown Shirted Thugs step down quietly and without incident next January that all of those persons so very concerned NOW will cease to care.
They didn’t care before Bush. They won’t care after Bush.
GAWD, can we talk about the legal theft of property? We don’t even have to euphemistically talk about taxes as theft any longer. We can talk about stealing property. Can we talk about the minute monitoring of private lives in the name of education… an education that is mandatory by law? NO ONE CARES. IF IT’S FOR A GOOD CAUSE, NO ONE CARES.
The ONLY thing that makes people CARE under BUSH is that they don’t think it’s a good cause.
If I weren’t so naturally optimistic I’d be depressed.
Why do all the bloody writers on this blog spend more time writing comments than posts? Am I the only one who finds this more than a little odd?
But, we are odd. And definitely more than a little.
Synova is naturally more inspired when it comes to specific issues or people she is speaking to, rather than abstractedly sitting down and deciding to write something before hand. Blogging is often more of the latter than the former.
Michael W,
I tried to say this to you off the list, but apparent that’s more difficult than it seems - so let me say it to you and you other really bright guys in public. I have a Ph.D. in Economics and taught topics like, ah, comparative economic systems and comparative economic ideologies for a decade at the undergraduate and graduate level. In addition, and since that time, I’ve been a practicing attorney for another two decades.
I think I may have some slight inkling of knowledge regarding what fascism is all about, and what Anglo-American liberty once was all about, despite not being a part of your obviously oh-so-sophisticated previous discussions of those matters.
Further, I don’t “give people slight shift” unless they respond to a list of particulars with platitudes and an invincible belief that “that just COULDN’T be happening here, and “any resemblances JUST MUST BE accidental.” It is, and they aren’t. Live with it, or at least get treatment for that obsessive denial problem.
Lance,
The Nazis’ murdered 10 million people. If “we” murdered just 3 million would you conclude that things were now just fine or that they were so much better than they were before? That seems to be what you’re saying. I ignored it the first time, but its now getting a bit absurd. Yes, many past events in Anglo-American history have been violative of Anglo-American rights theory. Does not mean that nothing going on today fits in that category or that the violations aren’t becoming wider in scope and number and more acceptable than they once were? Sure sounds like that is what you’re saying.
You see, Lance, history isn’t just history. It is a repository of facts interpreted through a framework of theory. It seems that your theory is “we’re O.K., because I can find selected examples of how previous Americans were worse in one way at one time and another way at another time.” Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. I can find many examples of how previous Italians were worse than Mussolini in one way at one time and in another way at another time, but he was still Mussolini. Capisce?
Mr. Bolton:
Your expertise would be better demonstrated by exhibiting a firm grasp of reality rather than listing your credentials, which don’t in any way reveal that you understand what fascism is at all. This is particularly so when you utter sentences such as:
Not only are you assuming facts not in evidence, you are at best describing potential symptoms of fascism, but symptoms that are as likely to be found in a democratic, non-fascist state, as in Mussolini’s Italy. In fact, Lance quite ably pointed you to specific historical events that were much worse than anything that’s alleged to have happened under the Bush Administration. Yet you shrug those off with strawman arguments and PoMo rationalizations. A product of your superior education no doubt.
Most importantly, you have decidedly ignored the very salient fact that each one of the alleged abuses you cite has been openly debated, extensively investigated, and persistently railed against in public, none of which could or would happen in a fascist state. If we were really in the midst of a fascist state, how would it even be possible for you argue what you have? How is it possible that you could gather, uninhibited, with several of your compatriots and shout out the misdeeds of this government to the rooftops without facing even the slightest harm? Taking it even further, and making it relevant to the post at hand, how is it that, in this fascist regime, someone like Ron Paul could even hold office, much less run for President of the United States?
The fact is, whatever abuses may have been committed by the Bush Administration, our system is capable of dealing with it. And, if nothing else, the fascist Bush Regime only has a few more months left in office anyway. Some fascists they are, giving up power.
I think this is the point where I claim that I’m proud of my “ignorance” and the fact that I don’t have a Ph.D. and have never gone to law school and am not interested in doing either. I have to actually support my arguments and I’m happy to do so.
Really, Craig, why does listing your Ph.D. and lawyer creds replace the need to explain and support your point of view? And how does it excuse a straw-man method of somehow claiming that anyone here has made the claim that nothing threatens our liberty, nothing to see here and move along, when no one has done any such thing?
In fact, the only one having made a hyperbolic claim is you, that we were in imminent danger of being marched off by brown suited toughs. You’re hearing what you expect rather than what is actually written. Not to worry too much, it’s a common sort of thing. But when your assumptions are wrong, they’re wrong. When you read through a filter that filter changes the meaning of what you’ve read. Insisting that you’re right and really smart too, dangit, doesn’t change anything at all.
What do you think are the most serious threats to our liberty today?
Bush? Putting Bush into a Historical context does lend a measure of reason to the discussion, but why don’t we put him into a contemporary context as well. I’m not talking about taking him off the list of Bad Guys but to determine where on the list of Bad Guys does George Bush belong?
Where does he belong on that list that includes the normal human people in a city near me that decided that it was a good idea to make it illegal for a child under 13 to ride in the front seat of the car and that a parent guilty of doing so could be forced to pay a fine to the city government or be forced to perform 40 HOURS of community service, unpaid labor as punishment?
Please understand that there is not enough reason to ban 13 year olds from the front seat of a vehicle to do it outright. If other seats are full or the vehicle does not have a back seat then children under 13 are auto-magically safe and able to ride in the front seat after all.
Bush is the Bad Guy every one can see and recognize and get all het up over while YOUR NEIGHBORS are passing invasive laws for your own good and YOU DON’T CARE.
Because it’s for the children.
Or something.
The government knows everything it could possibly want to know about you and no one gets upset. So some computer someplace *might* crunch some data that *might* belong to you and somehow this is far more heinous than the fact that some other government computer most certainly *does* crunch data that is most certainly and specifically about you to make sure you haven’t done anything illegal, and this before and without any evidence or probable cause, and absolutely no warrent?
This is logic?
Didn’t think so.
Quite right. I think it’s safe to say that no one in the history of argument itself has ever won a debate on the strength of a resume when being challenged on evidentiary grounds.
Awfully late in life to be learning that rule for Craig. Most of us figured it out in debates as undergraduates or earlier. Embarrassing stuff really.
Craig,
I certainly understand you have some understanding of the past. I also appreciate that you acknowledge that the past was worse:
The Nazis’ murdered 10 million people. If “we” murdered just 3 million would you conclude that things were now just fine or that they were so much better than they were before?
Except then you say this:
Yes, many past events in Anglo-American history have been violative of Anglo-American rights theory. Does not mean that nothing going on today fits in that category or that the violations aren’t becoming wider in scope and number and more acceptable than they once were?
yes, I am saying it is not worse than before, and I gave specific examples that in and of themselves are worse than anything going on now, and they are a small portion of what I could point out from just those eras. It is not even close.
It seems that your theory is “we’re O.K., because I can find selected examples of how previous Americans were worse in one way at one time and another way at another time.
No, the theory is that it isn’t worse than in the past, because those selected events are in themselves much worse. For Roosevelt alone I could go on and on. For Wilson alone I could go on and on. In aggregate it is a ridiculous argument you are making.
You and I can discuss whether Bush is a bad president, and has threatened our liberties, where we will have areas of agreement and disagreement. Comparing him to the past however is not reasonable, they were worse in almost every respect. Therefore, if you want to claim what Bush has done to Fascism, before I will give your argument any credence of intellectual honesty, as opposed to agreement, then you have to say that Roosevelt was also a totalitarian and worse than Bush. Then we can discuss whether that is reasonable, but it is not reasonable to claim that Bush is leading us to fascism as opposed to continuing on a path of fascism that has long been extant.
I can find many examples of how previous Italians were worse than Mussolini in one way at one time and in another way at another time, but he was still Mussolini.
Yes, but you couldn’t simultaneously argue that Mussolini was worse than them, which is what you are arguing here. I’ll take Roosevelt’s “regime” for an example: In addition to the crime of locking up the Japanese, which is worse than everything Bush has been accused of all put together, prisoners were treated worse, abused more often, massacres more common, especially against the Japanese, and much less likely to result in prosecution. We engaged in mass civilian bombing with victims in the hundreds of thousands, etc. Domestic spying was more common, African Americans, homosexuals and women had fewer rights, censorship more common, the media more controlled and censored. Defendants in our courts had fewer rights. This is my short list. I can document any of those if somehow they escaped you.
You can argue that Bush is still bad, you can argue that you believe it will get progressively worse and he will not step down from power and brownshirts will eventually appear. I wuld think the latter part ridiculous, but it is at least logically consistent in guessing an unknown future. You cannot legitimately argue that Bush is a fascist and simultaneously that the past was not fascist or worse.
Capisce?
I think I will respond primarily only to Lance this time around, since most of the rest of you keep citing me to your superior arguments and proofs, but never present any such arguments and proofs, just denials.
Lance, you seem to be suffering from two misinterpretations regarding what I initial asserted and what I am still asserting: (1) That I am asserting that it has never been worse in America in the past in any respect and (2) that none of what has gone on in the past could possibly be described as fascism [AFTER ALL, THIS IS AMERICA, ISNT IT???].
I thought I’d addressed (1) already but let me try it again. Yes, there have been instances of much greater sins against rights in the United States in its history. The Indian tribes were more or less wiped out in great parts of the country [Genocide? often something darn close if not all the way there.] You mention the abuses against Japanese Americans in WWII and could well have mentioned nearly as bad abuses against Germans in WWI. etc. The problem with these examples, Lance, is that they are limited to targets that were certain rather isolated and relatively small ethnic groups, or, in the case of the Indians, those who were members of a distinct and largely separate society. There was no claim, for instance, that ANY American could be declared an enemy alien by Presidential fiat and thrown into a military prison for an indefinite period without charges and without recourse to the civil courts.
Sure torture took place. To an extent it took place in larger cities in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries in about every police station. And it certainly also took place in about every war the U.S. has ever been involved in, near the front to obtain IMMEDIATE intelligence needed to keep our troops from being slaughtered by a sneak attack or a counterattack. However, it generally didn’t take place to elicit plans 5 years in advance. Further, if you can find any previous instance where a President or Attorney General publically defended such actions and commissioned legal studies as to how far the limits could be pushed before there was no possible defense, I’d sure like the citations.
The point about (1) is, Lance, that fascism is largely a frame of mind. It isn’t just putting up camps and detaining certain select persons, it isn’t just some restraints on some speech some time, it isn’t just torture under extreme, pressing and immediate circumstances. It is a pattern OF PUBLICALLY APPROVING AND DEFENDING of those SORTS OF THINGS. It is a regression to barbarism and tyranny. And, yes, that is exactly what we’re seeing today.
And for those of you who somehow have read into my remarks that I think that this started with Bush or will end with Bush, think again. Bush has simply been much more blatant about furthering the advance of these trends and has furthered them much faster and on a much wider front than anyone since Wilson or FDR. Further, he has had a cheering section among purported Conservatives and Libertarians, both of whom seem to think that liberty is reducible strictly to free markets with abundant government contracts and that we really shouldn’t be too concerned about that Bill of Rights thing “in time of war.”
As to (2): Was America under, say, Wilson or FDR fascist? Well the administration in power sure did its damnist to make it fascist. However, there were several material differences in conditions in those days that made the establishment of effective fascism very difficult. One was urbanization - America during Wilson and to a lesser extent during Roosevelt was largely rural. As Jefferson pointed out, it is hard to effectively tyrannize a nation of more or less independent farmers. You simply can’t devise the monitoring and control mechanisms to regiment them. Secondly, America was decentralized in another sense - regionalisms, ethinicities and the educational mechanisms for transmitting the values spawned by those differences were not centralized. What a Minnesota Lutheran Swede believed and was taught didn’t share much in common with what a New York Hassidic Jew believed and was taught. Without a common culture and ideology, power is difficult to exercise. You put out the slogan of the day and it appeals to part of the population, but not at all to other parts. [Remember the portrayal of how power was exercised in 1984?] So, yes, there were those in power in American previously who wanted to be good fascists, and who even said so, but they could never quite pull it off. Today they can and are, and libertarians and conservatives appear to be cheering them on while denegrating those who at least verbally oppose these trends.
I hope that at least clarifies some confusion, but, frankly, I’m not at all sure that my position and the positions of those posting to this Blog have much of an overlap. So, feel free to respond to the above, but don’t expect a reply unless someone writes me with a good reason as to why I should continue to bang my head against this particular stone wall.
As overlapping positions go, if what you just said boils down to “Multi-culturalism is bad,” you might find more overlap than you think.
If I could comment on this: “Further, if you can find any previous instance where a President or Attorney General publically defended such actions and commissioned legal studies as to how far the limits could be pushed before there was no possible defense, I’d sure like the citations.”
How about… do I believe that previous Presidents and Attorney Generals did this secretly?
I’m not sure how an increased openness is evidence of greater fascist tendencies, or are you claiming that in previous times Presidents had to do this sort of thing secretly and Bush was brazen not to? But he most certainly was harshly criticized for doing so, so I’m not sure that interpretation holds water, if that’s what you’re getting at.
In this particular instance I was one of those who saw nothing wrong with the fact of getting legal clarification. By all means! The President ought to determine what the law allows or doesn’t allow. The interpretation that the motivation behind finding out the legal limits was to push right up to the edge of them is an imputed motivation, and imputed by his enemies.
On the contrary, I read many a comment by people who thought that the clarification itself was evil and who *said* outright that what Bush should have done was *publicaly* take the high road while those serving in our military or CIA or whomever, did whatever they decided needed to be done. If I didn’t hear this reasoning from multiple sources I might think it was a fluke. But it seems that a public front was more important in many people’s minds. Maybe they, too, preferred a government that kept such things totally secret, doing the necessary evil, while proclaiming something different.
Knowing, for example, that the Geneva Conventions most certainly do not apply to un-uniformed combatants does not mean that a legal brief or even an argument to that end is motivated by a desire to torture or summarily execute those un-uniformed combatants.
Nor does a legal opinion of where certain actions will become a clear legal violation prove that final policy decisions will not take other things than legality into account.
That I am asserting that it has never been worse in America in the past in any respect and (2) that none of what has gone on in the past could possibly be described as fascism [AFTER ALL, THIS IS AMERICA, ISNT IT???].
No, that isn’t what I believe you said.
What I believe you were arguing, no, know you were arguing, is that the situation is worse now than then. That is an untenable position. More importantly, if it is due to the particular characteristics of our society today, as opposed to the venality of this particular President, as you now seem to suggest, then people should always point that out. They might get more sympathy for their arguments. Not your fault, just an observation. In reality, I just don’t believe people know what they are talking about. Anyway, I think you sum up quite well what you are arguing, and is precisely what I think you have been arguing below:
It is a regression to barbarism and tyranny. And, yes, that is exactly what we’re seeing today.
Bush has simply been much more blatant about furthering the advance of these trends and has furthered them much faster and on a much wider front than anyone since Wilson or FDR.
Uh, more than Nixon or Johnson? Our privacy and that of his opponents are under more threat than when J. Edgar was manning the helm of the FBI? We can debate who was worse, and you can show ways in which it was different, since once again, every situation is, but at minimum the idea that Bush’s more formal activities are somehow a hugely more serious issue is pure horse hockey. It doesn’t speak to a love of liberty, but either lack of knowledge of the past, irrational hatred or paranoia.
Why I reject that argument, or that we are under greater threat today is next:
The problem with these examples, Lance, is that they are limited to targets that were certain rather isolated and relatively small ethnic groups,
As opposed to Muslims? Especially Muslims who at minimum have some association and sympathy with people who wish to murder millions of our citizens. In fact, the number of such people is truly minuscule, and the people whom we have used the argument against is truly microscopic. Name them all, it hardly compares to the number affected by the far grosser, and clearly legally forbidden, abuses of the past.
There was no claim, for instance, that ANY American could be declared an enemy alien by Presidential fiat and thrown into a military prison for an indefinite period without charges and without recourse to the civil courts.
You don’t know that to be true. Synova is precisely correct, with less media scrutiny, things of that nature did happen. Oh, each was somewhat different, as every situation always is. For example, in the past they dispensed with any notion of calling them an enemy alien. The question is why it was somehow better in your mind? I am not particularly fond of the enemy alien argument, however, when someone takes up with known enemies and plots to attack us generally we have given the authorities wide latitude with such men (and women.) Including summary execution. I am not endorsing such measures, though they may have merit in particular circumstances, but once again I have a hard time with the idea that Bush’s approach is somehow a descent into fascism compared to past norms.
Further, if you can find any previous instance where a President or Attorney General publically defended such actions and commissioned legal studies as to how far the limits could be pushed before there was no possible defense, I’d sure like the citations.
Synova answered that objection. In fact, that he felt the need for legal justification shows some progress in my mind, not regression. To put it another way, fewer abuses, or arguable abuses, combined with a need to legally justify what was done is something we should be applauding, even if we do not applaud any particular abuse nor agree with any particular
justification.
One was urbanization - America during Wilson and to a lesser extent during Roosevelt was largely rural. As Jefferson pointed out, it is hard to effectively tyrannize a nation of more or less independent farmers. You simply can’t devise the monitoring and control mechanisms to regiment them. Secondly, America was decentralized in another sense - regionalisms, ethinicities and the educational mechanisms for transmitting the values spawned by those differences were not centralized.
The problem with that argument is not only that it is demonstrably harder to get national consensus on issues such as these today, but the scrutiny far more intense. We know from history that Bush has not even come close to getting away with or publicly doing nearly as much as Wilson, Roosevelt or others did. So obviously, even if we accept your characterization, which I would not, other factors have either served as a greater check on executive and state power, or Bush is just a better guy. I actually give it a bit of both, but I wouldn’t vote for any of them (and have had four chances to do so in the case of Bush.)
Today they can and are, and libertarians and conservatives appear to be cheering them on while denegrating those who at least verbally oppose these trends.
Not here we haven’t, except when they say things which are not true, or are nuts. In fact, a fair amount of opposing some of Bush’s actions in these areas has gone on right here. History just doesn’t allow me to get as worked up as some. Our argument is that if today is fascism, then we have always been fascist. Not merely that isolated events in the past were worse. Naking fine distinctions about why manifestly worse outcomes on a large scale were somehow different than manifestly better outcomes on a small scale based on showing how they were “different” is the kind of thing that totalitarians have always done to besmirch the US as they went around murdering and abusing their citizens.
I also repeat, that we are in a much better situation in these matters than the rest of the world, including Western Europe, so if we are fascist, then what am I to say about the rest of the world but it is fascist also?
Finally, the microscopic number of people affected by these measures, and the manifest guilt of most of them, gives me far less concern than far more serious assaults upon our liberties that go on every day, and have gone on for decades, if not longer. Vast areas of our law have been removed from the innocent until proven guilty realm through regulation, people jailed on a regular basis, fined, property and asset seized (or degraded) and people killed for breaking laws or rules which were never voted upon and for which no probable cause need be shown, in fact you have to prove compliance (see our tax code) etc. Throw in the drug war, gun control efforts and I could go on and on. These affect far more of us, are far less justified, and more Constitutionally dubious. They also have far more support from liberal and conservative cheering sections. That doesn’t make it fascism, but it has far more to do with fascism than the efforts this administration has lurched towards in a rather incompetent (not that anyone could have been more competent given the circumstances) attempt to figure out how to deal with these mass murderers.