To find the front lines in a war with Fascists, just look for the young men in tan shirts.
So during this break from whatever He Who Shall Not Be Named is posting these days, I have been taking one of those new-fangled “MOOC” courses online from Coursera. The course I’ve been taking is on World History since 1760, and it has been terrific. Anyway, the course came around to the topic of fascism, and the good Prof put up a quote from Mussolini describing fascism (emphasis added by me):
Against individualism, the Fascist conception is for the State. And it is for the individual, in so far as he coincides with the State, which is the conscience and universal will of man in his historical existence. It is opposed to classical Liberalism, which arose from the necessity of reacting against absolutism, monarchies for example. And which brought its historical purpose to an end when the State was transformed into the conscience and will of the people. . . .
. . . . Therefore, for the Fascist, everything is in the State, and nothing human or spiritual exists, much less has Value, outside the State.
This business about the State being the conscience and will of the people, without regard for external sources such as the spiritual, especially struck me given some of the attacks on our conscience that we’ve seen lately. We’re running headlong into fascism, or more accurately, it’s running headlong into us.
It was reported yesterday that the ethics committee of the State Supreme Court of California has unanimously recommended a total ban on state judges volunteering for the Boy Scouts, and that a federal judge in California anonymously(?) says that this ought to be the de facto rule for both state and federal judges, even if not enacted.
(Come on, your honor. If you're on the right side of history, why anonymous?)
One has to take a step back for this to really sink in: here we have a long-lived organization that has the stated purpose of forming young men of character and virtue, indeed with a list of virtues (unarguable virtues) as their “law”. Yet here it is proposed, by those in charge of ensuring justice, that it ought to be UNETHICAL for a judge of a court of general jurisdiction to volunteer time toward such an organization. This is the essence of fascist conscience formation -- never mind what your conscience previously told you (based on external sources), this is your new conscience.
And so we have a culture, backed up and encouraged by the State, acting on a daily basis to form and enforce this new “conscience and will of the people” replacing that of us foolish individuals that may be based on external sources. Of course, the government doesn’t particularly care what this new conscience actually proscribes (remember Obama’s “evolution” on same-sex marriage), so long as the external sources are marginalized. And of course our government is all too willing to chime in with their own proclamations of the conscience of the State, by proclaiming that debate is over on such topics as anthropogenic climate change, and government-managed health insurance (which is being implemented in the true Fascist way). Which is reaching its logical end with the IRS scandal, Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius, and the Little Sisters of the Poor case. (Why, all the Little Sisters have to do is sign a form -- that’s all we’re asking. Of course, that’s all that St. Thomas More had to do, and all the Holy Maccabees had to do was eat a piece of pork.)
These are the stakes: not only our consciences, but the right to even have an individual conscience. Unfortunately, the battle must be joined. It’s not a fight we picked, but it has picked us. It doesn’t matter that the fight will be over small things that will be painted in political terms, because defeat begins with concessions on small things. Just ask the Boy Scouts how their concession to the gay agenda a couple of years ago has worked out for them -- within the last week we’ve had Disney announce that they will no longer support their employees volunteering time for the Boy Scouts, and now this proposed ethical rule.
Another old timer had something to say about that very thing, long long ago:
For all claims from an equal, urged upon a neighbour as commands before any attempt at legal settlement, be they great or be they small, have only one meaning, and that is slavery.
(Pericles last speech before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War -- Thucydides, I.139-146.)
And just so -- the BSA is now enslaved. Capitulating part way not only did them no good -- it harmed them among their friends, and weakened them in front of their enemies who now demand even more.
This is where the battles lie. We’d best be on the lookout for how we’ll each be challenged.
And no, the "Benedict Option" is not an option.
Great post...disturbing but incisive!
ReplyDeleteSo glad to see that this blog's not dead after all. :D
I came here for some anti-Dreher--there's so much choice material from just the last two week!--but this will do very nicely. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've done a reasonable job of staying away from Dreher output lately (life's too short, etc.).
DeleteBut since you asked, I hopped over there today and was treated to his wisdom on how Dante is analogous to "quantum entanglement". Analogous in "poetic, literary terms", of course. Yeah, now I get it . . .
So many words, so little insight.
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ReplyDeletePik, if only for some distance, let's also remember this is California.
ReplyDeleteI didn't bring it up at the time on the Brendan Eich thing, but the true root pivot point of the whole debacle was California's effectively having blithely dispensed with the secret ballot with respect to the Prop 8 thing which, to be clear, I'm only assuming now applies to all such referendums in California.
It's one thing to require transparency of funding and amounts of money given to general political things like interest groups or parties or even candidates. It's really quite another to require disclosure of the backers (read: voters) of any side of specific legislation, particularly when the funding amounts are as trivial as they were in the Prop 8 case...$1,000?
What California effective accomplishes by this is to (again, my assumption, on any such referendum) throw to the mob lists of the particular individual partisans for and against ballot items, for the mob then to do with as it pleases.
Some, perhaps many, might care less, but the secret ballot remains secret for those who might care, i.e., for the protection of individual rights. I think there was also a Supreme Court thing in favor of the NAACP over this very same point.
If I was to do anything beyond nodding along with your post, I might highlight the role of raw mob democracy in the formation of your state fascism and maybe only as a matter of perspective. For example, if and when the California court tires of the BSA and gays, we don't really expect it to rule against the next big thing, X-number of mandatory fish taco food trucks per square mile, do we? IOW, in what you're witing about I see the court more as a dutiful, plodding follower of general progressive public opinion here than a separate, autonomous force.
I think George Will put it best here when he summarizes
Government, the framers said, is instituted to improve upon the state of nature, in which the individual is at the mercy of the strong. But when democracy, meaning the process of majority rule, is the supreme value — when it is elevated to the status of what the Constitution is “basically about” — the individual is again at the mercy of the strong, the strength of mere numbers.
And of course what Will is speaking of as "the mercy of the strong, the strength of mere numbers" is the many rods bound together to make them stronger than the one - the fasces.
IOW, in what you're witing about I see the court more as a dutiful, plodding follower of general progressive public opinion here than a separate, autonomous force.
ReplyDeleteI'll quibble with you some on this point, Keith. I'd say that the courts are at least partners in crime along with the progressives in furthering fascism.
For one, we've got the US Supreme Court holding that the only reason that Congress enacted the Defense of Marriage Act was to injure same sex couples -- the law having no other legitimate purpose. (My favorite part of the story was Bill Clinton, who signed DOMA into law, cheering of a Supr Ct decision that essentially found him to be a raw bigot homophobe.) This decision takes the lead in the fascist movement by denying the existence of any possible legitimate reason for believing SSM to be wrong, which IMO puts the State (via its highest court) in the business of defining the conscience of its citizens. Little wonder Brendan Eich is vilified for supporting Prop 8 -- the Supr Ct gives cover for his tar-and-feathering.
You can think of other cases along these lines. Upholding the restricting of sidewalk counselors at abortion clinics also comes to mind.
And I'd disagree with the Will quote a bit also, as it isn't the majority that is setting out to define State conscience. If it were merely a question of the majority will, we'd at least be permitted to argue the question. The neo-fascists prevent argument by deeming disagreement with their view a violation of conscience (and deserving of punishment). Which of course is the only way that the minority of the ruling class, academic class, and (sadly) the legal class, can win the issue.
Yes, they squelch freedom of speech by complaining that it is "hate speech". It bothers me to no end that this works.
DeleteToday's new battle line in the war with fascism. As I mentioned, look for the young men in tan shirts.
ReplyDelete