Summer Book Report

Finally finished Jonah's book Liberal Fascism yesterday, which worked out perfectly since I just received another book, What I'd Say to the Martians by Jack Handey, for my birthday. Much lighter I have to say, and if you are a fan of Handey's "deep thoughts", this is a must read. He has extended his parody from short quips into essay-length pieces so it's sort of like reading Dave Barry only much funnier. I was literally crying with laughter at the chapter entitled "The Animals All Around us", but that's a-whole-nuther topic. Obviously if you hate Jack Handey and deep thoughts you'll hate his new book and you probably hate this blog, so maybe you should go stick pins in your eyeballs or something.

Anyway, found this to be very insightful from one of Jonah's astute readers:

Finally, you connect fascism with some version of nationalism. I have thought long about this connection, first suggested perhaps by the notion of "socialism in one country". And there is a tight connection, stemming from the fact that socialism doesn't work. So a state which adopts fascism will find itself slowly falling behind other states. In commerce, science, and culture, it will eventually become a laggard. What will be the defense against unflattering comparisons, not to mention increasing poverty as it loses in economic competition? Nationalism: restraints on trade and other exposure to wicked competitors. So fascism and nationalism really are siblings. But here is a major difference between today's liberal fascism and earlier varieties. Liberal fascism despises its own country. This one variation is a major departure from the fascisms of the twentieth century. Also, it will probably be the undoing of today's liberal movement.

Emphasis mine. It was amazing to me, for example, how much Woodrow Wilson hated the congress because the legislative process slowed down "progress". But, dude, that's part of the balance of power! He also wanted to rewrite the constitution. So I guess it's fair to say he despised America as he found it and wanted "radical change" like his descendants including Hillary and Obama.