Jonah on the GOP primary

Here's a rambling yet fun Goldberg article on the GOP primary. Have to admit I hadn't heard Pataki's remarks about hate crimes.

Oh, and Pataki is also the author of what I have long considered the single dumbest prepared statement in modern political history.

“It is conceivable,” Pataki said in 2000 when he signed a hate-crimes bill into law, “that if this law had been in effect 100 years ago, the greatest hate crime of all, the Holocaust, could have been avoided.”

You could write several Ph. D. dissertations on why that is idiotic. Though I do like the image of Hitler having his hands tied by a hate-crimes law, because, you know, there were no laws against genocidal murder when he came into power. “Meine Herren,” Hitler would have to tell his comrades in the Eagle’s Nest, “I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do.”

Sort of puts me in mind of the blame-the-Pope-for-AIDS crowd, only with the added silliness factor of mindless holocaust invocation.

Jonah Goldberg on the anti-Muslim myth

Jonah Goldberg discusses that oh-so-scary anti-Muslim backlash for which the media doth greatly jones, but which is as elusive as Sasquatch in an Albertan blizzard. Excerpt:

In 2001, there were twice as many anti-Jewish incidents as there were anti-Muslim, again according to the FBI. In 2002 and pretty much every year since, anti-Jewish incidents have outstripped anti-Muslim ones by at least 6 to 1. Why aren't we talking about the anti-Jewish climate in America?

Because there isn't one. And there isn't an anti-Muslim climate either. Yes, there's a lot of heated rhetoric on the Internet. Absolutely, some Americans don't like Muslims. But if you watch TV or movies or read, say, the op-ed page of the New York Times - never mind left-wing blogs - you'll hear much more open bigotry toward evangelical Christians (in blogspeak, the "Taliban wing of the Republican Party") than you will toward Muslims.

Italics mine. Does anyone not realize how much our society marginalizes people who really are racists or who are bigoted against people based on their religion? Well, yes, it does seem like you're allowed to be bigoted against conservative Catholics and Evangelicals as Jonah points out. But I'll axe you this question if you doubt my assertion about bigotry being frowned upon generally: do you know anyone who is anti-Semitic, racist against blacks and Hispanics or regularly uses words like "towel-head" or "rag-head"? Are they unemployed? If they are employed, how much money do they make? See.

The canard of gathering anti-Muslim mobs is the stuff of media fantasy.

The good, the bad and the ugly

It turns out that I completely agree with Jonah Goldberg. He states that the new Arizona immigration law is "ugly but necessary". I agree; many aspects of government fall into this category. Jonah mentions some:

I agree that there's something ugly about the police, even local police, asking citizens for their "papers." There's also something ugly about American citizens being physically searched at airports. There's something ugly about IRS agents prying into nearly all of your personal financial transactions or, thanks to the passage of Obamacare, serving as health insurance enforcers.

The way I see it, the Arizona law empowers police departments to fight crime. The criminals hate this more than anybody, so you will see them disappearing from the scene in Arizona, unless your eyes are fixated on protest mobs and Obama speeches. In other words, if you are concentrating on the bad and the ugly you will miss the good.

One of the reasons I'm proud to be a conservative is that most conservatives understand that something imperfect doesn't equal something evil. I don't want to spend four grand building a fence in my backyard. But I will so my 2-year-old doesn't run out into the street and get killed. So while the fence is an imperfect solution, there is absolutely nothing evil about it, and it's absolutely morally neutral for me to build it. Recently a friend of mine said the Obamacare plan is "evil". I don't like to say that because evil implies intent. I think it's wrong and wrongheaded and mainly because any good from it is drastically outweighed by its bad effects. But I resist saying it's evil because it opens a larger and less productive argument.

Jonah Goldberg Embarrassed By Emporer Tom's Nakedness

Mr. G serves up a real treat here. I've often wondered what planet Friedman is hailing from. Here's an excerpt exemplifying and instance where Tommy F's adulation of China's dictatorial statism is based on an "theoretical" event which he himself manufactured—in other words, it's patent nonsense:

For instance, Friedman particularly loves the fact that China’s State Council banned plastic bags. “Bam! Just like that — 1.3 billion people, theoretically, will stop using thin plastic bags,” he writes in Hot, Flat, and Crowded. “Millions of barrels of petroleum will be saved, and mountains of garbage avoided.” It’s as if Madison, Hamilton, and Jefferson had been morons for not decreeing an annual Tyranny Day when all the work can get done. Regardless, as usual, “theoretically” means “not in reality.” China never did any such thing. It simply required that stores charge customers for bags. They do the same thing at my local Safeway, yet plastic bags continue to lurk, threatening all we hold dear. More to the point, it is either deranged or dishonest to suggest that China — with its ever-growing tally of coal factories, poisoned rivers, corrupt regulators, etc. — is some great steward of the environment. It may or may not be leading in the manufacture of green technologies — though don’t take Friedman’s word for it; he rarely sources his too-good-to-check claims — but it is also burning fossil fuels faster than any other country.

Emphasis mine. But, of course, if you ignore the millions of people killed by the Chinese government then what's a few kilotons of fossil fuel between comrades?

And lolz @ "...plastic bags continue to lurk, threatening all we hold dear."

Conclusion:

One doesn’t have to read Dostoevsky to know this sort of thing is hardly new — the envy for authoritarian regimes that can force the wheel of history in the right direction; the contempt for the messiness of democracy; the conviction that all good things go together and that certain enlightened and visionary revolution­aries can apply their intellects to any problem, can pick the lock of History and start over at Year Zero. This all-consuming passion for a unified theory of everything and the indomitable conviction that you are right has consumed many a brilliant mind.

Friedman doesn’t want America to become a totalitarian country — at least not for more than 24 hours. Whenever he goes too far in that rhetorical direction he pulls back a few paragraphs later, but his to-be-sures about how America is still better become less convincing every time, more pro-forma and cutesy. He is possessed by his own prophecy, consumed by his clairvoyance about the One Right Way. Half-measures succumb to the mental furnace; the case for democratic deliberation cannot withstand the heat. Everything fuels the fire in Tom’s mind.

You get the feeling that the guy could fall in love with a blow-up doll.

Jonah's take on Obama speeches: "...a massive stimulus of personal pronouns"

Too good. Excerpt:

That is, if they’re really mad at him at all. Obama whines that Massachusetts voters are really blaming him for someone else’s mistakes. Guess who?

George Bush, of course.

“Here’s my assessment of not just the vote in Massachusetts, but the mood around the country: The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office. People are angry, and they’re frustrated. Not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years.”


White House spokesman Robert Gibbs tried to shovel the same stuff Wednesday, saying that the “anger and the frustration” that swept Brown to victory on Tuesday swept Obama to power a year ago.

Except, wait a second. Obama was carried into office on the wings of the flying unicorns called “hope” and “change,” not “anger” and “frustration.” Besides, if voters are frustrated with the slow pace of reform, why did they just elect a guy promising to slow down Obama’s agenda?

I know a lot of people won't believe me when I say this, but I honestly wish that Obama wasn't so awful. But I truly do. If he were more calculating and triangulating like Clinton he would arguably cause more trouble for the conservative movement, but maybe that would be better for America. When I hear callers to talk shows complain that there aren't enough conservative leaders emerging or speaking out presently I always think the same thing: why should they attack an opponent who is busy pouring gasoline on himself and about to strike a match?

Jonah on Obama's Failure

Beautiful and on the mark! Excerpt:

Consider his signature domestic priority: healthcare reform. After a year of working on it, his progressive base is either profoundly disappointed with him or seethingly angry. His Republican and conservative opponents are not only furious, they are emboldened. And independents -- who've been deserting the Democrats in polls and off-year elections -- are simply disgusted with the whole spectacle. Most important, an administration that once preened over its people-power roots, can't even claim that Americans like what he's doing.

The bill does have its supporters: inside-the-Beltway pundits and Capitol Hill deal-makers, the pharmaceutical industry and the supposedly rapacious insurance companies (don't take my word for it, just ask Howard Dean -- or your stockbroker).

Under the Clintonian paradigm of governance, Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson's parlaying of his pro-life objections to the Senate bill into a windfall for his state and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' leveraging of his socialist principles for billions in special deals would be dramatic twists in a conventional story of LBJ-style arm-twisting.

Here's another great line: "He promised the oceans would stop rising but delivered a nonbinding something-or-other in Copenhagen." That's what I ask my wife to give me each year for Christmas. A something-or-other with a twist of lemon and an ice-cube.

Then we end with the devastating conclusion:

Obama's rhetorical audacity breeds cynicism, because utopianism always comes up short. Obama has many victories ahead of him, but his cause is already lost.

Well said, mate.

Goldberg Defends Beck

In a really good USA Today piece, Jonah Goldberg points out why conservatives might appreciate Glen Beck rather than excoriate him.

Still, much of the anti-Beck backlash (He's an extremist! He's paranoid! He's hate-filled!) from the left is hard to take seriously. First, this is a crowd that lets Michael Moore and Janeane Garofalo speak for them, and that celebrated the election of unfunny man Al Franken to the Senate. If you think it's racist to oppose Obama's health care reform efforts, it goes without saying that you'll think Beck is an extremist. This is what liberals always say about popular right-wingers, including Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and William F. Buckley. For over 20 years liberals, including Presidents Clinton and Obama, have insisted that Rush Limbaugh is everything from an unpatriotic hatemonger to an enabler of domestic terrorism. It makes sense that they'd give Beck the same business.

Goldberg shows the contrast in media treatment between Beck and Jon Stewart...

Stewart's M.O. is to launch lightning attacks as a left-wing pundit and then quickly retreat to his haven across the border in Comedystan, but Beck must be pelted from the public stage for blurring the line between theater and punditry? Really?

...then continues by pointed out the strangeness of the "serious" punditry who get even more of a pass for their own outlandishness.

Over at MSNBC, which until recently floated no end of paranoid theories about neoconservative plots, Beck is boogeyman for his sometimes bombastic rhetoric about fascism and whatnot. Some complaints have merit, but this is the same network whose favorite conservative pundit is the populist Pat Buchanan, not even a Republican, who has written a book explaining why World War II was a mistake and how Hitler craved peace. Meanwhile, Keith Olbermann's shtick is far more dishonest: He pretends he's Edward R. Murrow reincarnated when he's really Al Franken with more important hair.

My theory? Beck is richer, more talented, more successful and more popular than his detractors. But jealousy and envy are popular, too.

Jonah Goldberg is on Medved

Jonah Goldberg is on Michael Medved's radio show discussing the paperback release of Liberal Fascism. Listen here.

You may want to quickly review my big post for the hardback release. A memorable post, to me.

Jonah Goldberg on "McPalin"

Heh.

Obama's idea of ethics reform is to mandate clean sheets in the brothel. Palin's is to tear it down.

And Jonah came up with my favorite phrase to date which sums up Joe Biden, "limitless gasbaggery":

And let's not forget Biden, whose gaffes are the unavoidable byproduct of his limitless gasbaggery. Biden could shout on "Meet the Press," "Get these squirrels off of me!" and the collective response would be, "There goes Joe again." But if Palin flubs the name of the deputy agriculture minister of Kyrgyzstan, the media will blow their whistles saying she's unprepared for the job.

Cool ad for the NYT #1 Bestseller: Liberal Fascism

I suppose I won't get sued for stealing an ad, will I? I mean, I'm running it for free, right?



Cool. Click here to buy it while supplies last! Congrats, Mr. G.

Hugh Hewitt's Interview with Jonah Goldberg

Thanks to Cubeland Mystic for sending me these links.

Here's the first part.

Here's the second part.

During the second clip we get to hear Michelle Obama's secular messianic totalitarian pitch and Jonah's reaction.

It's spooky. I don't want her to shut up, though, because this is what the Obama's campaign is really about. Not America's "hope", but their hope that no one notices the invisible power fist.

Jonah "organic food" Goldberg

We had a pretty windy night last night up here in Northeast Ohio. Windy enough to blow the neighbors crappy shed into our yard. Neat. Since we already have a shed in our yard, this made us the "Two-shed Frys". Obviously.



Yes, I know, I know.... Mr. Goldberg actually does mention organic food in his book. The focus on that one aspect of the book on the part of those hostile to his thesis remains quite funny to me. I have the book now and I have to say it's very informative and insightful. I'll throw some quotes up later.

Goldberg Fisks Neiwert

It's a pretty thorough job.

If nothing else, this piece should put to rest the strange notion some have that Jonah doesn't know his stuff. I suppose people would rather focus on smileys on the cover and what he allegedly said about Nazis and their penchant for organic foods.

JGDS: Jonah Goldberg Derangement Syndrome

I promised a reader of this blog that I'd post on Jonah Goldberg's new book, Liberal Fascism and the gross over-reaction to it from different quarters. It is fascinating to me; before the book was even out, the Amazon page was overrun with the scurrilous attacks of leftists commenting mainly on Goldberg's weight. These were mostly in the form of "tags" placed by teams of determined leftists which you can still see such as "Editor promised cake", "Mmm bacon" and "Cheetohouse Five". As a human being with feelings this might have annoyed him, but it no doubt amused him as an author that an unpublished book was so enraging his liberal detractors that they were behaving like a bunch of fascists before anyone had had a chance to read past the book cover. Besides, Goldberg's physique would resemble Brad Pitt's if you stood him next to Michael Moore, a Buddha-like sage whom I'm sure many of these anger-mongers consider to be a living saint.

Listening to all the interviews on talk radio with Goldberg has made me interested in checking out the book. He talks about how the phrase "liberal fascism" wasn't something he cooked up, but a quote from a speech delivered by H. G. Wells at Oxford in 1932 where Wells made a plea for his version of The New Man: "I am asking for liberal Fascisti, for enlightened Nazis." It seemed to Wells that democracy includes too many people who aren't "with the program"; there needs to be totalitarian control by "elites" to effect the correct Utopian system.

Goldberg goes on explain how Stalin didn't like the nationalism of the socialists of Western Europe so, like a capitalist worried about brand confusion, he wouldn't allow them to use "socialist" to describe themselves. Instead, they had to refer to themselves as fascists.

From listening to him converse freely on his topic and field calls from those hostile to his thesis (on Medved's show) you can tell that the guy has done extensive research on the history linking fascism to leftist ideology. I recall I always had difficulty in school and college discerning the difference between fascists and socialists when we discussed their forms of government, other than the fact that they seemed to hate each other. I was told that in the economic sphere the difference can be stated thusly: in socialism the state owns the means of production, i.e., business ventures, whereas in fascism the state has full control over businesses. It always sounded like a distinction without a real difference to me, dreamed up by liberal academics who wouldn't know a good business plan if it bit them in their tenured asses.

So control versus ownership -- reminds me of the adage "Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?" I'm sure the poor farmer who raised the cow wouldn't see the difference between the two, the state takes all the milk and gives him back 2 gallons a week plus a six of Heineken, or the state takes the cow and then forces him to milk it for them -- since they don't know which end of the cow makes the milk -- paying him a wage of 2 gallons per week plus a fifth of Vodka. Maybe fascism is simply socialism with more cowbell. Or vice versa, with a "Good job, Comrade!" thrown in as a bonus if you aren't one of the ones they kill.

So fascists as the spiritual grandfathers of modern day liberals isn't too much of a stretch for me. Or many others, such as the Anchoress, for example.

I mean, come on... do these Blackshirt blokes look like conservatives? Look more like a bunch of metrosexual John Edwards supporters to me, waiting for the local Whole Foods Market to open.

Anyway, Jonah was quick to point out in all the interviews I heard that he is not accusing all modern day liberals of the horrendous acts of evil which Stalin and Hitler carried out, merely that the tendency to believe in their ideology as an absolute "unified theory" to bring about a bright new age and to curtail individual freedom in order to hasten the realization of this "greater good". And although I haven't heard him state it, I'm sure he wouldn't rule out that fascism does exist within some of the wilder-eyed ranks of the right.

Oh, that reminds me. Speaking of clowns and tricycles, several reader friends have pointed out several small side-shows to the 3-ring circus being put on by those showing the symptoms of the burgeoning mental disorder: Jonah Goldberg Derangement Syndrome. Please feel free to point out warning signs and prescribe treatment and preventive measures.

One warning sign might be linking to a Daily Show youtube video rather than anything substantial. Uhhh... this is a publisher's commercial for the book, OK? Even my 3-year-old can recognize advertising when he sees it and knows that's when you take a bathroom break. And by the way, there is an official blog for Liberal Fascism at National Review. That would be a good thing to read for substance if, say, you can't afford the book.

This is possibly unrelated, but remember when Stephen Morrissey, of all people, was accused of being a fascist? Hey, didn't he write a song called "We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful"?

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(Update: Welcome LF-blog readers. I have the computer geeky habit of putting quotes around my search terms, so when I Googled "Jonah Goldberg Derangement Syndrome" last night nothing came up or I'd have acknowledged the existence of the DS was already known. My abbreviation does distinguish between hatred for that other author guy the left dislikes.)