The Right's Fascism Problem

Michelle Malkin posed for a picture with a man holding a swastika sign. The photo was taken at a Denver, Colorado anti-stimulus package rally. Malkin has made a career out of support of the Japanese internment camps and anti-immigration. Malkin publicly supports the white supremist Minutemen Project.

Glenn Beck, Jonah Goldberg and the sign-carrying Swastika Guy enjoy bringing Neo-Nazism into political discourse. The 2009 version of conservatism is demonizing gays, Hispanics, blacks, Muslims and cutting health care for children.

The last Republican administation illegally wiretapped.

The last Republican administation jailed people without charge.

The last Republican administation paid off Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher for positive media coverage.

The last Republican administation told Americans "with us or against us."

The current Republican brand would terrify the Founding fathers and George Orwell. Fascism is government leaders using fearmongering to impose their will. Ari Fleischer's "with us or against us" was not designed to make Americans feel safer.

A fascist government will make decisions in secrecy. Dick Cheney still hasn't released the names of those that attended his energy commission meetings. The Bush administration kept waterboarding and wiretapping secret. Bush and Cheney issued nondenials when news started leaking out. Bush and Cheney were later forced to admit waterboarding and wiretapping. Claiming the Constitution gave them the authority.

The Fourth amendment states "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." The Eighth amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. America is not fascist. The Bush administration steered America towards a fascist path. Bush was a president that publicly declared he had to aswer to no one. Republicans, such as Goldberg, believe fascists "isn’t an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade-school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore." Orwell wrote about the misuse of the word fascism.

In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Benjamin Franklin