Adolf Hitler: Proto Crunchy Con?

Don't forget the Nazis built good highways, too. Which means that the only proper response is everyone should drive on Michigan-quality roads.

Although I'd side with you over Goldberg on most things, I do think it unfortunate that Stewart was more interested in using Goldberg for sport than listening to him. I mean, Goldberg didn't get a chance to really explain the difference between American liberalism and European/classical liberalism, and I think that is unfortunate.

The German eco-enthusiasts (for lack of a better term), by the way, originate in the 1800s, iirc, and thus precede the Nazis. It's difficult and painful to say so, but on several things Nazi perpectives were accurate, particularly regarding science and health. Or moustaches.

That's one for the time capsule, for sure. How can anyone take the National Review seriously with nuts like Goldberg running the show? Surely Ann Coulter is ghost-writing this garbage to scab the writers' guild.

Rod wrote: "The irony seemed to fly right by Jonah."

Again, Jonah just isn't that smart.

Anon, it's true that Stewart can make just about anybody look like an idiot, at least until you think about what he's really saying. In that respect he's a TV version of Rush Limbaugh. But it's also true that Jonah's book is a bundle of unsupported and mutually contradictory assertions, and making Jonah look like an idiot nowadays is pretty easy.

Anon, other conservatives do just fine bantering with Stweart, John Bolton of all people was on the other night and did fine for example. Ponnuru does fine.

The problem with Goldberg is he doesn't have the faintest idea what he is talking about.

Stewart fulfills the whole premise of Goldberg's book; it's easier to for The Left to throw a word around than actually discuss ideas and history. It's easier to shortcircuit any exchange of ideas when someone like Goldberg confronts them with facts and history than have an argument. There's some antipathy between Goldberg and Dreher here, but Goldberg is mostly right. Goldberg was done a disservice by his publisher with a provocative cover illustration that encourages The Left to dismiss him, and that's a shame.

Having read the book I don't think Goldberg necessarily thinks organic produce is a bad thing, but it was part of a collectivist Nazi society. And with some people on The Left, it's hard to argue that it's one more brick in the wall of conformity. But that's not to say they're all Nazis, it merely means some of their ideals were held by Nazis. But Goldberg wasn't given a chance to explain that distinction. And his premise stands; American "progressivism", while different than Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy,shares many of the same ideals.These were socialist societies, and there's no doubt that if we allowed things like Hillarycare or "affordable housing" or foreclosure relief, we would be going down that dead end.

And in fairness let's be honest-there's a real snob appeal to organic food the way it's now marketed. It's become like the AIDS ribbon or bogus charities like AMFAR. I'd note that where once you could not find organic products, now every supermarket has them in every aisle. And frankly if I get a better-tasing and safer pesticided tomato or egg, being organic or not doesn't matter. "Organic" has become mostly marketing.

I paid for this microphone, Mr. Peter, so I can look like a jackass all I want to. Heh.

Seriously, I don't intend on commenting on the book, so why should I read it? I've had three posts up on it that I can remember: 1) a post congratulating him on its publication; 2) a post remarking on a criticism Matt Yglesias made of the book that reminded me of Jonah's problematic argumentation style, re: his engagement of my book; and 3) this one, which comments on his TV appearance.

If I went on the Daily Show to talk about my book, I wouldn't think it necessary for someone to have read my book to remark upon my interview.

I saw this last night and thought of you, Rod.
Actually, my favorite moment was this (transcribing from memory, so forgive me if I'm wrong):
Mr Goldberg: What I'm saying is that people use the term fascist too loosely. The word has a specific meaning...

Stewart: So your response is to write a book called Liberal Fascists?

I have seen Jon Stewart on TDS and he is a funny guy. If the video ever loads I'll Jonah Goldberg on the TDS so I guess that means he is also funny or at least I expect to be laughing at his point of view.

Not guilt by association. It's an acknowlegedment that these fascist societies made a point of controlling and regulating every part of people's lives.

You really don't get it. Goldberg should never have made the bone-headed remark trying to link organic food production to fascism. Organic food production has been, by pure necessity, the overwhelmingly dominant mode of food production for all but a scant few years of recorded agricultural history. And be existentially certain that organic food production will return as soon as we deplete our one-time allotment of oil and natural gas. As will more collectivist modes of living.

Goldberg should check into a home for the terminally deluded. This is a sad time for 'conservatives.'

The liberal Daily Show edited Goldberg's interview down from 18 minutes to 6 minutes. Omitting 2/3 of an interview is an easy way to make anyone look like an idiot -- something you would have acknowledged if you were just innocently "remarking upon" the interview.

Stewart behaved pretty badly during the interview, at least if we can trust the editing that he himself did. He didn't give a Goldberg a chance, for example, to expand on the difference between classical liberalism and modern liberalism/progressivism/leftism. It was actually rather charmingly naive that Stewart still believes a good definition of liberalism is "the individual over the state," but it made for pretty poor history and a pretty poor interview.

...the liberal Daily Show edited Goldberg's interview down from 18 minutes to 6 minutes.

Goldberg's lucky Stewart's not streaming the whole interview or he'd look three times more clueless and disingenuous than he did in the edited version.

Goldberg should be joining Rod and Ann Coulter in the National Review Hall of Shame any day now.

Well, Goldberg never was given a chance (not that he should have expected it on that show, but nevertheless ...) to explain his ideas, which are very far from eccentric to those with knowledge of political philosophy and those who actually bother to take fascism seriously as an ideology (here is Larison on the book, e.g.) rather than as the political F-bomb.

Goldberg is nobody's idea of Allan Bloom, but, best I can tell from only having read the NR cover article, he is making essentially the same point Bloom did in one of the chapters of "The Closing of The American Mind" ("The Nietzscheization of the Left and Vice Versa") and it is not an ignorant ad-hominem, as some claim.

The reason the Daily Show interview came off badly is simple -- Stewart is an ignoramus. He gets on Goldberg for being "caught up with labels," not realizing that Goldberg's whole point is that the meanings of terms (especially "liberal" and "progressive") have changed over time, which is why Goldberg not-especially-new argument that "contemporary American liberalism owes a great debt to European fascism" sounds so shocking. Stewart in his stupidity knows only how to play off the shocks and so, in some way, actually confirms Goldberg's argument.

Having read the book I don't think Goldberg necessarily thinks organic produce is a bad thing, but it was part of a collectivist Nazi society. And with some people on The Left, it's hard to argue that it's one more brick in the wall of conformity.

Whaaa??

The proliferation of agri-business, monoculture, GMO's, clones, hybrids and such is the where the conformity lies.

I do think it's a bit unfair to ridicule Goldberg for such a heavily edited video clip. It's easy to make anybody look like an idiot with that kind of cut-and-paste job.

I cannot wait to see the complete, unedited interview. I'm sure Goldberg will appear every bit the idiot and more. I cannot for the life of me figure out why anyone's coming to Goldberg's defense. Here he is, on COMEDY CENTRAL, for Pete's sake, trying to sell his book with a smiley face and a Hitler mustache on the cover.

And he expects what, a sober, dispassionate exchange on modern liberalism? The mind boggles.

Will the last person left at National Review please turn off the lights and the latte machine?

Far-right totalitarianism, aka, fascism, is, in essence, a descendant of the absolute power held by royalty. It is an attempt to regulate power in society, it almost always involves the worship of said power to use against 'enemies'.

Their leaders are powerful and that fact makes them right and good, and their enemies are unequivocally evil. It is why the Nazi party was hugely into symbols, and why Big Brother showed up on your TV and the minute of hate.

The 'villains' fascism fights are always large, discrete groups of people, sometimes internal, sometimes external. There's a lot of talk of destiny, and a lot of wars getting started.

Far-left totalitarianism, aka, communism, OTOH, is populism taken to the ultimate extreme, and then inevitably hijacked. It does not rely on symbols and leader worship, it actually requires the exact opposite, the fiction that everyone is treated equally. There's a lot of double-speak and changing the meanings of words, and even editing history, although that last happens in fascism too.

They do not usually fight wars of invasion, they instead prefer to overthrow governments through 'freedom fighters' and install leaders that are 'the will of the people'. Raw military power to gain territory is not usual. (To keep it, OTOH, is.)

The 'villains' it fights are dissidents and intellectuals who do not agree with the movement, internal non-conformists, and it's really only fighting them because they are a threat. (This last is hard to see if you only look at the USSR, because of Stalin and his purges. But Stalin wasn't manufacturing enemies because he needed them, he was manufacturing them because he was a paranoid lunatic. Hitler, OTOH, needed them.)

There have been about a dozen of each sort of government, and almost every single one follows one set of the traits, although it's not always the set their name would imply. (Nazis being the big one.)

It's worth pointing out North Korea is the exception, as it managed to evolve from far-left to far-right, as far as I can tell. North Korea: All the economic disadvantages of communism combined with inane military spending fascism brings.

It's also worth pointing out there are other sorts of totalitarian governments. While fascism can present itself as a military dictatorship, all military dictatorships are not fascism, or even communist, sometimes they just are. And theocratic totalitarian societies can be totally random.

This book is seriously stupid. If someone wants to argue that liberalism is halfway to communism, whatever. But I urge people to read the differences above, and realize there is a fairly large difference between communism and fascism in how they operate. It's not just, as Goldberg seems to think, some sort of clever word game.