My brother sends me a link to an article by Scott McConnell sounding the tocsin against the creeping tide of facism in American culture.
Unfortunately, I disagree with his interpretation of just about everything he cites as evidence for his argument. His fundamental premise — that Bush’s policy is reckless and that Bush is controlled by a shadowy cabal of “neocons” (= code word for “jews”) is so much progressivist conspiracy-mongering.
So let’s look at his argument:
“Justification of torture by legal theorists.”
First of all, this is certainly not accepted by all conservatives. The amount of anguished debate on this subject suggests that it’s far more complicated than McConnel suggests. And he’s indulging in sweeping generalization — the argument is that torture is perhaps legitimate in specific instances where information is needed in the heat of battle. No one is suggesting legitimizing torture for civilians or even ordinary POW’s.
“Support of a militaristic foreign policy.”
As opposed to what, Europe, which is utterly impotent to act in situations like the Balkans, Rwanda, Darfur, etc.? Just because military action is seen as a valid instrument of policy doesn’t mean Americans are hot to establish the next Co-Prosperity Sphere.
“Retrospective backing of Japanese internment.”
One conservative writer — Michlle Malkin — writes a book supporting internment — soundly and voiciferously critized from all sides, conservative as well as liberal — and now American society is facist? The very fact that Malkin’s book caused such an outcry is evidence that American society is much less facist than in WWII!
“Whereas the conservative middle class once cheered the circumscribing of the federal government, it now celebrates power and adores the central state, particularly its military wing.”
He gets the core fact — that conservatives are cheering on the military — but misses the appropriate conclusion by a mile: Americans think that what the military is doing right now is in a good cause. Forgotten that smoking crater in Manhattan? Americans are showing support to the troops who once again are going “over there” to counter their attackers, and to establish a beachhead of peace and democracy in the middle of the culture that spawned those attackers.
Then he discusses Stern’s analysis of German culture and its descent into Facism. Well, Americans aren’t Germans! They’re the descendent of an entirely different political and legal culture that valued individual liberty half a millennium before Germany as a culture came to exist. So Germans wanted another Bismark. Anglos revere the Magna Carta more than any king, and the Constitution over any President.
Then he simply descends into ill-considered (and anachronistic, given the success of the Iraqi elections) criticism of the war.
I suspect that he’s simply a hoplophobe, and thus he sees any use of or support for military action as facistic.
I mean, really, where’s the phone number I can call to denounce him as an enemy of the State?