Slouching Toward Fascism?
April 25, 2007 on 3:16 pm | In Main, National |
I guess it’s time for another post involving a prominent feminist. An old friend sent me a link to a piece by Naomi Wolf in yesterday’s Guardian.
The normally persuasive Wolf argues rather unconvincingly to a British audience that the Bush administration is leading us down the path to fascism — in essence, what she calls a 10-step “blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship.”
Curiously, she leads with the example of last fall’s military coup in Thailand, where “coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody.”
The Bush adminstration has already begun taking these 10 steps, she said. I guess the key word there is “begun.” None of these steps has actually been taken, so if we never make it to a dictatorship, Wolf can insist she was only issuing a cautionary tale.
And you know what? It will never happen here for several reasons, most notably that we are an armed society — a fact that Wolf conveniently ignores. If the Bushies truly want to turn Burbank into Bangkok, they’ll need more than the PATRIOT Act. Heck, they’ll have to get past Charlton Heston first.
It’s always fascinated me how this debate about totalitarianism often breaks down along idealogical lines. The left cringes at restrictions on abortion and the press, and decries the creation of “gulags” and the practice of domestic spying, for example.
The right tends to be wary of lawlessness and therefore less concerned with the relatively minor losses of civil liberties — except when it comes to guns.
I remember my former stepfather (whom I could charitably describe as somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan) telling me the first step toward dictatorship was when the government tried to take your guns away. An armed society, he assured me, is a healthy check on excessive government power.
So, in a construct similar to Wolf’s, he argued that gun control and registration were slippery slopes. If all guns were registered, then the government could find them, confiscate them and wield uncontested power. It’s a bottom-line argument that really transcends all 10 of Wolf’s.
At the time (and this was some 25 years ago), it seemed a quaint notion at best. Now I’m not so sure. Right after the invasion of Iraq, I remember reading in the MSM that one of the first items on the agenda of the U.S. forces there was to confiscate as many firearms as possible. Hmm …
Look, there is no question the Bush administration has moved aggressively to consolidate and enhance the power of the executive branch in the wake of 9/11. It’s an open secret that the Bushies hold great disdain for the leglislative branch, regarding them as a bunch of poll-worshipping pufters who don’t really know how to run anything larger than their own offices.
But if it’s martial law they want, they’ll learn the hard way that the freedom-loving people of this great nation won’t stand for it. In fact, if Dick Cheney wanted to send a tank down Sand Road in Falls Village, I think the conservative Paul Bartomioli would be ready with his hunting rifle (and whatever else he could scare up).
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I agree. Just try getting past Heston, on the west coast. On the east coast? As long as we have Alec Baldwin to protect us, we’re safe. Alec Baldwin. The single most frightening unarmed man in America.
Comment by Terrence McCarthy — April 25, 2007 #
The resignation of Richard Nixon, ws one of the most stern tests to the strength of America. We passed with flying colors, and I can write with confidence, that conservatives and liberal alike would band together to stop any form of takeover. Her comments are BALONEY SAUCE (BS)!
The Bush administration is to confused and adrift to even try…hell, most of our troops are overseas!!
Comment by Marshall Miles — April 25, 2007 #
I wish that I could agree with your stepfather. The concept is a good one and, in another time and place perhaps, The People would “rise up” and drive the Visigoths back from whence they came–at gunpoint.
Not today. There are no Liberals of my acquaintance who have the cojones to aim a gun at anyone (do they even own them?) and the majority of Conservatives are the ones who let the choke-chain off the wardogs in the first place.
Time and again history has proven that all totalitarian regimes devoured their opposition bite by single bite; an undeclared war here, a Patriot Act there–all met with a shrug of the shoulders rather than a cry of outrage–is what puts us in a gulag of our own devise. “Animal Farm” is their textbook.
Now if they drove a tank through Cornwall,well maybe you’d have a few people throwing rocks. But Cheney driving it? Nah…he’d have one of our sons at the wheel.
Comment by Doug Richardson — April 25, 2007 #
Terry,
Having just spent a year in Iraq with the infantry, the policy in Iraq is that each household may have one AK-47 or similar “assault rifle” for each head of family. It is often common for brothers and their families to live together, so we often found, say, four families in one house. In such a situation, we only confiscated weapons beyond the four permitted. Machineguns, RPGs, mortars, pistols, grenades, etc., were confiscated automatically.
The policy was not one of complete disarmament. Each family was entrusted with the weapon (fully automatic, mind you) and ammunition to protect life and property.
Yarch,
JP
Comment by JP — April 25, 2007 #
Doug….
Here is one moderate/liberal who would take a stand….
There are more of us out here than you think
Comment by Marshall Miles — April 25, 2007 #
JP, Thanks for the informed clarification. I guess a man’s home is still his castle in Fallujah.
Doug, Only a cerebral stonemason could manage to use the word Visigoths in a comment.
Marshall, I expect to see you on Paul’s porch when Wolfowitz’s tanks come rolling into FV.
P.S. Terrence, Alec Baldwin with a gun is scarier than Dick Cheney roaming the range in South Texas.
Comment by Terry — April 25, 2007 #
The proper metaphor for a fascist takeover is not a coup. It is the voluntary surrender of power from the people to the strongman. It is not an overt military usurpation, but rather the willing and successive compromise of individual liberties and freedoms to an authoritarian government in the name of law, order, security, and national unity. See Italy under Mussolini for the right wing-collectivist fascist prototype.
You will find very few self-identified fascists today, as the term has become a perjorative hurled by the left and the right.
Comment by Tim Abbott — April 26, 2007 #
i just found this.. didn’t read the whole thing… but it’s titles “14 ways of looking at a blackshirt”.
as long as we are speaking about fascism.
http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html
Comment by fred — April 27, 2007 #
Never Mind the Dog.
Beware of Owner.
The 2nd Amendment is the protection of all the rest.
And, Ted Kennedy’s car has still killed more people than my guns, or Dick Cheney’s shotgun.
Comment by Paul Bartomioli — April 29, 2007 #
Only because your a bad shot!!!
Comment by Marshall Miles — April 29, 2007 #
not to be extremley blunt, rude, or off-color with bad jokes… but technically ted kennedy’s car did not kill anyone. the water did.
BUT the poit remains valid.
Comment by fred — April 30, 2007 #