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SEIFFE:  Applying Goldberg 

Sunday, March 2, 2008

By Ralf Seiffe

It is hard to turn on television or listen to the radio without finding syndicated columnist and National Review contributor Jonah Goldberg explaining the premise behind his New York Times number-one bestseller.  Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning cites a century’s worth of evidence, making a convincing case that conventional wisdom is wrong about fascism.  Despite their reflexive accusations that the Right is to blame for fascism, Goldberg shows it is really the product of socialism and, in America, the legacy of the Progressive Movement.  It is a very good read illustrating a premise that the Left has succeeded in making a counter-intuitive position.  Rather than review the book, however, it’s interesting to relate how Goldberg’s idea of liberal fascism applies to politics of Illinois. 

The operating definition of a “fascist” has been hijacked by the Left to mean “any conservative winning an argument.”  More accurately, Goldberg writes, “Fascism, at its core, is the view that every nook and cranny of the society should work together in spiritual union towards the same goals overseen by the state.”  What I take this to mean is that the federal government, the state or a municipality sets a goal and then enforces it with coercion that becomes fascism.  The contribution Goldberg makes is to show how government--particularly in America--sets goals that are attractive and worthwhile; but that, there is a price and it is fascism.  This “friendly face” is what the book’s cover art signals with its 1970’s “smiley face” sporting a Hitler moustache.

Are there signs of fascism in Illinois?  It seems unlikely but let’s apply Goldberg’s theory to the policies being advocated in the contest that many believe will be the bell-weather for the fall, Illinois’s 14th Congressional District.  If Goldberg is right, it will be the Democrat who will recommend policies that will set national goals to be enforced by government in favor of the government and at the expense of individuals.  So, one wonders, does Bill Foster fit this definition?  Let’s look. 

The candidate’s web site shows there’s reason for concern.  Take, for example, his recommendations on health care.  As Goldberg predicts, the goals Foster sets are friendly--he wants comprehensive, efficient, proactive and affordable health care.  Who can disagree?  But look into the details and a disturbing pattern begins to emerge--one Goldberg predicts.  He wants controls on costs doctors are able to charge and to force insurance companies to “eliminate insurance discrimination and require[s] automatic renewal.”  This substitutes the state’s judgment for those of the individuals involved.  Worse, he recommends that health care be predicated on “healthy life style choices.”  No word on how this will be enforced but the state-run system in Great Britain may give some clues--no orthopedic surgeries for those older than 70 and only minimal service for smokers.  Goldberg deals with this notion by pointing out that the National Socialists in the last century held that “Nutrition is not a private matter.” 

On February 24th, Foster and his opponent, Jim Oberweis, appeared on the WBBM program “At Issue” where the two were asked to give their views on the housing finance situation.  Oberweis said that he supported a voluntary program in which debtors with the prospect of paying their mortgages would work out arrangements with their creditors.  Foster disagreed with the approach calling it a “5% solution.”  Indeed, there are some in Foster’s party who would abrogate the contracts between the debtors and their creditors and impose new terms to benefit the debtors.  Foster referred to Chuck Schumer and vaguely seemed to support the New York socialists’ ideas.  On the  “At Issue” show, Foster justified such extraordinary action by accusing mortgage companies of offering “indefensible” contracts, issuing “fraudulent mortgages” and being “fly-by-night” organizations.  From this he apparently concludes that intervention is appropriate for the “other 95%” of debtors who can’t work out some voluntary arrangement.  Foster’s rantings against the mortgage companies reminds me of the famous socialists of the 1930’s who blamed the “finance capitalists” for their world’s troubles. Again, Foster advocates a happy face goal--keep folks in their homes--but the means and manner are those of state coercion and that’s the part which earns the moustache.  No question Foster’s recommendations meet Goldberg’s warning. 

The most troubling of all of Foster’s claims is that he’s a scientist and will bring scientific thought to government.  Science implies rationality and in that sense, we should welcome more rational thinking in Washington.  But what’s troubling is what happened when earlier times depended on science to guide and justify public policy.  Goldberg points out that America’s most destructive Chief Executive was Woodrow Wilson and that he was the first Ph.D. to serve as President.  He chronicles Wilson’s insults to the Constitution as products of serious, scientific thought.  This is so important that Goldberg devotes an entire chapter to the evils of a scientifically-organized society and the socialist cause of eugenics.  It’s the story of racism, cultural imperialism and an example of how “normal people” can be turned into what we would now think of as monsters. 

I am sure that Candidate Foster has no brief for the scientific consensus of eugenics but what about the latest swindle, global warming?  Foster’s web site claims that half of all global warming is man-made and that “action is imperative.”  His cloak of being a scientist adds a veneer of rationality and he recommends a study to determine what to do.  But, if he has already concluded that humans are responsible for half of global warming, what’s the value and probity of a study he would conduct? This isn’t science, it’s a social gospel and the sort of fraud Goldberg writes about in his chapter on the “science” of eugenics.  When politicians tell us it is a “crisis” and the emergency justifies coercive public policy that outlaws American’s choices in cars, barbeques and wanderlust, it becomes fascism. 

Bill Foster isn’t alone in proposing smiley-faced programs that cement the reality of socialist-inspired American fascism.  I chose him because he’s a fresh face that has not had to compromise his views with the realities of actually holding office.  What we find in “applying Goldberg” is that Foster is an advocate of smiley faced fascism, perhaps unwittingly.  He simply joins a tradition in Illinois carried on by a long cast of progressive “improvers” operating the schools, the welfare system, the bureaucracies and, of course, the governments.  We are proud of it, too; the people of Illinois have just honored one of liberal fascism’s chief architects, our own Jane Addams, by naming an expressway after her. 

Goldberg’s book is the antidote to the poisonous notion that conservatives are the cause of fascism and he shows us how to recognize it here and nationally.  The truth is that conservatives are interested in individual’s rights while fascists are more concerned with government’s prerogatives.  He accuses liberals of misdirection and convicts them with a quotation from  Jane Addams:  “[W]e must demand that the individual shall be willing to lose the sense of personal achievement and shall be content to realize his activity only in connection with the activity of the many.”   Remember that next time you’re stuck with “the many” in the maw of traffic. 

The author was in Chicago this past week as a guest of the American Freedom Foundation and I had the opportunity to ask what an individualist might do to fight the fascism Goldberg’s book describes.  His reply was “take little victories when you can.”  It seems to me that the American experience is doomed if we manage only little victories.  Nevertheless, but let’s start by recognizing Bill Foster for what he is and defeat him next Saturday as one of those “little victories.”  Then, let’s also recognize that the Democrat’s nominee in November will be the herald of more socialism, nationally, and defeat them, too. 

Ralf Seiffe advises business start-ups and product launches from Chicago, Illinois and is a political analyst and columnist for the Illinois Leader and Illinois Review.

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