Read part 1 here.
Jonah Goldberg is a senior writer for the National Review magazine, as well as a syndicated columnist—his book “Liberal Fascism” should be on everyone’s must-read list. Glenn Beck has read it, promoted it, and has had Goldberg on his show to talk about it. Fans of Beck will recognize the topic.
Why is this book so important? Because while political conservatives have finally begun to fight—not enough of them are using all of the potential ammunition available to us. Goldberg provides what amounts to a big weapons cache with his well-researched book describing the true nature of the American political left.
There’s good news: Our side has taken important ground in the new media. But there’s bad news: Our message still too often lacks the kind of depth that can be very helpful in winning over independents to our side. Here are a few lines from Goldberg’s section on “Mussolini: The Father of Fascism.”
In 1919 Benito Mussolini wrote:
Two religions are today contending…for sway over the world-the black and the red.
Mussolini was referring to the contest in Italy between Christianity and Fascism, which Benito said is also a religion. In one, the God of the Bible was the subject of worship. In the other, Fascism, which Goldberg writes is –
– a religion in which ‘the people’ in effect worshipped themselves.
Let’s touch on another word: Statism. Here is the American Heritage Dictionary definition of statism:
The practice or doctrine of giving a centralized government control over economic planning and policy.
Here is Dictionary.com’s definition:
The principle or policy of concentrating extensive economic, political, and related controls in the state at the cost of individual liberty.
In reality, liberalism’s faith in government has turned statism into what Goldberg wrote (and what I quoted yesterday) regarding American liberalism: it is “a totalitarian political religion…”
In my humble opinion that pretty much sums up our national political divide. On one side are those who believe what the writers of the Declaration of Independence wrote:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Men and women get their rights from God, not from government. And—
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…
That’s pretty important. Governments are instituted to secure those God-given rights. And-they derive the power government has from the consent of the governed.
On the other side of the great political divide are those who would set religion on the level of a man-made creation, and thus God doesn’t exist or doesn’t play a role at all. Instead, man is the author of “rights” and “morality” and government is formed to set the parameters of all of those man-made rights and the boundaries of man-made morality. For those on this side, there is no higher authority than government. Period.
In the book Jonah Goldberg details the importance of historic figures such as Mussolini, as well as Adolph Hitler, Woodrow Wilson (in a chapter with the heading “the Birth of Liberal Fascism”), Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and their modern heirs – the 1960s radicals and individuals like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Goldberg actually gives very little space in the book to Obama. It’s my guess that’s only because when Goldberg was writing it he was in the majority of political observers who couldn’t envision Obama defeating Hillary Clinton in the primaries.
The subject of “Liberal Fascism” touches on every single political and policy debate Americans engage in today. No better example exists than the one regarding the “right” for homosexuals to marry, found (?) by a homosexual federal judge in California last week.
As one speaker joked at the Americans for Truth about Homosexuality “Academy” last week, there is little doubt the founding generation thought God had granted a “right” for Patrick Henry to marry Henry Patrick. It was unthinkable because the notion is completely foolish when considering religious teaching and natural law.
Continuing with the language of the Declaration that was quoted above – we read this (emphasis added):
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
If conservatives are going to alter (or abolish) it—we had better understand the foundational principles that have led to the freest, most prosperous nation ever established on God’s green earth.
If you don’t understand the foundational materials that went into the Declaration and Constitution, then you’re inadequately armed in the myriad debates that swirl all around us. Regardless of whether we engage in those debates—we all live with the consequences of which side prevails.
