America Neofascistica

     Someone, at some time in the past, said something similar to this:

     “When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”

     The original source is heavily disputed, so let’s not go there. The core of the sentence is perfectly plain: To impose an alien ideology upon Americans, employ their most cherished symbols as camouflage. And indeed, that’s what the proto-fascists of our nation have been doing for more than a century. They’ve been getting away with it, too.

     People argue – naturally – about what constitutes Fascism. My preferred definition for Fascism comes from the originator of the doctrine, Benito Mussolini:

     “The keystone of the Fascist doctrine is its conception of the State, of its essence, its functions, and its aims. For Fascism, the State is absolute, individuals and groups relative….All within the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”

     Thus, in a Fascist polity:

• State authority is unbounded and absolute;
• Individuals have no rights against the State;
• The State may revise or override the laws at any time;
• Individuals and groups are instruments for advancing on State goals.

     Keep that paradigm in mind as you read what follows.

     The American form of Fascism comes under a twofold cloak: “Emergency powers” claimed and wielded by the executive branch, and “compelling government interest.” These notions allow the regime to rationalize the “suspension” of Constitutional provisions and guarantees.

     Anyone who’s lived through the two years just behind us will be familiar with how governments use “emergencies” to arrogate previously uncontemplated powers for themselves. The assertion of such powers proceeds under a “government interest” which is claimed to take precedence over any individual’s rights. From that earlier essay:

    

     “Rights are an archist concept. Rights have no meaning except when confronted with superior power. They are what is left to the people after the government has taken all its wants. Your country’s Bill of Rights defines your most cherished freedoms how? By limiting the legal power of government to encroach upon them.” [Eric L. Harry, via fictional anarchist theorist Valentin Kartsev in Harry’s novel Protect and Defend.]

     It would appear that “superior power” acknowledges no rights. The rationale is almost always “compelling government interest:” that is, the State’s interest in…what? How can the State, a fictional creature made up of individuals such as you and I, hired to do the relatively simple jobs (NB: “simple,” not necessarily “easy”) of keeping the peace in the streets, operating a court system, and defending the territory of the United States, have “interests?” It’s a BLEEP!ing hireling, and hirelings have no interests; they have responsibilities and delegated, enumerated powers, nothing more.

     The State’s “interests” are nonexistent. However, the individuals at the levers of power don’t see it that way. They want power, and as much of it as they can grab. Your “rights?” Sorry, buddy, they were just an Eighteenth Century philosopher’s idle fancy. Just a few words on a scrap of parchment. At any rate, we shan’t concern ourselves with them today. There’s oppressing work to be done!

     “Your government’s” work.

     The above brings us to this graphic, which I swiped from 90 Miles From Tyranny:

     Actually, the “woke” are just fine with racism: racism against whites. Indeed, it’s one of their main tools for fastening a yoke upon us. Apart from that, Miss Smith’s assessment is quite accurate. Were the “woke” presented with an anonymized description of government power in the Third Reich, they would approve of all of it, with the possible exception of its anti-Semitism. Even genocide is all right with them, as long as it’s in support of the “woke” agenda: to remove “ineducable dissenters” from the body politic, for example. Remember Bill Ayres’s Weather Underground comrades discussing the necessary execution of 25 million Americans who would resist “re-education?”

     Because individuals will always retain some grip on reality and some sense of ineradicable moral bounds, once a Fascist regime gets rolling, there will be outbreaks of horror – moral horror – over its operations. That’s when the “woke” start openly quoting Stalin about eggs and omelets. The ineducables were impeding the work of the State, and that must not be impeded! It was a tragic necessity that they be lined up along a trench lip, shot dead, and their bodies tumbled into a mass grave, but a necessity even so. Now sit down and shut up, Citizen…unless you want to join them.

     I’m not going to enumerate the many ways in which the Republic has degenerated into a neofascist construct. My Gentle Readers are observant and intelligent enough to note the correlations for themselves. But we might take note of an episode from some years ago, when Jonah Goldberg addressed a left-leaning college audience. He asked them a single pointed question:

     “Other than the racism and genocide, what was so bad about fascism?”

     Let’s start asking that question of the “woke.”