The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 6 of 11)

for stopping your Obama fawning and you obvious love-in with him, and countering with a bit of journalism. br> -- Nathan Maskiell br> Melbourne, Australia /p>

Mr. Tabin offers a fair and hopefully inviting thumbnail sketch of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism. It is arguably one of the most important books on American politics in the past several years, well worth the investment of time for those who haven't yet had the pleasure of reading it.

Tabin closes thusly: "Still, it would be nice if one of our potential leaders would give us some hint that there are part of our lives that the government has no business interfering in."

Here he puts his finger on what bothers many conservatives and libertarians about the current zeitgeist. We have no assurance that those who hold the reins of government recognize any aspect of American life that is clearly private. When everything becomes political, there is no life outside the umbrella of the State, precisely the fascist model advocated by Mussolini, Wilson, and their intellectual brethren. From the inception of the Progressive Movement of the late 19th century, the United States government has gradually morphed into something that was never intended to exist by the Founders, although it would take them only a few minutes to recognize it for what it is, for they offered warnings of the most explicit kind in the historical record.

The Founders key insight was that government is the ultimate blunt instrument, regardless of the holder of power, and that the only sure way to constrain the damage it does is to severely limit its scope and create internal tension within its structure to make it less capable of sustained over-reach.

p>Perhaps this explains in part why some are attracted to the smooth demeanor and lyrical rhetoric of a gifted speaker such as Sen. Obama. The superficially pleasant public symbol allows them to more easily avert their eyes from the irreducible brutality of the underlying mechanism. br> -- Bud /p> p> CLOWN CARS

topics:
Foreign Policy, Trade, John McCain, Business, Islam, Books, Law, Iran, Israel, NATO, Socialism, Fascism, Energy, Oil