2002, Saint Martin's Press, NY, 368 pages
Elder is a black conservative journalist/talk show host from LA who had a ringside seat to the Left Coast depravity circus back in 2002, that has since become the whining global ethos we dwell beneath.
He begins his introductory essay, Liberal Fascism: Stealing Freedom with Compassion, with two quotes, one from Benito Mussolini:
"Liberalism denied the State in the interests of the individual; Fascism reaffirms the State as the true reality of the individual."
He then goes on to quote perhaps the best Christian writer to weave words, C. S. Lewis:
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
I think Mister Elder juxtaposed brilliantly, two streams of thought that should be linked, but for different reasons, than perhaps he thought. Yes, postmodern liberalism does use a more sophisticated version of the State to impose a collective will upon the individual for the individual's own good, where the cruder forms of tyranny, such as feudalism and fascism imposed collective will for a stated abstract [divine individual right] or collective [ethno-tribal] good. Throughout his collection of essays, which is somewhat of lower quality [but still well worth reading] than his initial theory, this reader detected a lack of understanding that the tyranny of liberalism is built upon the conservative contention that the robber baron does good despite his wicked aims and that the fascist tyrant waxes wicked despite his collective, upward-reaching aims.
What this readers senses is missing from this well-formulated and entertainingly illuminated theory of liberal fascism, is that the liberal state cannot exist without a boogie man—preferably a boogie man residing safely in the past—without a robber baron or a fascist tyrant kept alive like some unhallowed ghost to frighten the cringing multitudes into quivering compliance. My impatience with the romanticizing of domestic tyrants [as opposed to my fascination with the study of those who export their will] of the past is that the liberal feminist, architects of our multiplying hive mind, stand on the trench-coated shoulders of tyrants past. Most in America will look to a Russian President or Serbian nationalist leader and see the ideological child of a Mussolini, a Hitler. Being a crackpot, this observer looks upon a woman running for president in 2016 America, and sees that she stands above all only because she stands on the shoulders of the men whose legacy she claims to oppose, a legacy dogmatically shaped into her stairway to earthly omnipotence.
Without a Captain Hook, nobody gives a damn about Peter Pan.
Larry's extensive use of examples of moral depravity [Mark Wahlberg being one] is effective, as is his well-made case that liberalism is responsible for destroying Black America, particularly his citing of Thomas Sowell's work on higher education in Chapter 6, specifically page 201.
Larry closes with a jingoistic sentence that any fascist leader would savor:
"Lead, Mister President. This historic opportunity exists now. Seize it. Americans will follow."
What depraved issues was Mark Wahlberg involved in to warrant him being used as an example ? Also can you share with us what has happen to the great commentator, Jeremy Bentham.
First things first, Jeremy, where are you?
I too miss his excellent commentary, Rod.
Marky Mark was used as an example of depraved violent activity, not sexual. The discussion concerned Tim Roth's refusal to work with Charelton Heston on the Planet of the Apes remake, because Heston was an NRA spokesperson, even though Roth was willing to work with Mark, who had maimed [blinded] an old Chinese man in a race-based assault and who attacked his own body guard once, kicking and biting him for no apparent reason.
As someone who enjoys his action movies, I hope Mark has matured a lot in the intervening years.