Waking the (Un)Dead, Part 2

When a blogger insists that they're reaching to to an "intellectually mature" audience, one also imagines that it isn't too much to ask for that blogger to actually discuss the ideas they would like to critique.

It seems like a perfectly reasonable expectation.

Such is the expectation that an intellectually mature audience should expect of Enormous Thriving Plants proprietor Audrey, who has apparently taken quite the exception to the ideas of Jonah Goldberg.

Unfortunately, the problem for Audrey is that she continues to neglect to offer any kind of a cogent criticism of Goldberg's work, and has instead simply opted to ridicule it (possibly not understanding that ridicule is actually not an argument).

As mentioned during a previous attempt to coax Audrey into offering a more cogent critique of Goldberg's work by sharing with her some details of what his book actually contains, Goldberg also offers a critique of some fascist elements within conservative thought, including noting the fascist characteristics of some movies typically enjoyed by conservatives.

One of those movies is Death Wish. Like Dirty Harry, Death Wish spawned a whole series of sequels, creating a film franchise in which a vigilante exposes the inadequacies of the social order.

In Death Wish, Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) is an ordinary man whose wife and daughter are both killed during a home invasion. The police prove incapable of brining the guilty to justice, so Kersey doggedly pursues the guilty on his own.

Like in Dirty Harry, the social order in the Death Wish franchise has been subverted by weakness, and that weakness allows violent outsiders to flourish.

Moreover, these outsiders -- very often (but not always) members of racial minorities -- excel at turning the weakness of the system against itself. In Death Wish IV an elderly man uses a gun to drive home invaders from his apartment. His assailants call the police, who come and seize his gun under a handgun ban in the city. The very same night, his assailants return and murder his wife.

Dirty Harry's Harry Calahan can at least defend himself under the pretext of being an authority of the system. Paul Kersey is a vigilante, pure and simple.

His actions are even more threatening to the system than Calahan's, as he operates entirely outside of it. As a result, Kersey's actions may have even greater potential to be truly transformative.

Neither Dirty Harry nor Death Wish seem like films that liberals would enjoy. Jonah Goldberg admits as much in his book. Individuals like Audrey may have known about this if they had read the book.

But they evidently haven't. It's the kind of thing that should seriously call into question their ability to criticize his work.

It should, but considering that the best rhetoric they can muster to date is to accuse him of "doubling down on dumb", one shouldn't expect an argument that demonstrates any actual knowledge of Goldberg's arguments. At least not until after a lot more coaxing.

...And speaking of "doubling down on dumb", this is an individual who apparently thinks that the proper way to approach Goldberg's work is to mock him for ignorance of "astrological phenomonon" like the Jovian gravity well. And presumably, Taurus.

Waking the (Un)Dead, Part 1

Jonah Goldberg stirred up something of a controversy when he published Liberal Fascism.

The expressed goal of the book is to counter arguments that modern conservatism is essentially fascist in nature by pointing out that modern liberalism shares an intellectual ancestry with fascism.

Recently, certain individuals in the blogosphere have been making a point out of expressing their bemusement at his work.

In Liberal Fascism, Goldberg argues that modern liberalism -- better described as socialist progressivism -- shares key elements of the intellectual origins of fascism.

The counter-argument, as is advanced by many outraged left-wingers, is that Goldberg singles out the left and attempts to declare them guilty by association.

But this raises the question as to whether or not those complaining about Goldberg's work in Liberal Fascism. If they had, they would know that it isn't actually liberalism alone that Golberg suggests shares an intellectual ancestry with fascism. He notes that modern conservatism shares much of the same ancestry.

In one of the concluding chapters of the book, Goldberg explains how many popular movies have distinct fascist undertones.

Oddly enough, one of the movies Goldberg examines is more popular among conservatives than it is among liberals.

That movie is Dirty Harry.

In the film, Clint Eastwood plays one of his signature roles: Police Inspector Harry Callahan. A detective with the LAPD, Callahan does more shooting than actual investigative work. Callahan is the prototypical supercop character, excessively resorting to deadly force at the drop of a hat.

In the course of foiling a bank robbery, Callahan explodes in violence, killing all but one of the perpetrators -- all of whom are black -- with his .44 magnum.

Callahan's style of justice is technically lawful, but only by merit of his possession of a police badge that he effectively treats as a license to kill. He's effectively forced to resort to such violence by a system that is corrupted by a weakness that prevents it from dealing effectively with criminals, particularly the Scorpio Killer (Andrew Robinson).

He exhibits no hesitation in resorting to such violence. There's a nihilism at the very core of his actions that exhibits a "will to power". In this case, Callahan siezes for himself the power to transform the society in which he lives through violence far beyond any reasonable mandate his badge may afford him.

Of course, whatever fascist overtones appear in the film are not intentional.

"I don't think Dirty Harry was a fascist picture at all," Eastwood said in an interview for Playboy Magazine. "It's just the story of one frustrated police officer in a frustrating situation on one particular case. I think that's why police officers were attracted to the film. Most of the films that were coming out at that time, in 1972, were extremely anti-cop. They were about the cop on the take, you know. And this was a film that showed the frustrations of the job, but at the same time, it wasn't a glorification of police work."

However, in a sense it could be considered the corruption of that system that often made the kind of violence Callahan engages in at least seem necessary. The corruption of law enforcement breeds a weakness into a society that leaves it vulnerable to the lawless.

A key tenet of any fascist argument is that the social system in question has been corrupted, and rendered weak and impotent, and must be replaced. Fascists argue that not only violence an acceptable means of replacing that corrupted system, but a necessary means.

Certainly, few would expect such a critique of such a film as Dirty Harry to be found within Jonah Goldberg's work. The question that quickly emerges is this: will Goldberg receive credit for this kind of honesty from those who are bound and determined to discredit his work through ridicule alone?

Harper to Opposition: "Go Ahead, Punk. Make My Day"

Tories daring opposition to bring government down

With Liberal Leader of the Opposition rattling the election sabre consistently over the past year-and-a-half and the Conservative government now forging into unknown territory as the longest-serving Conservative minority government in the nation's history, it seems Stephen Harper is taking some pages out of "Dirty" Harry Callahan's play book.

Today, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson announced that if Bill C-2 -- the government's omnibus bill dealing with violent crime, dangerous offenders and the age of sexual consent -- is not passed promptly, the government will move the bill as a confidence motion.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Harper announced that he'll also extend a confidence motion on extending the government's Afghanistan mandate.

The latter motion could come before the house as early as next week.

With an election expected at any time during the coming year, it seems that Harper may have given up on trying to eke a few extra months out of this parliament and instead is perfectly content to play chicken with the opposition leaders.

For Stephane Dion, only one question remains to ask himself: "Do I feel lucky?"

Well? Do ya, punk?

(Okay, that last one may have been a little much. Just have fun with it.)

After all, on which issue would Dion like to defeat the government? A crime bill containing measures that will actually help protect Canadians from violent and dangerous offenders? Or the Afghanistan mission that his own party initiated -- while he himself was in cabinet, no less?

Dion has already announced he'll be seeking amendments to the Afghanistan motion.

"You need to be prepared to fight but the combat role is when you are proactively seeking the engagement with the enemy. It's something I have said that we will interrupt in February 2009," Dion has announced. (Apparently, Dion would prefer an "easy" mission despite recent admission by his own deputy leader that there are no "easy" missions in the 21st century).

As far as Afghanistan goes, it may just be the perfect issue for Harper to challenge Dion. Liberal MP David Cullen is rumored to be prepared to vote in favour of the mission on a whipped vote. At least three more Liberal MPs are apparently prepared to do the same. With Michael Ignatieff possibly very eager to make another run at the Liberal leadership, one can't rule out the very real possibility that he, himself, may vote in favour of the mission again.

On violent crime and dangerous offenders, it's unlikely that Dion would win that particular battle in the public eye. Considering that the issues that defeat a minority government tend to frame the coming election, this really is a no-brainer.

Then one considers what other issues the Liberals may want to defeat the government on? Climate change? Their prior abysmal performance -- with Dion as minister of the environment, no less -- would make them easy pickings. Nuclear safety? Nuh-uh. The Liberals ignored the mess for the better part of a decade-and-a-half.

With his prospects of finding an issue on which he can defeat the government and find an advantage, Dion will need to feel very lucky to force the election that he so desperately wants.

With the Conservatives still nursing a lead in the polls, that just may make Stephen Harper's day.