An excellent article by a dear friend and brother Marine (retired). “HB”, goes by Mustang. I’m sure most of you know the term, but for those who do not, it is a title earned by an Officer of Marines who came up from the enlisted ranks. HB is a true Mustang in all respects!
September 30, 2019 — Bunkerville
By: Mustang
America’s political left continually refer to conservatives as “fascists.” Is this true? Hardly —and here’s why. We must begin with an understanding of what fascism really means, who started it, and what was that person’s overlying political philosophy.
We know, for example, that the father of capitalism was Adam Smith (1723-1790), a Scottish philosopher and a key figure in the Scottish enlightenment. And we know that the father of Marxism was Karl Marx (1818-1883).
Most people, however, do not know the name of the person who started “fascism.” There is a reason we do not know that much about Giovanni Gentile (1875-1944): most academic historians, who identify with leftist politics, have worked overtime to erase Gentile from our memory. But, in his own time, Gentile was one of the most influential philosophers.
Giovanni Gentile believed that there were two diametrically opposed forms of democracy. The first was liberal democracy, which we Americans sometimes call “classical liberalism.” This was what our founding fathers believed.
Gentile thought of this as individualistic, overly focused on human liberty and personal rights. He thought of this, not as unalienable rights, but as socially selfish. The other form, according to Gentile, was “true Democracy,” which occurs when individuals willingly subordinate themselves to the will of the state.
In a manner similar to Karl Marx, Gentile argued for a society that was formed much like a family, a condition in which all of us faced life’s challenges “together.” We have witnessed this peculiar view in the statements, platforms, and policies of the Democratic Party.
In 1984, Governor Mario Cuomo argued that America is much like an extended family, where, through the government, people take care of each other. Thirty years later, in 2012, Democrats argued that “government is the only thing we all belong to.”
Giovanni Gentile was a man of leftist politics. He was a committed socialist, and in his mind, fascism was a form of socialism —and, indeed, the only workable form. Whereas Marx sought to organize people based on class, Gentile wanted to arrange society based on class and national identity. In other words, Gentile believed that fascists were socialists with a national identity; it distinguishes them from others, with similar beliefs, from other countries.
One may recall that the Nazis of Germany were “National Socialists.” Gentile believed that all society should be organized to serve the public interests. There was no room for private interests. The administrative arm of society was, in Gentile’s view, the state. To submit to the will of society was to acquiesce to the will of the state —not just in economic issues, but in all matters affecting society. And, since everything in society is political, the people must empower the state to tell everyone how to think, and what to do.
The first national leader to convert Gentile’s philosophy into action was Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), the Italian dictator who controlled Italy from 1922 to 1943. Mussolini once proclaimed, “All is in the state, and nothing human exists or has value outside the state.” It was a statement that paraphrased the philosophy of Giovanni Gentile.
Americans today do not remember Gentile because leftist academics have successfully erased him from our memory. What does remain, however, is his philosophy, which has been entirely adopted by the American political left. Renamed, it is the philosophy of the Progressive Movement in the United States.
It does not require a political scholar to realize that Progressive politics, that is to say, the Democratic Party, has vastly expanded state control over the private sector. We can see this in matters of economics, education, banking, and energy.
State directed capitalism is exactly what German and Italian governments implemented in the 1930’s. Importantly, American leftists cannot acknowledge Gentile because in doing so, it would become the glue that binds American progressivism to fascism.
So let us now review: what do conservatives want? They demand smaller government and expanded personal freedom. They demand liberty. The American political left wants to achieve the opposite: the resources of the individual and industry in the service of a centralized state, such as exists in Russia and China.
Were the American political left to acknowledge Giovanni Gentile, they would have to also acknowledge that fascism bears a deep kinship to the ideology to the Democratic Party.
Are fascists part of the conservative right? No. They are clearly the spawn of the ideology and political philosophy of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Jerry Nadler, Maxine Waters, and a host of other un-American idiots like Peter Buttigieg, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib.
Thinking Americans should know world history … our country’s survival depends on this knowledge. Fascist, thy name is Democrat.
Mustang also blogs at Fix Bayonets and Thoughts From Afar
Originally posted 2019-10-07 09:15:04.
