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"We're all fascists now"
An interview with conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg, who argues that fascism is left-wing, not right-wing, and that contemporary liberals are fascism's intellectual offspring.
By Alex Koppelman [2008-01-11]

  • Where to Start?

    Goldberg espouses so much onsense it's difficult to know where to start.

    Let's look at one example of his flawed reasoning. "What is fascist is the notion that in an organic national community, the individual has no right not to be healthy." Well, OK, I suppose that MIGHT be fascistic, but I don't know of *anyone* *anywhere* who has ever claimed that individuals have no right not to be healthy.

    First, a lot of us support (enthusuastically) universal health care; it does not follow that a single-payer health plan providing benefits to everyone somehow magically removes "a right to be unhealthy."

    Second, isn't it the right wing that argues for "original intent" and against extrapolated rights not explicitly specified in the Constitution? If Goldberg can construe a right to be unhealthy, why can't liberals construe a right for a woman to decide whether or not to have an abortion?

    -- Ken Schellenberg
    [Read Ken Schellenberg's other letters]
    Friday, January 11, 2008 06:47 AM
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