He shows for example of how fascism can come from the left: for example using the government to force people to stop smoking, use seat belts, cut out trans fats, trying to introduce bills to enforce whole grain use…that’s fascist.

Do any of those things come out of the left?

However, Judd Winnick was once on a reality TV show and is therefore fair game.

Thank God that’s nowhere near the meaning of the term! Ye gods, what a slippery slope!

I’m not trying to say you esteem this book in absolute terms, I’m only saying you’re cutting it a lot of slack it doesn’t seem to deserve, because it truly appears this book isn’t on a continuum between flawless scholarship and scholarship that includes some minor factual mistakes or arguable failures of interpretation, but rather that it’s off the continuum of responsible scholarship altogether. This is David Icke without the lizards. It’s just bunk. Goldberg’s effort wouldn’t get a passing grade in Grade Eleven history anywhere in the world.

I’ve looked into it enough over the last 24 hours to feel pretty safe drawing that conclusion. Have you looked into it less extensively?

So, is paying taxes or having to attend school until you’re 18 fascism as well?

T.: but all that stuff like seat belts, that’s actually NOT fascist, you know?

(Also, please try not to say things like “fascist but good”, it offends my sensibilities.)

If the government is forcing you to do it and micromanaging you, it’s a fascist measure. It’s making the choice for you and denying you the right to make the choice for yourself. Sometimes that can lead to a good effect, since I think few people would say that eating trans fats or smoking extra cigarettes improves their well-being in the long run, hence the “fascist, but good” thing.

And I would ask you, how much of the book has its freaking author fact-checked, huh?

Dude, I’m not saying this book is the holy grail or that it’s mistake free. I just don’t equate it with a totally unreliable, worthless and meritless piece of crap like you do. I’m sure there are some mistakes in facts and in interpretation in the book, just like in most nonfiction books. But from the excerpts I’ve read there’s a lot of worthwhile and important information as well.

(Also, please try not to say things like “fascist but good”, it offends my sensibilities.)

And I would ask you, how much of the book has its freaking author fact-checked, huh?

In other words, it has bad arguments, and bad research. Right?

Wrong. From the excerpts I read, it has good research and arguments that range from plausible to quite good. For example in this interview he makes some great points: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/01/11/goldberg/

He shows for example of how fascism can come from the left: for example using the government to force people to stop smoking, use seat belts, cut out trans fats, trying to introduce bills to enforce whole grain use…that’s fascist. He also explains how sometimes something can be fascistic yet good. For example the autobahn was a fascistic measure, but we don’t turn around and say highways are evil. How is that bad reasoning or research? Whether you agree with it or not, the examples and conclusions are plausible.

The problem is that someone can respond with a well-researched and well-argued thesis from the other side of the political and you just end up in a horrible cycle. I feel all that brainpower could be better used for other political exercises. Plus the whole happy face with the Hitler mustache on the cover is just tacky to me.

Don’t know why you’re cutting the guy so much slack, T. Right or left, a crackpot’s a crackpot.

I don’t consider him a crackpot at all. Al Franken, Randi Rhodes, Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity are crackpots. Goldberg I wouldn’t put on that level. I consider him to be like Alan Colmes: not as boisterous and popular as the crackpots, but very well-researched and capable of very plausible arguments. Even though I rarely agree with Colmes, he’s one of the few liberals who often makes me come close to changing my mind on some issues. Strangely enough, the left always treats the guy like he’s a wimp or a traitor because he never delves into the overly shrill or bulldog antics of a lot of other pundits.

How much of the book have you read and fact-checked?

Then I found out that part of the story involved making Tony some kind of full-body brain (and contradicted the family background mentioned in Ultimate Team-Up), and I was all the happier for my decision.

I wouldn’t penalise it for contradicting Ultimate Team-Up. That’s been contradicted so much that I beleive it’s officially out of continuity now.

I sometimes wonder if I have the opposite problem. For instance, I know little of Mark Millar as a person other than he’s supposed to be very liberal. But his writing makes me think he’s a frighteningly smug, amoral individual who favors cruelty and totalitarianism as solutions to problems. In real life, I would guess he isn’t this way, but his writing sure seems to give that impression.

Really? Smug I grant you, but generally it just gives me the impression that he’s writing about characters with those opinions.

In other words, it has bad arguments, and bad research. Right?

Don’t know why you’re cutting the guy so much slack, T. Right or left, a crackpot’s a crackpot.

so let me just offer a handshake for a level-headed, well-reasoned debate.

Likewise.

Goldberg never argues that in the book to my knowledge. He misspoke and said that in a speech, and the liberal blogs isolated that part of the speech and blew it up, even though it was obvious from his book that he knew Mussolini was a fascist. But that’s fair, as I’m sure he’s probably done the same to his opponents from time to time.

And I haven’t read the book, but I don’t know if it has dogshit arguments. But not counting reviews from the rabidly left or rabidly right blogs, the main complaint I hear from it isn’t that it has bad arguments or bad research but that he glosses over any example of right-wing fascism and cherry picks only the examples of left-wing fascism, skipping whole decades of 20th century history at a time. It’s one of the reasons I’m not interested in trying the book, as it sounds a little too one-sided.

I’m not sure I can agree with that.

Oh and for the Fascist argument:

Fascism and Communism are both branches of Totalitariamsm, the belief that the State should have total control over life. So both share similarities in many aspects (Stalin, Hitler, and even FDR all believed that the govt. should have more power over people’s lives) but the differences come with things like private ownership and the direction that State control takes. Fascism allows corporations to exist and profit, as long as they are subordinate to the State while Socialism/Communism preach state control of everything.

And FDR ordered the U.S. navy to wage an undeclared war on Nazi U-boats in the months before Pearl Harbor while the U.S. was still at peace with Germany

Yes, and if you accept totally dogshit arguments as worthwhile, then “Liberal Fascism” is a great book. In the real world, however, where fascism has an actual defined meaning, rather than what Jonah Goldberg wishes it was, it is a idiotic drooling piece of scribble.

Seriously, at one point in “Liberal Fascism”, Goldberg argues that Mussolini wasn’t a fascist. You know – Mussolini, who invented the term.

I guess if I were a Martian, Goldberg would make sense. I agree with T. that while the word “fascist” has right-wing connotations (by some definitions), leftist leaders are equally capable to be tyrants.

But Jonah Goldberg’s a step away from Michael (Weiner) Savage.