I think it was Winston Churchill who said “When fascism returns it will be in the guise of opposition to fascism”. This isn’t restricted merely to banning political parties from participation, as was the case with Vlaams Blok (I don’t think there is necessarily a libertarian position on that as long as they can freely associate and congregate but the right to political participation is the same for everyone: no right at all). Going further, many oppose the core value of free speech, justifying mob violence against people invited to speak on private property on the basis of having opinions so awful no one should be allowed to hear them. In Canada you cannot even speak out by declaring the enforcers of the thought-police to be “enemies of free-speech” or referring to “dissidents” “dragged to court”. (VERY LATE UPDATE: More from Volokh on that, including how the Canadian Supreme Court let that stuff pass)
America has historically had relatively free-er speech, with incidents like the Sedition Act (a specific case of which the Volokh gang discuss here) and the measures taken against opponents of the first world war being anomalous exceptions. Today under the Patriot Act we do have significant curtailing of free speech rights, but not of the thought-police sort but of the cover-our-ass sort. I dissagree with judge Andrew Napolitano on legal positivism vs natural rights and I don’t care much for the right to privacy but he is right that not being allowed to tell anyone about police searches, including lawyers that could take action against it, is obscene. Unfortunately we are a nation of sheep and will remain so. Fortunately, apathy also applies big time to the environment.
I’m probably going to be too busy to waste as much time on blogs as I have recently. Maybe in two weeks or so I’ll be back to normal. That means the white supremacists and anti-semites I’ve been arguing with here and here will have to wait patiently for discourse to resume, or take my silence as an admission of defeat (they are super-good at inferring hidden motives behind actions or lack thereof). Mencius and I couldn’t keep up our united judeo-conspiracy front and wound up arguing about Israel (mtraven seemed more on my side, so that’s 1 whole jew versus a half), and in lieu of making any more points I would instead like to link to the latest bloggingheads segment between Gershom Gorenberg in Israel and Khaled Dawoud of al Jazeera in New York. Pay attention to Gershom’s characterization of the mainstream position in Israeli politics, Mencius.
Entitled to an Opinion 
November 27, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Both your bloggingheads have defined this word “peace” in the context of this theory that Israeli gifts to Israel’s enemies make the end of military conflict in the region more likely.
To say that this theory is unconnected with reality is charitable. Israel is brainwashing itself into destruction.
The Arab dude will not shut up. Por que no te callas? And can’t he even turn his cell phone off?
November 27, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Remember that your suggestions for solving the conflict are to be implemented by an Israeli public of which Gershom is now considered a normal member, not the Chinese government of Tianmen Square.
Someone guessed that the Arab guy is used to tv news where dead air is a bad thing. I think he was bad, but not as bad as David Brin.
November 27, 2007 at 11:41 pm
A problem is that the baseline assumptions of race realism and the social critique in light of it are so many light years ahead of public discussion (and the moderation and doublethink that will entail) that just knowing it all puts you in an merciless, austere place. It’s seductive to take self-aggrandizing conclusions from it like imagining yourself as some revolutionary vanguard against an enemy.
November 28, 2007 at 12:51 am
“Mencius and I couldn’t keep up our united judeo-conspiracy front and wound up arguing about Israel (mtraven seemed more on my side, so that’s 1 whole jew versus a half) . . .”
The partial Jew’s a slippery fish
Who turns our trust against us.
He drains our blood
Into a silver dish,
Obeying the Creed of Mencius.
By passing as pure Saxon,
He conquers far and wide,
as each benighted faction,
bows to the “fractional” tribe.
Oh Sons of Odin,
warn your daughters,
beware his grim, false smile.
But should he proffer sufficient bride-geld
perhaps you’ll claim your own small pile.
(It came to me in my dreams. OK, back to sleep.)
November 28, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Actually it was Huey Long (or it’s commonly attributed to Huey Long; he might not have said it either).
November 28, 2007 at 5:20 pm
I think Huey Long said that fascism would come to America wrapped in an American flag. How about we combine the two and say that fascism will come to America wrapped in the stars and stripes and calling itself anti-fascism?
I am completely serious when I say that I wasn’t actually thinking of the neoconservatives when I wrote that sentence.
May 17, 2008 at 10:07 pm
[…] care about “the Jew thing”. I’m closer to his point of view on that one than tanstaafl or n/a, but I still think he’s a bit deluded. Speaking of n/a he showed up to defend the […]
April 18, 2010 at 8:37 am
[…] Nowhere can I find the original source of Churchill saying that fascism will return as anti-fascism. The quote itself seems to have surfaced in late 2007 and is used almost exclusively by Far Right supporters. The most likely explanation is that the Far Right invented the quote. Here’s the earliest example I have found so far: http://entitledtoanopinion.wordpress.co … or-fascism […]