Fascist Rights

by cojsmithblog

Heather Heyer died yesterday when a white supremacist plowed a vehicle into a crowd of anti-fascist protesters. This was a tragic and pointless loss of life, even setting aside the fact that there even needs to be such a thing as an anti-fascist protester in the 21st century. We are at a point where people seriously see acts of terrorism from racist, Rightwing extremists and the first thoughts that come to their mind is in the defense of nazi freedom of speech. Isn’t that right Corey Stewart? Oh wait, I’ve already forgotten that the supposed enemies of political correctness don’t like when people call those who yell “Hail Victory,” which in German is “Sieg Heil;” throw up a Nazi salutes, which they do in support of Confederate monuments; and who incessantly complain about the existence of non-whites in America, for which they clearly have a solution in mind. We’re supposed to pretend that the alt-Right is significantly different from the KKK and nazis, despite the fact that they all came together this weekend to “unite the Right,” and act as if the greatest crimes perpetrated were against the rights of fascists.

If Trump has been useful for anything in what shockingly has been only several months in office, it has been for cutting through the bullshit rhetoric the fascist Right in America has been using and bluntly show how they’ve been able to corrupt our politics, commandeer an entire party, and swing the national conversation back to some of the darkest times in human history. Black Americans are disproportionately killed by police, a group arises with the ludicrously tepid cry of “Black lives matter,” and we’re supposed to pretend that makes them the KKK because they don’t obfuscate the issue at hand and say what is implicit that “all lives matter.” An anti-fascist protester dies in the streets at the hands of a fascist and we’re supposed to believe that the real crime is the Left not condemning violence, because all violence matters? And this unified extremist faction on the Right states clearly that they feel emboldened because the man occasionally in the White House supports their issues and we’re supposed to condemn hate on both sides because all hate matters?

This is despicable in the corruption of language, rhetoric, and outright common sense. It is an insult to what dignity humanity still has these days and the reality that we have to start conversations three steps before square one is outright madness. But since we’ve insisted that what’s going on is a strange breed of debate about freedom of speech, let’s go there. Are there limits to freedom of speech, if so what are they, and do they apply equally to all positions?

Yes, there are limits to freedom of speech as much as there are limits to every right. The freedom of speech does not entitle you to lie under oath in a court of law, that is perjury and it is not a protected right because it infringes on the rights of others to a fair trial. Neither is libel entailed by freedom of speech, as it infringes on the rights of others to live free and productive lives. Incitement of violence is not covered by freedom of speech, again as it infringes on the rights of others. If you’re beginning to see a pattern here you should, because as the pithy phrase goes, “your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.” And all of this, to be clear, is talking solely about governmental responsibilities, not the obligations of a social media platform or a company, which may very well have the right to limit your speech further on their own property.

But now we come to the perhaps more fundamental question of to what speech do these rules apply before even getting to the limits? Here’s where we need to be clear what fascism is and why is does not have a place in a pluralistic democracy, and please hold all qualms about my intolerance of differing view points because we’ll get there. Fascism has a very different series of foundational beliefs than those we are accustomed to in liberal Western democracies. Whereas the foundational premise of a democratic republic is that people choose a government that will represent their beliefs within the limits of the rule of law to defend minority viewpoints, fascism sees democracy as illegitimate because it depends on the tyranny of the majority.

Fascism demands unanimity, not simply because it’s mean, but because they believe that if there’s dissent then you’re ignoring the will of a people. Their position is that a sufficiently distinct people would be able to form consensus and be one people with one voice, and that makes it legitimate because it has universal approval. But what happens when you have a number of the electorate who believe that democracy itself is invalid, and who given even a modicum of power would seek to disenfranchise, deport, or eliminate any dissent? To put it lightly, it doesn’t mix. This is why fascistic theocracies feel the need to convert or kill, and why fascist nationalism feels the need to defend “blood and soil.” By their very ideological underpinnings they cannot be part of a democratic society, because they ultimately don’t believe in a democratic society.

But am I being too harsh in my rhetoric? Is this the “tolerant Left?” Let me start by saying that conservatism, libertarianism, and Right wing ideology in the abstract are in fact compatible with democracy. When we all come to the voting booth and disagree over what level of taxation to seek, what services to provide, how best to provide them, etc there are any number of valid positions to take. In democratic society we do our best to seek as much agreement on policy as possible, but the majority does indeed get its way, so long as it does so without infringing on the rights of other participants in the democratic process. But for decades now Republican politicians have seen that they can boost their chances at winning votes by playing to the tune of thoroughly fascistic constituents, and that siren song is leading us headlong into the rocks.

The RAISE Act has, I hope, put to bed the ridiculous line that the GOP has been only attacking illegal immigration. America: the nation of immigrants, the nation of the children of former slaves and slave owners: has been fed a bill of lies by opportunistic politicians on one side of the aisle catering to their most extreme supporters. For example, they claim that immigrants cause crime, despite being less likely to do so than the native population. Truth doesn’t matter to their constituents though, the message matters and that message is that the new immigrants aren’t our people, they aren’t our blood, they aren’t from our soil.

The evisceration of the Voting Rights Act has led to millions of Americans being unable to vote, being purged from the voter rolls, being shoved into specific districts to limit their voice even when they do overcome the barriers, etc. There’s no indication that in person voter fraud is in any way an issue in the real world. There is evidence of interference from another nation’s government, but for some reason that is given a pass and the fictitious problem is the one the government focuses on, even when there are far more cases of Trump supporters voting illegally because they been lied to that illegal immigrants are doing it. The truth doesn’t matter to the constituents who call for these measures, only the message that only “our” people get to vote, and “our” people doesn’t mean law abiding American citizens.

Yesterday’’s violence didn’t come out of nowhere, it came from the steady drumbeat of the fascist Right working its way toward being main stream, while so called centrists try to sit on the middle ground between “kill all the Blacks” on one side and “the lives of Black people have value” on the other. There is no middle ground in that fight, you will have to curtail the rights of one side of that fight or the other, and silence in face of the question is most definitely an affirmation of the oppressor. The KKK and the Nazis didn’t need the help of the Republican Party to get what they wanted, they just needed silent complicity. But in state after state, and in the federal government, the GOP has been going above and beyond what they needed to grow and to get their way.

I know it sounds hyperbolic to a populous that sees it as unwritten dogma that we need to live moderately, that there’s extremes on both sides, and that both sides are equally bad. But I can only leave you with the phrase that Heather Heyer used as her cover photo, “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.”