Ezra Klein: Mario Loyolaist

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November 13, 2006

Mario Loyolaist

And suddenly you understand how fascism happens.

Remember too that this guy who'd happily cede an American state to a foreign power and condemn an organic resistance movement if the Feds asked him to is supposedly a conservative and skeptical of government. Sheesh. Want to bet he still think universal health care is unacceptable encroachment by the state, though?

November 13, 2006 | Permalink

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rule of law

He keeps on using that word. I do not think it means what he thinks it means.

Posted by: Stephen | Nov 13, 2006 2:41:10 AM

It is a bizarre analogy, but I don't think it is as wrongheaded as you and others are making it out to be. I am assuming that Canada is Israel, making Minnesota the Shebaa Farms. At this point, no one would argue that the United States should, or would be right to, tell an armed militia within the borders of Minnesota to disband. But if militias formed in Iowa, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas, and if these militia at times attacked other parts of Canada and routinely clashed with U.S. National Guard troops, then I think Loyala is right that the U.S. should order this militia to disband. Thus, the issue of Shebaa Farms doesn't justify Hezbollah's operation throughout southern Lebanon.

Posted by: Not a Loyola Supporter | Nov 13, 2006 10:08:19 AM

"It is a bizarre analogy, but I don't think it is as wrongheaded as you and others are making it out to be."

For crying out loud, why does the right hate America?

Posted by: rea | Nov 13, 2006 10:14:28 AM

“If they go from Sheba'a, we will not stop fighting them. Our goal is to liberate the 1948 borders of Palestine...[Jews] can go back to Germany or wherever they came from.”
— Hezbollah spokesperson Hassan Ezzedin

Posted by: Captain Toke | Nov 13, 2006 10:34:36 AM

So it's fascism if the government insists on control over armies fighting within its borders? I don't get it.

Posted by: Sanpete | Nov 13, 2006 11:02:46 AM

So it's fascism if the government insists on control over armies fighting within its borders? I don't get it.

Posted by: Sanpete

Not to Godwinize (that poor bastard, not only is his eponymous law so misused, but it's so common that sometimes people have to verb it!), but Loyola's "Canada goes nuts" scenario seems very similar to what actually happened in Vichy France. France was invaded and occupied, and a (relatively) legitimate government tried to order the resistance to disband. Fascism was indeed involved.

Ordering a militia to disband is not a trait exclusive to fascism, but if someone obeys or agrees with such an order in the specific circumstance of unjustified invasion and occupation , then they value obedience higher than is common, or maybe even possible, without the existence of fascism or at least a fascistic mentality.

Posted by: Cyrus | Nov 13, 2006 12:09:10 PM

Cyrus, what you say would be applicable if Loyola's Minnesota scenario were analogous in the relevant ways to Vichy, but it isn't. Vichy wasn't a fully legitimate government in the way the current US government is (and wasn't recognized as such by the resistance) and, more importantly, I don't think Loyola had in mind the feds cooperating with Canadian depredations as Vichy did with the Nazis, giving legitimate cause to the resistance. I presume he had in mind only having control over the military response. Which would be sensible enough.

I should say that I don't fully accept Loyola's application of his scenario to Lebanon, but that's another matter. I just see the topic post, and the post it was based on, as another of those cases where something is interpreted without the requisite charity (in the interpretive sense) because of ideological differences.

Posted by: Sanpete | Nov 13, 2006 1:30:58 PM

“If they go from Sheba'a, we will not stop fighting them. Our goal is to liberate the 1948 borders of Palestine...[Jews] can go back to Germany or wherever they came from.”
— Hezbollah spokesperson Hassan Ezzedin

OK then. Will the Arab states that kicked out the Jews in 1948 let all those Jews back? And if they want to return to the borders of Palestine before the inception of Israel, does that mean they want to return to being a British Protectorate?

Wow -- this guy is as stupid as Loyola ... I don't get why Loyola and his ilk don't actually like the "Islamo-fascists"? They do seem to have the same level of, er, sophistication about things ...

FWIW (in re Not a Loyola Supporter's comment), I would agree that it would be appropriate for the US government to order the Iowa, etc., militias to disband. But in practice, the Red-Dawn crowd would think it wrong for "gummint" to disband even those militias. Well, more precisely it depends on who the Pres. is: if it were Bush, they would do whatever he said ... if it were Clinton, they would march on Washington if told to stand down.

Posted by: DAS | Nov 13, 2006 6:28:24 PM

Posted by: qwer | Dec 6, 2006 10:07:54 AM

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November 13, 2006

Mario Loyolaist

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