The flap over the Nazi in Ohio, "A Voice of Hate in America's Heartland," has now got to the Weekly Standard.
New York Times reporter Richard Fausset wrote about an ordinary white guy, a welder, in Ohio, who is "the Nazi sympathizer next door." The problem is, according to Andrew Ferguson, that reporter Fausset didn't lay it on thick enough. He didn't excoriate the welder in good round terms, and so, the Times notes, the "article has drawn significant feedback, most of it sharply critical." You see Nazis are bad, bad, bad, and that's all you need to know.
Interestingly, the Times has a photo of the welder's bookshelf, which includes William Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and Gibbon's History of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, and even The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism, byJohn C. Bogle. So the guy has actually read a book.
Of course my line on Nazis and Nazi sympathizers is that liberals have completely got the wrong end of the stick. The right response to the rise of Nazism and populism in the citizenry is not to "stamp out hate," but should instead be to ask a question: what are we ruling-class types getting wrong?
Nazism in Germany didn't just fall out of the sky on a sunny day. It came after the German ruling class had got Germany into a stupid war that Germany lost. It came after a ruinous inflation that wiped out all the mom-and-pop savers. It came after the French occupation of the Rhineland. It came after the Federal Reserve Board in the US screwed up its lender-of-last-resort role after the 1929 Crash on Wall Street.
Do you see the golden thread linking all these events? No? I will tell you. The golden thread is: stupid incompetent governing elites.
Now when your ruling class is screwing you over, you have two options. One is to do nothing and hope that the elite finally gets its stuff together. The other thing is to do something about it, and follow a leader that promises to Do Something About It.
Generally, a leader that promises to Do Something About It will go back to what worked in the past. That is why Hitler promised to return Germany to a culture of Blood and Soil: Teutonic tribalism and land for the tiller.
Of course, his policy was absolute rubbish for Germany, which had quickly become in the late 19th century the most advanced industrial country in Europe, from its manufacturing to its chemical industry to its physics revolution. But what did the people know? The people know nothing; they only know that things can't go on like this.
Well, the Germans put their faith in Adolf Hitler and he promptly made things worse, by losing the biggest war in history that ended in the total occupation of Germany by foreign powers and the rape of every German woman east of the Elbe.
But hey! This is America! Why should white welders in Ohio be rallying to the racist banner? Don't they realize that they are the residual legatees of a thousand years of white privilege?
It's a funny thing, but people don't tend to obsess over the wonderful advantages they have had in life. The Ben Steins are few and far between. What gets most people up in the morning is their rage at all the injustice in the world, particularly the injustice that hurts them as individuals and as a group.
The fact is that, for the last century, our liberal friends have been playing a pretty dangerous -- and I would say evil -- political game. They encouraged the lower orders to combine and to fight for privileges. First they led the working class to fight for special privileges in the workplace, including the right to strike and bargain for above-market wages and benefits. Then they led women and minorities to fight for special privileges in the workplace, including targeted hiring and promotion on the basis of race and gender.
Of course, our liberal friends think that this is all wonderful and advanced and a fight against hate and injustice. But they do not stop to ask how the folks on the receiving end of these privileges might think. What about the business owners, and stockholders and bondholders and customers of the unionized corporations? Well, there weren't too many of them, so the movement to privilege workers went full steam ahead until, in the 1970s it ran out of gas as upstart companies across the world started to compete with the privileged workers of America, and the good times stopped rolling.
At exactly the same time our ruling class started enacting policy to favor women and minorities over the white working class right across the economy, in particular in government jobs like police and firefighting.
And you want to act surprised and outraged that the victims of this policy are pissed off?
We conservatives like to complain about the "liberal bubble," especially the bubble that NPR listeners and New York Times readers live in. Of course everyone lives in a bubble; we all talk with people like us, and we all tend to agree with each other and agree that the "other" is ignorant or worse.
But when you are the ruling class you really need to get out more, and you really need to remember that all your ruling-class talking points are nothing more that bubba-bait. It might be for the white bubbas in Ohio. Or it might be for the brother bubbas in the 'hood, or the sister bubbas in the Gender Studies department. No matter; it is all bubba-bait.
Above all, a ruling class needs to remember that politics is division, and that everything a politician does is to seduce one set of voters with happy talk while demonizing another set of voters as haters and bigots. For half a century, Democratic politicians have been appealing to their supporters in terms of race or sex. Their voters are all helpless victims of injustice either because of race or because of "gender."
Well, what about the folks on the receiving end of this politics, specifically the white working class welder in Ohio? What is he supposed to think? Hey, it wasn't but 50 years ago that this guy's father was being told how the working class was being horribly treated by corporations and "the rich." Now, all of a sudden, he is the problem because of generations of white privilege?
Don't you think, dear liberals, that your average white working-class welder might start moving towards people that told him that he was the victim, not the minorities and women presently beloved by the ruling class? And who is to tell him that he is wrong? After all, the US government does put its finger on the scale in favor of women and minorities, not to mention illegal immigrants in sanctuary cities.
Look, I get it. People believe what they believe, and reality and science and justice have nothing to do with it. Our liberal friends really believe in all the horse-pucky they have been taught about racism, sexism, homophobia, hate, and xenophobia.
That is why I have developed my catchphrase: "There is no such thing as justice, only injustice."
Oh, there may be some world of perfect justice, probably in another world. But in the here and now, every government action is force. And people on the receiving end of force tend to think of it as injustice. Or worse.
And if you are the ruling class you better know enough to see through all the bubba-bait you put out in order to catch bubbas and win elections.
New York Times reporter Richard Fausset wrote about an ordinary white guy, a welder, in Ohio, who is "the Nazi sympathizer next door." The problem is, according to Andrew Ferguson, that reporter Fausset didn't lay it on thick enough. He didn't excoriate the welder in good round terms, and so, the Times notes, the "article has drawn significant feedback, most of it sharply critical." You see Nazis are bad, bad, bad, and that's all you need to know.
Interestingly, the Times has a photo of the welder's bookshelf, which includes William Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and Gibbon's History of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, and even The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism, byJohn C. Bogle. So the guy has actually read a book.
Of course my line on Nazis and Nazi sympathizers is that liberals have completely got the wrong end of the stick. The right response to the rise of Nazism and populism in the citizenry is not to "stamp out hate," but should instead be to ask a question: what are we ruling-class types getting wrong?
Nazism in Germany didn't just fall out of the sky on a sunny day. It came after the German ruling class had got Germany into a stupid war that Germany lost. It came after a ruinous inflation that wiped out all the mom-and-pop savers. It came after the French occupation of the Rhineland. It came after the Federal Reserve Board in the US screwed up its lender-of-last-resort role after the 1929 Crash on Wall Street.
Do you see the golden thread linking all these events? No? I will tell you. The golden thread is: stupid incompetent governing elites.
Now when your ruling class is screwing you over, you have two options. One is to do nothing and hope that the elite finally gets its stuff together. The other thing is to do something about it, and follow a leader that promises to Do Something About It.
Generally, a leader that promises to Do Something About It will go back to what worked in the past. That is why Hitler promised to return Germany to a culture of Blood and Soil: Teutonic tribalism and land for the tiller.
Of course, his policy was absolute rubbish for Germany, which had quickly become in the late 19th century the most advanced industrial country in Europe, from its manufacturing to its chemical industry to its physics revolution. But what did the people know? The people know nothing; they only know that things can't go on like this.
Well, the Germans put their faith in Adolf Hitler and he promptly made things worse, by losing the biggest war in history that ended in the total occupation of Germany by foreign powers and the rape of every German woman east of the Elbe.
But hey! This is America! Why should white welders in Ohio be rallying to the racist banner? Don't they realize that they are the residual legatees of a thousand years of white privilege?
It's a funny thing, but people don't tend to obsess over the wonderful advantages they have had in life. The Ben Steins are few and far between. What gets most people up in the morning is their rage at all the injustice in the world, particularly the injustice that hurts them as individuals and as a group.
The fact is that, for the last century, our liberal friends have been playing a pretty dangerous -- and I would say evil -- political game. They encouraged the lower orders to combine and to fight for privileges. First they led the working class to fight for special privileges in the workplace, including the right to strike and bargain for above-market wages and benefits. Then they led women and minorities to fight for special privileges in the workplace, including targeted hiring and promotion on the basis of race and gender.
Of course, our liberal friends think that this is all wonderful and advanced and a fight against hate and injustice. But they do not stop to ask how the folks on the receiving end of these privileges might think. What about the business owners, and stockholders and bondholders and customers of the unionized corporations? Well, there weren't too many of them, so the movement to privilege workers went full steam ahead until, in the 1970s it ran out of gas as upstart companies across the world started to compete with the privileged workers of America, and the good times stopped rolling.
At exactly the same time our ruling class started enacting policy to favor women and minorities over the white working class right across the economy, in particular in government jobs like police and firefighting.
And you want to act surprised and outraged that the victims of this policy are pissed off?
We conservatives like to complain about the "liberal bubble," especially the bubble that NPR listeners and New York Times readers live in. Of course everyone lives in a bubble; we all talk with people like us, and we all tend to agree with each other and agree that the "other" is ignorant or worse.
But when you are the ruling class you really need to get out more, and you really need to remember that all your ruling-class talking points are nothing more that bubba-bait. It might be for the white bubbas in Ohio. Or it might be for the brother bubbas in the 'hood, or the sister bubbas in the Gender Studies department. No matter; it is all bubba-bait.
Above all, a ruling class needs to remember that politics is division, and that everything a politician does is to seduce one set of voters with happy talk while demonizing another set of voters as haters and bigots. For half a century, Democratic politicians have been appealing to their supporters in terms of race or sex. Their voters are all helpless victims of injustice either because of race or because of "gender."
Well, what about the folks on the receiving end of this politics, specifically the white working class welder in Ohio? What is he supposed to think? Hey, it wasn't but 50 years ago that this guy's father was being told how the working class was being horribly treated by corporations and "the rich." Now, all of a sudden, he is the problem because of generations of white privilege?
Don't you think, dear liberals, that your average white working-class welder might start moving towards people that told him that he was the victim, not the minorities and women presently beloved by the ruling class? And who is to tell him that he is wrong? After all, the US government does put its finger on the scale in favor of women and minorities, not to mention illegal immigrants in sanctuary cities.
Look, I get it. People believe what they believe, and reality and science and justice have nothing to do with it. Our liberal friends really believe in all the horse-pucky they have been taught about racism, sexism, homophobia, hate, and xenophobia.
That is why I have developed my catchphrase: "There is no such thing as justice, only injustice."
Oh, there may be some world of perfect justice, probably in another world. But in the here and now, every government action is force. And people on the receiving end of force tend to think of it as injustice. Or worse.
And if you are the ruling class you better know enough to see through all the bubba-bait you put out in order to catch bubbas and win elections.
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