Washington Post: The Church Doctrines of Pope Ron Paul
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/11/AR2008011101859_pf.html
What's wrong with libertarianism?
By Michael Kinsley Saturday, January 12, 2008; 12:00 AM
Libertarians get patronized a lot. Chipmunky and earnest, always pursuing logical consistency down wacky paths, they pose no real threat to the established order. But the modest success of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas in the presidential campaign entitles them to some answers to the questions they raise. They say: People should be free to do whatever they want, as long as it doesn't hurt other people. If you agree, how do you justify (let's pick just two): 1) laws that forbid private behavior, such as recreational drugs; 2) government programs that redistribute one person's money to someone else?
Fascism in America: Who's afraid of Naomi Wolf?
http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/whos-afraid-of-naomi-wolf/2007/10/05/1191091363953.html
Who's afraid of Naomi Wolf?
Mark Coultan
October 6, 2007
She writes: "I am not comparing the United States in 2007 to Nazi Germany, or Bush to Hitler. There will not be a coup in America like Mussolini's March on Rome or a dramatic massacre like Hitler's Night of the Long Knives."But she does see historical echoes everywhere. Bush supporters burning Dixie Chicks CDs are comparable to the Nazis burning books. The Administration's creation of the Department of Homeland Security is compared to the Nazi use of the term Heimat, "the Homeland".The Administration embedded reporters in the military. The Nazis embedded reporters and camera crews with its armed forces. Vice-President Dick Cheney said America was on a war footing after September 11, 2001. Nazi leaders said that after the Reichstag fire Germany was on a permanent war footing. The Administration unloads coffins of dead American soldiers at night and forbids pictures being taken. The Nazis did the same.
And...
Wolf concedes that some of her critics are more comfortable with the term "authoritarian" than "fascist", and says some people even view authoritarianism as attractive in what they see as a time of national emergency.But she says that the difference between authoritarianism and a fascist shift is when state terror is directed against individuals.Before she wrote the book, she asked an accountant to comb through her tax, employment and other records to identify anything that could be used against her, or distorted."Those in the public eye who are afraid to be forceful in opposition because of a secret they want to keep had better talk to their families or their constituencies, or their lawyers and accountants, painful as that might be in the short term," she says.Is this paranoia, or just sensible precaution? She seems surprised that someone would question her decision to investigate herself. "No one I've talked to in America thinks this is an overstatement. We are really scared here. Really scared.
Wheatcroft: Who Made Hillary Queen?
HEIR APPARENT
Who Made Hillary Queen?
By Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Sunday, October 7, 2007; Page B01
We all, nations as well as individuals, have difficulty seeing ourselves as others see us. In this case, I doubt that Americans realize how extraordinary their country appears from the outside. In Europe, the supposed home of class privilege and heritable status, we have abandoned the hereditary principle (apart from the rather useful institution of constitutional monarchy), and the days are gone when Pitt the Elder was prime minister and then Pitt the Younger. But Americans find nothing untoward in Bush the Elder being followed by Bush the Younger.