Five Great New Books In 300 Words

In Nick Cohen's book, "What's Left: How Liberals Lost Their Way", he tells of how he grew up in a typically bigoted left wing European household where it was considered morally superior not to support apartheid in South Africa, fascism in Spain, Israeli occupation in the Middle East , or capitalist oranges from Florida. But, by 9/11 he had concluded, "leftists are likelier to excuse fascist governments than conservatives. The failure of socialism/communism/ liberalism has freed the left to go along with any movement against the status quo in general (the revolutionaries mindless default position) and specifically, America". According to "The Economist" the example in Cohen's book that preponderates is, "the unholy alliance between the left wing movements in the West and Islamic extremism.

"Not coincidently, Dinesh D'Souza makes an almost identical point in his new book "The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its responsibility for 9/11." He says the Islamic terrorists and the cultural left are like two blades of a scissors both necessary to cut the paper or, in this case, win the war. The terrorists work to blow people up in Iraq and the American left works with them to make voters believe the terrorist efforts must prevail and any Republican measures to the contrary, must be undermined or discredited. He further makes the point that the American left, led by the hapless Jimmy Carter, gave Iran to the terrorists and thereby started the world down the path that led directly to 9/11 and Iraq. They did this, he claims, because in their hatred for American freedom they failed to see the wisdom in a Republican foreign policy that supported pro American autocratic regimes (like the Shah of Iran's) over anti-American Communist or totalitarian regimes like that of the Ayatollah's.

In the end, why do liberals often feel a greater allegiance to fascists (let's always remember that when the Soviets wanted spies they looked among the liberals) than to freedom loving Republicans? It is mostly because they are good hearted but simple minded utopians. They and fascists of various stripes believe in bold collectivist or totalitarian action to solve humankind's problems, whether real or imagined, while Jefferson and the Republicans merely believe in freedom. Freedom is not utopian. Rather, it is way to empower and enlist every human being with the responsibility to shape his own life, and solve his own problems in his own way and in his own time. It builds a better society though, because each individual is then obligated to contribute his own efforts to that society and to take full responsibility for them rather than be side lined waiting on the efforts of a few genius bureaucrats who manage a supposedly miraculous and distant federal gov't. To a liberal, freedom is tantamount to neglect, to pragmatic Republicans it is the only thing that has ever worked and, moreover, the only thing consistent with each human beings central need to fully employ his body and mind to create his own life. Liberalism offers welfare of various kinds that paralyzes the human soul, depriving it of self-sufficient purpose, meaning, and employment.

To make the point from a slightly different direction another Republican intellectual, Jonah Goldberg, has written a new book titled- Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton. His basic point is similar, namely, liberalism is similar to, or supportive of, fas