Just For Giggles

by hilzoy

From NRO's Campaign Spot (h/t Attackerman):

"So, the recent news out of the Obama camp is that they're planning a huge rally with thousands of people in a stadium, want to create a mandatory youth corps for national service, and are thinking about a big dramatic speech in Berlin.

It's like they're trying to sell copies of Jonah's book or something."

OMG! *hits self on the head.* Why didn't I see the ominous parallels before?

Obviously, giving a big dramatic speech in Berlin is a sure sign of incipient fascism.

And holding a big rally? In a stadium? Any moment now, Obama will be intoning one of my favorite ever lines from a Presidential speech: "But why, some say, the moon?" breaking out the yellow stars.

If he wins the election, then the parallel to Hitler will be complete, and our fates will be sealed.

***

Minor point: about that "mandatory youth corps": in the piece Geraghty links to, he describes Obama's proposal as "very close to echoing John Kerry's Orwellian call for mandatory volunteerism." In NRO-speak, "very close to echoing" just means: he didn't actually say it, but if I squinch my face up very hard, wish upon a star, and clap as loud as I can, I can pretend that he did. What Obama actually said:

"We'll reach this goal in several ways. At the middle and high school level, we'll make federal assistance conditional on school districts developing service programs, and give schools resources to offer new service opportunities. At the community level, we'll develop public-private partnerships so students can serve more outside the classroom.

For college students, I have proposed an annual American Opportunity Tax Credit of $4,000. To receive this credit, we'll require 100 hours of public service. You invest in America, and America invests in you - that's how we're going to make sure that college is affordable for every single American, while preparing our nation to compete in the 21st century."

That's not a "mandatory youth corps" by any stretch of the imagination.

Comments

[Adam]

Godwin's Thermodynamic Corollary: Hitlerity increases in proportion to density.

[Shinobi]

You know my HS required 120 hours of service to graduate. (And gave us 2 weeks of JR year to do 2/3s of it.) And honestly, it was one of the most valuable experiences of my life. I worked with the homeless, other people worked with special needs homes and schools. It really taught me to value my opportunities as well as the value of giving back to the community.

I think this is a great idea.

[John Thullen]

Yeah, I remember Gingrich, the pale paunchy satyr, in the 1990's, assailing the idea of FORCING kids to volunteer.

"It's very simple," he would state, simplemindedly.

I never cared for being forced to volunteer to do algebra.

I bridled.

[Adam]

This is something of a sidebar (but really, what is there to say?), but is anyone here at all familiar with the etymology of the term "fascism"? I'd read at some point that fascio (bundles, i.e. around a handle) was used to refer to the groups of nationalists running around Italy assaulting socialist party members who'd been running factories after the war, and that Mussolini adopted the term. But I'm not sure that chronology is right.

[Gus]

They don't call it the world's er, crappiest website for nothing.

[Doctor Science]

Adam:

I always understood that "fascism" it was a reference to the fasces, a long-standing symbol of things like "United We Stand" and "I'm gonna whup you with these sticks". Multivalent, they call it.

[russell]

This is something of a sidebar (but really, what is there to say?), but is anyone here at all familiar with the etymology of the term "fascism"?

It comes from the fasces, a bundle of birch rods containing an axe. It was a symbol of political authority in Rome.

It was a pretty widely used symbol, and (IIRC) shows up in lots of non-fascist places, including US political seals and buildings.

It was adopted by Mussolini for the Italian fascists because he thought fondly of the Roman empire, and because he was really, really big on state authority.

Thanks -

[russell]

P.S. -- please nobody tell the folks at NRO about the Boy Scouts.

Thanks -

[Phil]

Roy Edroso notes that, as usual, these dummies can't even keep their narratives straight for ten seconds:

. . . I went online and found an excerpt from William F. Buckley's Gratitude: Reflections on What We Owe to Our Country, in which the founder of National Review argues for something very similar, powered by incentives and "sanctions":

It is feared by many opponents of national service that the use of state power in whatever form, even in a voluntary program, is nevertheless an effort, even if half-hearted, in that direction: an effort to change the human personality, and for that reason to be resisted categorically... Milton Friedman, my hero, was quoted as finding in national service an "uncanny resemblance" to the Hitler Youth Corps.

This last occasions only the reply that by that token, all youth programs, including the Boy Scouts, can be likened in the sense that they have something in common, to the Hitler Youth program, plus the second comment, that because Hitler had an idea, it does not follow that that idea was bad. (Albert Speer is said to have reflected, soon before his death, that it was a "pity that Adolf Hitler disliked Picasso.")

...Some libertarians will never agree with the Founding Fathers that a responsibility of the polity is to encourage virtue directly, through such disciplines as service in the militia, reverence for religious values, and jury service -- the kind of thing Prime Minister Gladstone had in mind when he proposed "to establish a new franchise, which I should call -- till a better phrase be discovered -- the service franchise." Opponents of national service must establish, to make their case, that national service, unlike the state militia, or jury service, or military conscription in times of emergency, is distinctively hostile to a free society.

Funny, just a few weeks ago they were blubbering over the sainted Buckley. Now he's a liberal fascist.

[liberal japonicus]

God, Edroso just keeps banging out those hits. I loved this

As to content, I've pointed out before that these guys have started using fascism as a synonym for popularity, especially now that nobody likes them.

[Bernard Yomtov]

Of course the comparison is silly, but I must admit I'm not crazy about the idea of a stadium speech. The symbolism seems all wrong. Convention halls feel democratic. Stadiums don't.

[hilzoy]

Bernard: speaking as someone who is part of a blog two of whose members will be going to the convention, but which has only one credential, I am personally thrilled. No flipping coins to see who gets to go to the speech!

[Bernard Yomtov]

hilzoy,

It's nice, of course, that many more people will be able to attend in person, but to me the "atmospherics" of the stadium just seem wrong. Among other things, the connection with the audience is weaker, and the feeling too grandiose. YMMV.

I wonder how it will play on TV.

[Katherine]

The atmospherics of a basketball stadium--which is what most convention centers are--and a football stadium don't seem real different to me. Madison Square Garden isn't exactly intimate; I doubt the Pepsi Center is either. Wbat makes it sound democratic is calling it a convention hall. I prefer an open field to both, but that's unfeasible.

[trollhattan]

Jessie Owens is totally going to mess up Obama's evil scheme. But, they can still release the Surprise Ponies after the speech!