The F-Word

Matthew Yglesias has been the first to let fly a word that has been fixed in my mind since watching Zell Miller's performance. Not "fuck," but "fascism." There's only one word in the political lexicon of a liberal/leftist more heated than that, and it's the n-word. (Not the derogatory term for African-Americans that even I don't have the balls to print, but "Nazism.") Here's what Matthew had to say:

Watching that speech from inside the hall, I was genuinely afraid at one or two points. The audience was so enthused by his frankly fascistic remarks that at any moment I thought the distinguished Senator might point up and say "see, there, right there is one of these unpatriotic liberal journalists busy abusing the freedoms our soldiers fight to protect -- he must be destroyed for the safety of the Republican [sic]" and that Matt Welch and I would need to fend for our lives against the onrushing hordes.

Of course it didn't quite come to that, but I don't believe I've ever heard a more disgusting speech delivered in the English language. The fact that I couldn't see a single person on the floor who seemed to feel anything less than the utmost enthusiasm for that lunacy was, well, a bit disturbing. [Emphasis mine]

That it's even come to a discussion among reasonable people like me and Matthew of whether the f-word is an appropriately descriptive term for a RNC speech is an alarming development. My background---as a philosophy major, an empiricist, a proponent of Occam's razor, as well as having a family history of violence at the hands of European fascists---makes me very, very hesitant to draw any sort of facile comparison between fascism and anything in American politics. But Matthew might well be right about this. Some terms that certainly do aptly describe Miller's speech are "militaristic," "jingoist," "nationalist," and "xenophobic." He spoke about internal enemies and fifth-columnists, and described his political opponents more or less as traitors. Is the f-word the sum of all these elements?

You can read the text of the Miller speech here. And, if you missed it, you can get an idea of Miller's absolutely horrifying delivery here. These are the crucial lines:

Motivated more by partisan politics than by national security, today's Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator.

And nothing makes this Marine madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators.

Tell that to the one-half of Europe that was freed because Franklin Roosevelt led an army of liberators, not occupiers.

Tell that to the lower half of the Korean Peninsula that is free because Dwight Eisenhower commanded an army of liberators, not occupiers.

Tell that to the half a billion men, women and children who are free today from the Baltics to the Crimea, from Poland to Siberia, because Ronald Reagan rebuilt a military of liberators, not occupiers.

Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier. And, our soldiers don't just give freedom abroad, they preserve it for us here at home.

For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.

It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag.

No one should dare to even think about being the Commander in Chief of this country if he doesn't believe with all his heart that our soldiers are liberators abroad and defenders of freedom at home.

If I understand Miller correctly, then it would seem that the Democrats are flag-burning agitators who hate the troops (because hating the troops polls well) and that they probably don't deserve the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. Also, anyone who knows what the word "occupation" means (e.g., "the US, UK, France, and USSR occupied Germany after World War II") is unpatriotic and spits in the faces of marines everywhere. To criticize George W. Bush's foreign policy is not only equivalent, but precisely the same as treasonously serving a foreign government and attacking the US Armed Forces.(Put it this way: if that's not the correct interpretation of Miller's speech, then it's just a series of pointless, irrelevant non-sequiturs.) No, Miller didn't quite come out and say those things precisely, didn't actually call anyone a "traitor" (in the sense that he didn't use the word), but he spoke in a thinly occluded argot, and there should be no doubt whatsoever about what he communicated to the delegates in the hall and what meaning they took from his speech.

Matthew was right to use the f-word.

Btw, he's also right that Glenn Reynolds is a fucking hack.