Fascist Is as Fascist Does
If we extrapolate Forrest Gump’s adage, we can see parallels to fascism in actions that were taken by the governor of the State of Washington.
BY ERIC HUSSEY
View original article at Brownstone.org.
Tis the season for name calling. It’s election season. Data analysis and historical analysis of policy proposals that haven’t worked in the past, but are proposed again since “we’ll do it better this time” take second place to throwing around invectives such as “Nazi,” “Hitler,” and “fascist.” Name-calling. That’s all it is. Name-calling.
As I watched, listened to, and read some of this stuff, I got to wondering if anyone doing the name-calling actually knows what they are talking about. I was reminded of the movie The Princess Bride in which Vizzini repeatedly uses the word “inconceivable” and Inigo Montoya responds, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
I was also reminded of the movie, Forrest Gump. A young Forrest responds to a classmate who asked if he was stupid with, “Mama says ‘stupid is as stupid does.’” Forrest Gump’s line echoes the old adage that actions speak louder than words, but “stupid is as stupid does” kind of sticks with you.
One of the favorite slanders to try to gain votes is to attach an opposing candidate to Adolf Hitler. “This guy wants to have the military only be responsible to him, just like Hitler.” “This person is a fascist waiting to take over the country and take your freedoms away.” Seldom does anyone actually define terms.
It’s much easier to just yell an emotional insult that hopefully can be repeated as an emotional tagline to discredit a candidate. Emotion tags memory, so if the emotion can be strong enough, especially negative emotion, then the memory pops into your conscious mind quickly. The memory and the negative emotion ride into consciousness together, so it’s a valuable tool in the non-data, non-analytical world of politics.
Since the name-calling term of the season is “fascist,” it seems like maybe we could modify young Forrest’s comment into “Fascist is as fascist does.” That led to me trying to reconcile the name-calling with what we’ve been through in the past couple of years: lockdowns. I thought we should see if anyone other than a presidential candidate might fit the title, “fascist;” but fit it in actions versus having someone from the opposing party name-call.
Early in the year of 2020, the governor of the state of Washington locked down the state. By mandate, without input from the public, but certainly lots of input from “experts” and a relatively small cadre of advisors, including advisors on a national scale such as Dr. Fauci, Governor Jay Inslee doomed many small businesses, fired long-serving first responders, stole up to two years of schooling from the state’s children, possibly negatively affected child neurological development, probably caused discomfort for those suffering from Alzheimer’s as ability to see facial detail was impaired by demanded masking, and may have contributed to the epidemic of myopia.
As I documented here, between NIAID and the Washington State Department of Health, about 2,600 purported public health experts couldn’t figure out that we may have permanently injured children’s visual neurological (as well as other neurological such as speech) development.
Wow. Talk about a record of “achievement.”
The governor was aided in this by a state Department of Health that generated data to advise him and provide graphical representations for public discussion that were rife with errors, distorting the truth and thereby misguiding public policy decision-makers producing “devastating effects” in the populace.
Those decisions were suggested by the state to be helping rather than devastating. I’ve documented my thoughts on my economic devastation here. Those who supported lockdowns probably didn’t have out-of-pocket losses that seemed devastating. As I said here, “cheering the sacrifice of the other guy…has always been downright comfortable for the non-sacrificed.”
The governor limited the size of groups who could openly meet, in contradistinction to the guarantees of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. The State of Washington constitution after being grateful to the “Supreme Ruler of the universe for our liberties” acknowledges the US Constitution as the supreme law of the land.
The state constitution goes on to guarantee religious freedoms as well as prohibiting special “privileges or immunities” that don’t “belong equally to all citizens, or corporations.” Since my small (“nano”) business was shut down while Costco and Amazon were governmentally chosen to take care of the masses, the equal privileges and immunities guarantee seems remarkably easily forgotten – or ignored – by the governor.
The governor barred groups of more than 250 from assembling. If barring meetings of groups of more than 250 can be considered an assault on religious freedom, that assault fits nicely with a truly global assault on religion. Two hundred fifty people is a moderate church size in my area, I suspect. But demanding churches turn people away starting at number 251 is anti-religion.
The sad news is the number of churches who fell for that, often using the Apostle Paul’s admonitions to “…submit to the governing authorities since there is no authority except from God. So, then, the one who resists the authority is opposing God’s command, and those who oppose it will bring judgment on themselves.” Rom 13:1-2 and “never put a stumbling block or pitfall in the way of your brother or sister.” Rom 14:13 (Christian Standard Bible). Some smaller churches will never recover since their congregations often are older.
Many of those abuses will never be reversed. They probably can’t be at this point. They certainly will never be acknowledged as errors, nor will there likely be an apology, as might be suggested on page 74 of this critique.
At least for the state of Washington, some analysis has been done on what decisions were made, and what contributed to those decisions. Those decisions and the data used as reasoning for those decisions can be compared, then, to the ultimate definition of fascism, “The Doctrine of Fascism” as written by Benito Mussolini in 1932.
Perhaps by comparing the two, we can get a handle on who might or might not be a fascist. Importantly, my intention is not necessarily to call the governor of Washington State a fascist. I’m not joining in with the name-calling. What I am suggesting is that, if we can extrapolate Forrest Gump’s adage that stupid is as stupid does, all the way from stupidity to fascism, then we can evaluate fascist is as fascist does. From that premise, we may see actions that were taken that parallel the doctrines of fascism.
We can start with an easier point to analyze: religion. If we categorize barring assembling of people as part of the global assault on religion, then that action of the governor of Washington has to be classified as more communist than fascist. Karl Marx is credited as saying religion is the opiate of the masses whereas Mussolini says fascism “respects the God…[of the] primitive heart of the people, the God to whom their prayers are raised.”
Looking at a selected scattering of fascist sub-doctrines might find a few commonalities between the actions of the governor of the State of Washington and fascism. For example, according to Mussolini, “…The State became the expression of the conscience and will of the people.” “…It is the purest form of democracy if the nation be considered from the point of view of…the conscience and will of the few, if not, indeed of one…”
The governor, in closing schools and “non-essential” businesses, no doubt paid attention to some counsel, including the lieutenant governor, health department, and national figures such as Dr. Fauci, but certainly did not look to broad counsel. (In fairness to that point, if broad council means the people, many had been scared out of their wits by – in part – the misuse of data.)
The governor considered himself and his advisors as the quality conscience the people needed. Dissenting voices were actively suppressed. They still are. Besides, [fascism] “denies the right of numbers [of people] to govern by means of…universal suffrage.” We’re kidding ourselves if we thought we had a say.
Speaking of “the will of the few” – the evaluation of the data from the Washington State Department of Health mentioned above shows possibly a remarkable level of incompetence. But if we take it a step further, “the conscience and will of the few” (here, a data-analysis-incompetent Department of Health), reporting to the “one” (the governor) we see the fascist expression of “the purest form of democracy.”
A few people have assumed control of everything for all of the rest of us and determined how the state (and country) will go.
Some may argue that they were all doing the best they could; that although they invalidated and corrupted almost all data used to demand behaviors of the people, whether by misclassifying data, ignoring testing cycle recommendations, ignoring base rates and seasonality of illness, misclassifying people as unvaccinated, or changing methodology on the fly, they still were doing the best they could in a bad situation.
However, the post-pandemic analysis states “the WA DOH classification errors carried the…risks of distorting the truth and misguiding public policy decision makers who used the WA DOH data and distorted [data] visualizations [used] as a basis for decisions that affected the citizens of Washington State, and in many cases, with devastating effects [results].”
The potential for devastating effects on the population of Washington State is not an issue in the fascist view of democracy. But, since ‘fascism is not only a system of government, but also and above all a system of thought”…relating to a “higher law…transcending the individual,” who “by self-sacrifice [and] the renunciation of self-interest”…can achieve “his value as a man [person],” devastating effects are OK.
In a fascist context, the devastating effects of the demands of the governor of Washington supported by the incompetent and rigged data of the state Department of Health are not to be viewed negatively, but as part and parcel of the “purest form of democracy.”
“The state [is] the expression of the conscience and will of the people.” Fascism “reasserts…the state” rather than the individual. “The only liberty worth having [is] the liberty of the State and of the individual within the State.” “The state is all embracing, outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist.”
Pandemic demands, then, reflected into the framework of fascism are justifiable. The state was in charge. “The Fascist State…sums up all the manifestations of the moral and intellectual life of man.” “Fascism…enforces discipline and uses authority with undisputed sway.”
Therefore, the three threats to my license to practice, with no opportunity to face my accusers or to even know accurately what my pandemic lockdown transgressions were, fit remarkably well into a fascist system of governmental practice. “Fascism believes…in acts in which no economic motive…is at work.” So, my financial losses mean nothing in a fascist context. “Fascism denies the materialistic conception of happiness as a possibility.” OK. Got it.
Fascism “discards pacifism.” “War alone keys up all human energies to their maximum…and sets the seal of nobility on those peoples who have the courage to face it.” (emphasis mine). We don’t need to look far to see the lionization of those people who pushed the pandemic into war status (Dr. Fauci, President Biden, and on and on). The seal of nobility has been impressed on them, as they trampled individuals under foot. “Life…means duty…lived…above all for others.” Duty to live for others, not freedom to help others. So, we accept the trampling as the duty of the individual within the structure of the state.
If after all this we want to move to the federal level, we need look no further than the words of Herman Goering (from prison after the war) who was responsible for planning the controlled economy that was the economy of Nazi Germany:
Your America is doing many things in the economic field which we found out caused us so much trouble. You are trying to control people’s wages and prices – people’s work. If you do that you must control people’s lives. And no country can do that part way. I tried it and failed. Nor can any country do it all the way either. I tried that too and it failed. You are no better planners than we. I should think your economists would read what happened here…Will it be as it always has been that countries will not learn from the mistakes of others and will continue to make the mistakes of others all over again and again?
Nazi Herman Goering is letting us know that those who would pursue price controls are in fact following the failed economic actions of the Nazis.
Importantly, I am not calling the governor of Washington State a fascist. Nor am I calling national politicians Nazis. I’m not joining in with the screaming slander.
What I am again suggesting is that, if we can extrapolate Forrest Gump’s adage that stupid is as stupid does, all the way from stupidity to fascist is as fascist does, we can see definite parallels to fascism in actions that were taken by the governor of the State of Washington. On the national level, current policy proposals parallel Nazi Germany economics.
I’m not calling anyone a fascist or a Nazi. Forrest Gump or his mama might, though.
"Fascist is as fascist does" is good. When we were kids, we said "I know you are but what am I"?