Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg

Education… Just the word invokes thoughts of reading, writing, and of course, arithmetic. Not so long ago, children in school would have also included thoughts of play time as well. Now, most children do not exhibit positive enthusiasm when they are informed it’s time for “Back to School”. That enthusiasm is also lacking with the parents, although they stoically push that nagging feeling to the back of their minds and still continue to place their children, their trust, into our public school system.

Liberal Fascism…Sufficient to say, this term has actually been around a very, very long time, but not as the phrase we read today. Jonah Goldberg references that H.G. Wells was the first person in “modern” history to coin that particular phrase. Wells must have struggled with his life growing up. He suffered in pain over a broken leg at the young age of 8 (1874) as well as having parents who could not agree to disagree, being only human and having emotions as we all do. Once his parents were no longer together in life, Wells drifted here and there. A job here, an odd job there, but all of those jobs seem to be a form of manual-skilled labor. Wells, being the thinker he was yearned for an education. But, his education had already begun. He’d learned how to read when he had his broken leg. From that point in his life, he never stopped reading. In fact, his love for reading is what led to the great books he did write. His imaginations, fictions and other musings were based in solid life experiences. His perceptions were developed throughout his life as we all do as human beings.

His words (thoughts) played so well together, they flowed onto the pages. His writings were then read down through generations. Yet, instead of reading the thoughts of a brilliantly self-educated man, his words were no longer taken at face value. They were picked apart, piece by piece in a vain attempt at defining what was being read instead of the simple understanding that words are words. It only takes the human mind to interpret those words. But, the human mind tends to focus more on the meaning of the word, rather than the word itself. This limitation is the sole reason humans have common sense.

Common Sense is the sum of knowledge gained by humanity over long periods of time.

Liberal fascism occurs when a person truly has no education.

Education is simply not just facts, numbers and additional information; it is what the mind does with all that knowledge. Too much knowledge without introspective human thought is total lack of wisdom. Knowledge is only gained when the age of reasoning occurs, but reason only prevails with knowledge. If the two do not balance, we have a lot of people that will speak and reference others writings (thoughts) as having total validity and will live their own lives based on those assumptions. Yet, even those without what we now call education, they tend to live simpler, self-sufficient lives without all the added information that they simply cannot fit in their own lives.

First, we must understand education. Can it be measured by whether a child retains certain dates and times of historic events? Is it how that child learns the method to solve some mathematical equation? Or is it the child learning to apply that knowledge of dates and time when a past event transpired, which then allows that child to understand it in the context of the present? If that is education, then how can we say that we haven’t been failing our young children for a very long time?

My parents, other family members all taught me what a family is, what it means to have friends and to keep those you love in your life. It was my mother, who loved me, that taught me to read before I ever attended 1st grade in a public school back in 1966. From the time I grasped what the written words could tell me, I never looked back at any point in my life and told myself, I’ve failed. Not by my standards, ever.
That is the true quality of a good, solid and well-rounded education. Once those values are taught to children, they will never lose this for the rest of their lives. It never left me, no matter what I was able to do, or not do in my life.
Can these values and knowledge truly be taught in a liberal fascist society? Of course not. That requires a free society that allows its parents to be parents. A free society will be able to exactly pinpoint a fault in the education system. That fault could then be resolved, without legislation that attempts to promote, but fails. If our children are being educated in a free society, how is it that there are more and more children who are truly failing, then falling through the cracks in our society? Liberal fascism?

What is it our children are being taught then through the public school system? Do we want them to gain knowledge that allows us as humans to understand other people, communicate with other people and to discuss the very words we read? Or, do we leave even more of them behind to languish in the environment they live in because well-intentioned people (liberal fascists/progressives) believe they have the solution to poverty? Yes, a good education results in success.
Poverty levels, a governments’ measure of success or failure, have only been increased by our very own government. I’ve lived below “the poverty line” a few times in my life, but never, ever felt like I was in poverty. Did Wells? Lack of adequate finances is simply not poverty. The working poor-class becomes poverty-stricken when there is no hope of overcoming the frustration and despair of living in America without real education. Liberal fascism, anyone?

These principles simply cannot ever be taught by anyone other than family, friends and community. If we must ask that basic question regarding our children’s education, this is the only question that must be asked and answered. The government has made its futile attempts at solutions, but is failing and will continue miserably in its attempts to accomplish those goals. The reason is simple and truthful. The government may be made up of people, but it’s been far too long that it hasn’t been a government by the people, for the people. The liberal fascism that has bubbled below the surface for literally decades is now being revealed. That fact is as true as knowing the air I breathe keeps me alive. Impossible standards now apply since those standards do not address the variance of the individual as they attempt to learn through the current “liberally fascistic” teaching process. The result will be catastrophic. This lack of educated people will actually escalate due in large part to the legislation called “No Child Left Behind”. It’s been made to all sound very good and necessary for America, but values and principles simply cannot be legislated. The birth of liberal fascism begins at some point in any free society and our version of fascism is already getting older.

Jonah Goldberg made this statement recently in response to some of the “Nazi” rhetoric swirling in the media currently. He was referring to liberal fascism:

“That sort of system could seduce Americans into becoming chestless subjects of the State in exchange for bottomless self-gratification and liberation from the necessity of adult decision-making.”

How can any person with common sense and human instinct, not truly understand that liberal fascism has already gained control of the education of our young peoples’ minds?

“I will never let my schooling interfere with my education” – Mark Twain