This morning I was reading an article titled History according to Glenn Beck over on the Politico. Far be it from me to defend Glenn Beck, but it seems liberals do have a real problem with history.
The common narrative in History 101 is that the Soviets were on the left and the Nazis on the right. I’m not sure why exactly. The two ideologies shared a lot in common: genocide, nationalism, state control of corporations, and military imperialism. The two states also started World War II by invading Poland together. Glenn Beck is only pointing out these similarities. I guess he’s finally reading Jonah Goldberg’s excellent book Liberal Fascism.
The Politico article uses the basic progressive journalistic approach. Find some “professors” in the very liberal academic community and dismiss the argument as crazy. Remember, yesterday’s New Left terrorist is today’s respected English professor.
Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Life at Boston College, said that the film not only isn’t accurate, but that Beck “lives in a complete alternative universe.”
Nazi Germany was “not evil because of their economic program,” said Wolfe, which he noted included a few programs designed to promote public health.”It was evil,” he said, ” because it aimed at the extermination of European Jewry.”
There you have it. State control isn’t evil. It’s only when state control ends in genocide that we should be concerned. It’s too bad that state control and genocide go hand in hand. The human rights record for the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and every other socialist regime speaks for itself.
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