Knute, RIGHT ON!
Art

".. and Teddy Roosevelt, the icon of progressive Republicanism, he was a proto-fascist."

Knute, I think you are getting carried away here. Maybe proto doesn't mean what I thought it meant.

Choosing to attempt a channeling of populist anger rather than defusing it is walking on a knife's edge. Revolutions are just another form of mob hysteria and have a way of turning on those who would lead them.

As a candidate Barack Obama showed some ability at harnessing populist sentiments as long as those sentiments were directed at returning us to boring democratic principles. Now that he is the chief executive, his style of political play is considerably more conservative. He seeks to assure the portion of the electorate that did not vote for him of his stability and his competency in office--neither of which calls for him whipping up populist sentiments.

Absolutely right on.

The pastiche of socialist this, fascist that should be truly mind-boggling to anyone who learned anything in 10th grade history.

The irony in all this is that the Left has spent the last eight years railing against the growth of government size and power under Bush. Now they're sanguine under Obama. The Right is now engaged in the same battle with Obama after years of tolerating government growth under Bush. Neither side seems to object to the size and power of the monster itself, only to the person who's directing the monster's actions. But the monster will corrupt whoever controls it. Yesterday's Al Franken is today's Glenn Beck, and the strains of The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" waft through the air.

Nice essay. The right wing seems to immediately accept any argument from anyone dubbed as one of their own, i.e. George W. Bush, who not only was governing as a real fascist in accord with the traditional definition, as one who was joining business and government interests as one, but added programs for torture, spying on citizens (and degrading the Constitution) and running up a record deficit after inheriting a surplus. All of these programs are by definition OK (according to conservatism)just because the man who ran them called himself a Republican. This is true regardless of how much those actions seem contrary to previously declared principles of conservative philosophy of governance.

On the other hand, a Democratic President is irrationally called a "fascist" just because he proposes programs to deal with societal issues/needs/problems like unemployment, need for the economic stimulus, etc. Aside from the fact that this is not what fascism actually is, there is certainly a desire to smear any Democrat just because he is a Democrat, rather than because there is an reasoned objection to any one of their proposals based on merit. Clinton faced the same thing and was dogged by people who for 8 years complained and set up investigations about every issue imaginable: there was "Travel-gate", "Whitewater", and a constant stream of other scandals as we all know. Regarding economic policy, Clinton was pretty conservative and actually signed into law several elements of the neo-conservative agenda (NAFTA, elimination of Glass-Steagall Act, Telecommunications Act of 1996, etc.)

Instead of advancing the political discussion of the country and proposing solutions for the many real problems we face, instead, this is all about irrational complaints that lead to movements like that of the Tea Baggers where the people who show up don't even know what they are actually protesting about. Having we devolved as a country into hate only? It appears so. When Republicans are asked for their proposals, they usually don't have one. It seems to me the forces who want to keep lowering taxes on the rich, etc., are doing extreme damage to this country and our ability to govern ourselves.

--dbreneman: "But the monster will corrupt whoever controls it."

Kind of an oversimplification, wouldn't you say? Do you really think George H W Bush, for example, was as corrupt as his son?

I can only think of two American presidents who clearly abused their office, Richard Nixon and George Bush, and the former was thrown out of office for it.

--Sean: "I can only think of two American presidents who clearly abused their office"

Kind of a short list, wouldn't you say?

Have you considered that Woodrow Wilson may have been abusive of presidential power by throwing his detractors in jail? How about Abraham Lincoln with his warrantless wiretaps and suspension of habeas corpus? The fact is that power corrupts. No one is immune. That's why an all-powerful goverment is A Bad Thing. Governmental power will be abused because it exists. Socrates' Enlightened Despot is yet to be born, and every time people think he's here, they're eventually proven dead wrong.

In fact, I can only think of one American president who wasn't in some way corrupted by power: George Washington.

Dbreneman: Don't forget William Henry Harrison. Of course, he didn't really have the chance.

OK, I'll grant you Harrison. Although he may have been planning something we never learned about... :-)

Power corrupts? I'm always skeptical of these reductions of the messiness of politics to simplistic "truisms" that absolve us from the tough job of thinking. How about Mandela? Havel? MLK? Or in an earlier era Hammarskjold? Or Carter? Or Stim Bullit? Did they all make mistakes? Of course; they are just humans. Were they "corrupt"? I don't think so. So power, including political power, does not automatically corrupt. We need a more sophisticated analysis.

dbrenamen is really just trying to distract us from a major corruption in the system, the corruption in the market--the bankers, CEOs, advertisers, etc.--who have been striving, by exploiting a particular false economic logic, to capture democratic governance since the founding. Certain politiicans are not bought off by other politicians, but my monied interests who want to capture the levers of democratic governance. They have often been successful--railroad interests, bankers, insurance companies, pharma, HMOs, agribusiness (not to mention Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial complex), and, yes, at times trade unions--but, damn, the ugly beast of democracy keeps raising its head and says, "Enough." In defiance of the unions, the Legislature just passed a re-definition of higher education and they might soon send a proposal to the people to increase taxes.

Whatever you like or don't, it isn't corruption.

bkochis is trying to distract us from the fact that all business transactions are voluntary, most governmental transactions are compulsory, and government retains for itself the right to initiate the use of violence to make sure that the transactions it wishes to engage in will take place. When businesses are corrupt, they generally fail, unless they can link themselves to the power brokers in government that can exercise compulsion and bestow favors to get the corrupt business interests that which the businesses cannot obtain by market forces alone. Once again, it is the power of government that corrupts these people. Politicians don't need to buy each other off - they're the sellers, selling their influence, power and favors to others equally corrupt as themselves. The way to reduce corruption in both the private and public sectors is to reduce the power government holds over us.

If government would restrict its scope to the vigorous enforcement of laws against fraud, manipulation, secret dealings, impure food and drugs, coercion and similar activities of swindlers, we would all reap the benefits. Instead, government extends its reach to reward friends, punish enemies, pick winners and losers, and otherwise compel honest sensible people to do things they would not normally do, all at the point of the gun of government's "right" to initiate the use of force. That is the nature of the monster, and whoever controls it at the moment, it is still a terrible thing.

dbreneman is correct IF we're talking about shampoo--I can choose to use or not--but not correct if we're talking about food, shelter, health care, and, for all practical purposes, education. We do not voluntarily choose to eat, stay warm, or avoid most serious diseases. Hence, we need socialism and government to guarantee that these goods are provided, because the market will not voluntarily provide them. The problem is that in dbreneman's scheme "voluntary" assumes, and means, you have the wealth to choose, and that is definitely not the case--no child chooses not to eat, not have a home, or not have health insurance. In fact, adults don't choose not to have health insurance--that is chosen by the employer.

Government does get corrupted, to be sure, but it's never corrupted by poor people in need of basic services; it is corrupted by the very businesses that dbrenaman thinks are engaging in voluntary, free market transactions that are for the welfare of the population. If government is so utterly corrupt, how would one explain the government prosecutions of the Watergate crowd and the resignation of Nixon, the prosecution of Savings & Loan, or Enron, or Oliver North, or Rod Blagoevich, or Eliot Spitzer, or the indictments of Cunningham, Jefferson, Tucker, Ney, Libby, Abramoff, or Tom DeLay or Bernie Madoff. Somebody is catching these people, and it isn't business leaders trying to keep their market clean; it's the government itself.

It is extraordinarily naive to think that corrupt businesses just fail and go away, as if the market is a self-cleaning oven; morph, yes, but fail? No. Hence the need for government regulation and to be the watchdog.

Just as it's a little sophistic to mischaracterize and then summarily dismiss another's position, as is done above. Those who read my submission will have read this:

"If government would restrict its scope to the vigorous enforcement of laws against fraud, manipulation, secret dealings, impure food and drugs, coercion and similar activities of swindlers, we would all reap the benefits."

That is hardly a claim that we do not need government regulation. As far as the contention that socialism is required because a free market will not provide food, shelter, health care or education: It is useful to note that people engaged in enterprise, not socialism, lifted mankind up from short, brutal lives of subsistence living to the prosperity that we enjoy today. All along the way, government has taken its cut for providing security, police and fire protection, administration of the courts, standardized weights and measures, etc. But government has never produced wealth. It only consumes it. Government has a role in society. It should be a strong actor in those areas where it does the most good at the least burden to the society is it created to serve. However, once government becomes the focus of people's lives, once it is viewed as the object of human existence, as the grandest goal of mankind on earth and the ultimate font of munificence, we are on the road to abject despotism. It is good to question power and authority, but don't limit your questioning merely to those at whom the watchdog growls. The watchdog may turn on you some day. Better question his motives as well.

dbreneman is, of course, joking when saying that "enterprise, not socialism, lifted mankind up from short, brutal lives of subsistence living to the prosperity that we enjoy today." Maybe the enterprise of serfdom or slavery or the slaughter of native peoples to take their land, or child labor. The prosperity we "enjoy" today was paid for by the exploitation of the majority, not the "enterprise" of the elites. S/he forgets that the Founders were creating a government, not an economy, even though they were deeply implicated in one; they created a political structure not a market. The Declaration and the Constitution create a political space to dominate the economic space--that is socialism. Without the government to enforce contracts, to regulate, to "provide for the general welfare" (and do all those other things dbreneman thinks it should do) there would be no enterprise. Enterprise happens only to the extent that government protects it--that's the essence of socialism. Left to its own devices, enterprise, preying off an ethic of greed and preying on the dependency of the poor, is nothing but a predatory scheme of the elites that does, indeed, return us to the state of nature where life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

dbreneman wouldn't think of trying to upstage a much more accomplished comedian than himself.

*But government has never produced wealth. It only consumes it*

I think the term you're looking for is "redistributes"- Not "consumes". Government spending DOES facilitate the "production of wealth", however. The infrastructure that would never exist, but for government "largesse", is one good case in point.
Corporations, whose driving single-minded goal is "making a profit", can't even compare to Government, and the multi-purposed pursuit of "the good of the body politic", when it comes to expressions of civility, for example. there's no compassion in the corporate outlook. Take a drive through a local National Forest, and then wander the logging roads of "Weyerhaeuser Country"... and feel the difference. ^..^

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"Take a drive through a local National Forest, and..."

See what the vision of a protofascist looks like.
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You have a big "Oops" here. The photograph you show is not William Jennings Brian. It is Fredric March who played Matthew Harrison Brady ( a William Jennings Brian type character ) in the movie "Inherit the Wind".