Inversion Blender
a visit from the eternally unsettled ghost of woodrow wilson
Ron DeSantis has now questioned the wisdom of endless American support for the war in Ukraine, and that’s very dangerous.
War is fundamental human decency, fascists! War is also anti-authoritarianism, and anti-war sentiment is pro-authoritarian:
The capital-p Progressive journalist Randolph Bourne famously warned that “war is the health of the state,” foregrounding executive power and strangling dissent. His small-p progressive successors warn that shut up, Nazi, are you for PUTIN?!?!?
Similarly, Tucker Carlson and other vicious blackshirt monsters make hidden security footage public, warning that it appears to complicate the official narrative about a man sentenced to prison as a violent insurrectionist.
This, too, is authoritarianism.
Long and unexamined prison terms for critics of the government is anti-authoritarianism; arguing for a second look at the evidence is what fascists do. Somebody tell the authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat about the Innocence Project, and help the poor thing to process the fact of its existence. Why do progressive district attorneys create conviction review units? TO BE NAZIS, obviously. Our Democracy™ is that people sentenced to prison should always just shut up and take it. To avoid authoritarianism.
Here’s my bid for tenure at NYU: YOU KNOW WHO ELSE BELIEVED IN DUE PROCESS AND SECOND CHANCES FOR CONVICTS THAT’S RIGHT ADOLF HITLER THINK ABOUT IT. I would like my own research institute, please.
Some parents think that government-run schools shouldn’t manage the sexual identity of their children to the exclusion of parental involvement; this is obviously something that only far-right extremists think, because it’s dangerously authoritarian to raise your own children and have a role in their choices. Anti-authoritarianism is the opposite: it’s when government schools raise and shape your children without telling you what they’re doing.
“Ratting out” a child is when information about the child’s life is transferred from the government, the proper guardian of information about the child, to a parent.
Criticizing the government is authoritarian. Having doubts about war is authoritarian. Expecting social media to be a forum for free and open speech is authoritarian. Stepping in between the state and its children, as a so-called “parent,” is authoritarianism. Long pre-trial detention and harsh prison sentences for critics of the state are anti-authoritarian; raising questions about a conviction is authoritarian.
The aspiring fascists are warning you about fascism, inverting reality and blending facts into soup. Look at this again, because it plays second fiddle to Ruth Ben-Ghiat up above:
The point isn’t whether the “newly aired footage paints a misleading portrait.” The point is that it’s new, and they’re at trial without having seen it. The argument, not mentioned in the discussion between the experts on authoritarianism, is that the government has withheld evidence from a criminal defendant. And then the authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat says that oh, yes, this Brady violation stuff is a fascist plot. She’s agreeing with….
….a former FBI counterintelligence official, the author of a book on the indescribably glorious wonders of the state security apparatus:
You know you’re a true warrior against authoritarianism when you agree with a retired counterintelligence official that critics of the state don’t deserve due process and full access to the evidence in the government’s possession.
See also, from another California legislator:
https://twitter.com/alex_lee/status/1635400030000652288
Parenting is "policing bodies." Leaving your children to be supervised and counseled by government is freedom.
I have just taken another look at Ruth Ben-Ghiat's Twitter posts today, and I would like to formally announce that she is the stupidest human being who has ever lived.