re: #39 ducktrapper

Jonah Goldberg, in his book Liberal Fascism, shows the tempting allure of this philosophy has snared smarter (and probably better people) than Paul Belien and his fellow travellers. Now we see that both Islamists and Eurofascists attack all that oppose or even disagree with them.

There’s also the phenomenon described in The Dark Side of the Left: Illiberal Egalitarianism in America. Movements that begin with the goal of defending liberal values of tolerance and egalitarianism often develop the tendency to become rigid and absolutist, to the point where erstwhile allies and fellow travelers become bigger enemies in the eyes of the movement because they do not accept 100 percent of the movement’s precepts and proscriptions. The movement also tends to insist on internal conformity, in which dissenters are re-educated, suppressed and (if they do not recant) expelled.