Benito Mussolini, Tim Geithner And Robert Reich

Il Duce was the father of fascism. He defined it in his lovely little book, Fascism. You can find it at that link. Benito's intellectual heirs, the Democrats, are bringing Mussolini-style fascism to fruition here in the US. Don't believe me? Well, here's Benny on fascism.

The keystone of the Fascist doctrine is its conception of the State, of its essence, its functions, and its aims. For Fascism the State is absolute, individuals and groups relative. Individuals and groups are admissible in so far as they come within the State. Instead of directing the game and guiding the material and moral progress of the community, the liberal State restricts its activities to recording results. The Fascist State is wide awake and has a will of its own. For this reason it can be described as " ethical ".

At the first quinquennial assembly of the regime, in 1929, I said “The Fascist State is not a night watchman, solicitous only of the personal safety of the citizens; not is it organized exclusively for the purpose of guarantying a certain degree of material prosperity and relatively peaceful conditions of life, a board of directors would do as much. Neither is it exclusively political, divorced from practical realities and holding itself aloof from the multifarious activities of the citizens and the nation. The State, as conceived and realized by Fascism, is a spiritual and ethical entity for securing the political, juridical, and economic organization of the nation, an organization which in its origin and growth is a manifestation of the spirit. The State guarantees the internal and external safety of the country, but it also safeguards and transmits the spirit of the people, elaborated down the ages in its language, its customs, its faith.

Here's Tim Geithner telling us we shouldn't have any restrictions at all on how much the government can borrow. Here's Robert Reich letting us know that government spending needs to grow, grow, grow!

Remove the militarism from Mussolini and replace it with "social justice" as Juan Peron did in Argentina and you end up with the State defined through economic activity. Instead of impressing young men into an army and invading other nations, you spend, tax and regulate without limit. Both Geithner and Reich advocate just that. Endless expansion of government powers with everything else secondary to the growth of the State. In fact, in Reich's essay, I'm not sure anything other than the State is even mentioned.

And the spiritual part? That one is easy.

I am the State thy god and thou shalt have no other gods before me.