As I noted in the previous post specifically about the Schiavo case, yesterday's post generated lots of comments. One in particular was from the original gentleman who described the situation as fascism. The comment starts off
That's right, I'm with the "let her die" crowd.
Tell me, if we discuss abortion and you're against it, can I call you "pro-coathanger?"
Firstly I don't see where the abortion bit comes in so maybe I am stupid. For the record I like the Clinton view - "Abortion should be safe, legal and rare" and with a slight modification I believe the same applies to this case "Euthanasia should be painless, legal and rare" - hence much of the previous post. I also mostly agree with this post at God Save the Queen that putting limits on abortion is not necessarily the first step down the slippery slope towards theocratic tyranny. Abortion of a viable fetus (i.e. late term abortion) is murder and should be prosecuted as such. On the other hand morning after pills should be available for free (or nearly so) and early (sub three months say) abortions should be available without many questions asked.
Anyway back to the Fascism issue.
I'm not defend myself against your silly charge of ignorance. You can start to read about fascism here. But that's only a start, my friend. As many have discussed (eg Dave Neiwert, do your own googling), American fascism will take its own form. Fascism hardly requires stormtroopers.
Bush and his cronies have succeeded in their goal to undermine the courts.They proved last night that they now can reverse any court decision they disagree with. There are no checks or balances to their control over the judiciary. The extremists already fully control the executive and the legislature and are busy gerrymandering the districts to ensure far right dominance long into the future.
That is fascism.
No it is not. The whole point of the legislature is to pass laws and for the executive to implement them. The job of the judiciary is to defend the constitution against laws that infringe it and see that laws passed by the legislature that do not infringe the constitution are obeyed. If the law, as interpreted by the courts, is not doing what the legislature thinks it should then it is entitled to pass a new law that is better worded and which supercedes the previous one. This is precisely what happened during the 1930s and 1960s when the democrats passed laws that explicitly defined civil rights and so on and what (notably) certain dinosaurs attempted to fillibuster. That the shoe is now on the other foot is not of itself a cause for alarm, merely an indication that voters prefer the Republican vision these days. When it comes to the courts I believe that the Republicans are right to try and move law-making back to the legislature. The job of the courts is clearly defined in the constitution as the enforcer of laws not their creator and it is generally speaking a bad thing for the judiciary, which is generally speaking unelected, to be able to make laws.
[Sidenote: One of the things I admire about America is the clear separation of powers that the constitution enshrines and the clear way that it defines a framework that may be used to support a wide variety of policies that are produced as the elected representatives of the people decide is necessary. One of the reasons why I am against the EU constitution (and the EU as it currently exists) is that it is full of creative ambiguity which may then be interpreted by the Comission or the EU courts in ways that are unacceptable, another is that, unlike the US document, it actually describes certain policies rather than the framework to which policies must be fitted thus limiting future generations from certain policy choices. This, as the recent Euro stability pact row shows, allows governments and EU bodies to flagrantly ignore laws they don't like and then retroactively rewrite the laws to accomodate their misbehaviour.]
The fact that the Republicans have control of both the executive and both legislative houses should be a warning to both sides but it is not fascism, nor does that fact that as a result policy is moving rightwards mean that it will always be so. Vodkapundit links, approvingly, to an EJ Dionne article about the dangers of hubris and tend to I agree. Having seen personally the way that Californians Democrats screwed things up after Pete Wilson managed to destroy his own Republican party within the state I agree that the Republicans are liable to a similar backlash if they go too far. However I do not think that the Republicans are there yet. For example the fillibuster is a piece of tradition that I think is utterly stupid and that the US would do well to see it removed. Likewise the redistricting proposed in Texas and in California looks to me more like fixing previous Gerrymandering than adding its own; the Texas site is (FYI) here with the congressional districts shown here - the only obvious bizarreness is district 13/19 although the county borders in the major urban areas seem somewhat odd - and my understanding is that Schwarzenegger is going for a simlar reform in California. In other words so far the Republicans have completely failed to go for the sweeping revolution that converts the US from a democracy to a fascist dictatorship.
There are a bunch of things that I disagree with the Republicans on (Abortion, Censorship/Decency, homosexual marriage, government spending amongst others), but I do believe they are, at the moment, doing roughly what the majority wants and thus meeting the requirements of democratic government. More importantly they are not rewriting the constitution or doing anything that guarantees they stay in power when they have less than 50% of the vote. If they were then (to pick an obvious example) Washington State would now be governed by a Republican.
Update:La Shawn Barber points out with more details (i.e. linking to Article 3 of the US constitution) to show that the Republicans in Congress followed precisely the requirements of the US constitution in their Schiavo actions - this is precisely why I find it hard to call them Fascist Update2:Ann Althouse, however, makes a learned argument that the Congressional act is bad law but one which is constitutionally correct whereas Majikthise has explicit details on what she sees as some iffy constitutional bits. I can't say I know enough US law to judge, but I do think that either way it proves my point which is that the Republicans aren't fascist - as does the way that the Federal judge is backing up his Florida state colleague