The Intellectual Decline of the Right: Jonah Goldberg

Jonah Goldberg may have had his "L’Affaire Coulter" dust up with Ann Coulter when she was fired from the National Review a few years back, but Jonah, it seems, is not above borrowing from the Coulter School of Hyperbole when titling his literary critiques of the left. His new working title for Liberal Fascism, however, is a head scratcher. He has dropped Hillary Clinton from the title, replacing her with that notorious liberal fascist John Mackey of Whole Foods, someone whose political/economic views I am familar with from subscribing to Reason Magazine over the years(Reason has disclosed that Mackey is a donor to the Reason Foundation). I considered Mackey to be a bit of a left-libertarian as demonstrated in this fascinating article that appeared in Reason Magazine a few years ago where he debates Milton Friedman and TJ Rogers. Then again, maybe I shouldn't be surprised after watching this self-professed president of the Dick Cheney fan club defend Cheney's dubious claims of not being a part of the Executive Branch on MSNBC a few days ago, a claim that even Cheney apparently never really took that seriously. Then again, it's not like the old days at the National Review when Buckley was around to police the quality of the punditry. Buckley has his own problems these days, namely being dismissed as a demential coward by his own readers. That Goldberg apparently doesn't know the difference between a fascist and a libertarian perhaps demonstrates the current state of the intelligentsia on the right. One hopes Goldberg never decides to weigh-in with a literary work on libertarians, although I could suggest a title if he did: Libertarians: From Proudhon to Dick Cheney

I thought he was just another Coulter-like hack. I've only read one or two of his essays, and they included some blatant factual mistakes.

The publisher's review on Amazon presents this book as being truly ridiculous. First, how hard is it to realize that "National Socialism" involved both Nationalism and Socialism---and both could be considered "right wing" in continental Europe, where there had never been a tradition of liberalism.

The second issue, is that for every parallel he draws between fascists and the American left, there is also a parallel between fascists and the American right. BFD.

An Whole Foods? They are one of the most individualist establishments I've ever seen. They hire all types of tattood and otherwise funny looking people, even though most of their clientel's appearance is pretty mainstream.

John Mackey, if I remember correctly, was arguing with Milton Friedman about the social responsibility of corporations. John Mackey was promoting the idea of social responsibility with his company, Whole Foods, as a shining example. I personally thought that they should have been in agreement with each other because neither had put a monetary value on the goodwill generated by social responsibility.

Recently Whole Foods has started a local producers program where stores contact local farmers and dairy producers and sell those products in their stores. It's an awesome program that empowers smaller producers and saves energy in refrigeration and transportation. It's an innovation that you'd expect out of the free market.

Goldberg is perhaps worried about the libertarian argument against the Republican Party. If Ron Paul doesn't revive classic liberalism, the Republican party is going to return to the minority again for years and years.