McCain - Conservative or Fascist?

Here's a good article by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., describing the shift in the republican party to a militaristic statism (fascism). McCain, the Republican party's annointed one, is not so much liberal leftist as right-leaning fascist (just like Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco). Link to the article here.

Many of my Republican friends criticize McCain as a leftist. I can see the point. But we ought not be too quick to believe that all forms of antilibertarian ideology are leftist. We need to recognize that there is a form of nonleftist statism of a very distinct kind. It is not socialist in the traditional sense. It believes in a corporate state, combined with protectionism and belligerence in foreign policy. The right-wing predecessors here are Mussolini, Franco, and Hitler, and the name of the ideology is fascism.

For more on this, see John T. Flynn's As We Go Marching. He listed some points of the fascist program. It is a form of social organization "in which the government acknowledges no restraint upon its powers," is managed by the "leadership principle," and in which "the government is organized to operate the capitalist system and enable it to function — under an immense bureaucracy." In fascism, "militarism is used as a conscious mechanism of government spending," and "imperialism is included as a policy inevitably flowing from militarism." "Wherever you find a nation using all of these devices," he wrote, "you will know that this is a fascist nation."

Republicans are prepared to push this agenda, altered to fit the American political context, in this election. Their number one tactic to retain power is impugning the patriotism of Barack Obama. It seems like a puzzle, but an opinion piece by William Kristol in the New York Times offers a clue into the basis of the Republican campaign. He first makes a big deal out of the fact that Obama used to wear an American flag pin on his coat, but now no longer does so. He drags this up as if to accuse him of disloyalty to the American cause."