Saturday’s post on the authoritarian turn in German politics has become one of the most widely shared pieces I’ve ever written. I am truly grateful to all of my readers for helping me report on what is happening in my country.
A great many have argued that my comparisons to the DDR (the old East Germany) are off-point. They suggest that National Socialism (Nazism) is a better historical analogy, and that we are seeing before us a re-manifestation of classic German fascist tendencies. I think this is a misreading, and at the risk of repeating myself to I’ll try to explain why. In a second piece later this week, I’ll write further about fascism and its nature, because I think this is a locus of particular confusion especially in the Anglosphere. (That will be a much more complicated essay, but I’ll try to get it finished by Wednesday; here, you need only know that I’m avoiding terms like ‘fascism’ and ‘totalitarianism’ very deliberately, for reasons I’ll soon clarify.)
In the beginning, there was liberalism. This is the political and moral ideology emphasising individual rights and equality that emerged alongside ‘capitalism’, which is just a loaded term for the economic relationships that arose spontaneously in industrial society. Liberalism sought to impose strict limits on the state, originally for the purpose of protecting individual freedoms, and as an ideology it had its critics. On the Left, socialists and communists attacked liberalism for its failure to achieve true human equality. These Leftists believed that illiberal interventions in the market economy and in many other areas of human society were required to achieve egalitarian ideals. On the opposite side of the political spectrum, Right-nationalists explicitly rejected the universalist pretensions of both liberalism and the socialist Left. These Right-nationalists were generally ethnic particularists who explicitly embraced social hierarchy.
Importantly, both the socialist Left and the nationalist Right retained some liberal elements and vocabulary. Communists preached that a revolution of the proletariat would achieve true human freedom and democracy, while the Right-nationalists adopted some liberal and even socialist terms, often expressing egalitarian concerns for ethnic in-groups. It is thus best to conceive of liberalism, socialism/communism and Right-nationalism as overlapping electron clouds, which achieve mutual exclusivity only at the extremes.
One commonly hears that the Left and the Right are political illusions and that they no longer apply to modern politics. This is because World War II destroyed Right-nationalism as a meaningful political force. Western Communism survived until the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and in attenuated form socialist ideology lives on within our respective liberal democracies. In this new world, being ‘on the Right’ has acquired a different significance; it simply means ‘not being on the the Left’. Thus libertarians, free marketeers, the traditionally religious, gun enthusiasts, free speech advocates and even certain strains of environmentalists who are not worried about carbon dioxide all find themselves ‘on the right’. While this is pretty stupid, it does not mean that the political spectrum is an illusion or mere propaganda. Leftism is still a thing, and Leftists are easily identified by their egalitarian, universalist aspirations. Functionally, Leftism operates as a political technology, whereby an elite at the top of society pursue patronage relationships with clients at the bottom, with promises to redistribute the wealth and privileges either of a displaced elite or of the middle classes.
Authoritarianism is much more ideologically neutral than often acknowledged. Illiberal socialists and Right-nationalists alike have no problem taking repressive measures against their own people. As for liberalism, it is more complicated. Liberalism presents itself as anti-authoritarian, and the historical prosperity of liberal states has permitted liberal regimes to follow through on at least some of their promises to recognise individual liberties. People who are fat and happy are generally content with their political establishment, whatever its nature. Faced with restive or even potentially recalcitrant citizenries, however, liberal systems can become quite repressive. We saw this very clearly during Covid.
Even in the absence of popular uprisings, liberal regimes have been elaborating ever more authoritarian political programmes for generations now, because exercising control is simply something that states do. As one’s political concerns move away from core liberal commitments, authoritarian interventions also become easier to justify. A hypothetical liberal state dominated by Right-nationalist parties would deprioritise individual freedoms in service of national goals. While such states hardly exist in today’s world, war or other external security threats awaken nationalist sentiments even in Leftist governments and inspire much the same behaviour.
Vastly more common in the West are nominally liberal states dominated by Left-leaning or socialist parties, whose politicians see liberal commitments as an obstacle to their egalitarian programme. At the national level, these Leftist regimes have circumvented liberal constraints by developing an elaborate ideology of positive rights. Like their negative precursors, positive rights are constructed as prior to the democratic prerogatives of the people and they require state power to enforce. The entire Civil Rights regime in the United States and the Green policies currently destroying the German economy all unfold within a universalist positive rights regime.
Internationally, Left-liberalism has learned to abhor the autonomous politics of the nation-state, both as a breeding ground for its enemies on ‘the Right’ and as the culprit for the slaughter of the great 20th century wars. These Left-liberals have erected an entire globalist postwar order, extending from international institutions like the United Nations and the European Union, to lobbying operations like the World Economic Forum, and to many other non-governmental organisations and philanthropic enterprises. It is very common to read that this phenomenon is somehow fascist, but this is a grave misunderstanding. These are institutions inspired by liberal egalitarian ideas and fears that too much national democracy will play into the hands of (Right-wing) antidemocratic actors. Precisely because of its National Socialist past, Germany since the founding of the Federal Republic in 1949 has at its disposal robust enforcement mechanisms to defend our democratic constitution against undesirable democratic outcomes. These are now being deployed against notional “Right-wing extremists” in a similar manifestation of illiberal liberalism domestically.
What is happening in Germany is therefore quite simple: our Left-liberal Government, faced with a concrete electoral threat to its hold on power, is abandoning ever more of its liberal scruples to maintain its position. This makes it increasingly illiberal, but it does not make it fascist. (Fascism, as I’ll argue on Wednesday, is a specific historical phenomenon that emerged on the Right in response to the pressures of modernity and the social consequences of the First World War.) The measures Nancy Faeser outlined are all directed against perceived enemies on “the Right”, with the explicit goal of maintaining an “open society”. That sounds like a laughable joke and it is, but it also betrays the fundamentally Leftist, universalist impulses behind this campaign.
Postwar liberalism has elaborated an entire mythology of itself rooted in its triumph over the Right-nationalist Axis powers, and in consequence “Right wing extremists” have become the only conceivable enemies. It is understandable that many observers, confronted with the authoritarian behaviour of the Left-liberal establishment, can conceive of no other way than ‘fascism’ to conceptualise this new politics. I merely want to describe what is happening in different terms, because a world in which a zombie fascism is beckoning around every corner is precisely what Nancy Faeser uses to justify her repressive fantasies.
Now to some side matters.
All historical analogies are imprecise, and that includes my references to East Germany. I very much agree with those who have voiced doubt that a shallow schoolmarm like Nancy Faeser is remotely capable of re-founding the DDR. As I’ve said many times, the states of the liberal West have only ‘soft’ authoritarian means at their disposal, and their enforcement apparatus looks positively emaciated compared to those of the former Warsaw Pact regimes. Our rulers will have serious problems quashing AfD and the rest of the political opposition, and they are just as likely to mess up and make things worse for themselves as they are to succeed. In a way, that has already happened: the AfD owes a great part of its success to the short-sighted triangulation via which Angela Merkel abandoned the Right flank of her own CDU. The errors of her successors are an order of magnitude more egregious and likely to fail even more spectacularly. That said, these lunatics are anything but toothless; they can do a lot of damage to ordinary people.
Some readers asked whether Faeser’s measures against “Right-wing extremism” are a mere trial balloon, or a proposal to test the waters. I must report, alas, that this is all very real and immediate. The Interior Ministry believes that the greater part of these prerogatives lie already within its powers. Only in a few areas, such as its eagerness to sniff into the financial affairs of ordinary Germans, does it face legal hurdles. In the present environment, these will be easily overcome. As I said above, Germany has an extensive political enforcement apparatus, in the form of the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, or the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV). The BfV stands under the direct control of the Ministry of the Interior, and it is trivial to direct its powers against political opponents. The BfV has been dogging the heels of the political opposition for years now.
Others asked me what can be done about this. I addressed this question a few weeks ago; the short and discouraging answer is that I don’t know. It helps to recognise that Faeser’s repressive plans are themselves a reaction to the solution sought by vast parts of the German electorate, who have cast their lot with the anti-establishment AfD. One often reads in dissident circles that voting is entirely useless, but I think that’s an overstatement; certainly, our rulers appear anything but unbothered by the electoral preferences of ordinary German people. Of course, I don’t think mere voting is the only answer, and for the moment I fear that we’re along for the ride whatever we do.
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In a happier, simpler time, this would have been a rather boring academic discussion about temperature measurements.
Today it’s part of a battle to keep the state out of our lives and be able to live free.
Pretty nuts really.
This academic discussion is being controlled and as far as I can see, discussed less (ie detail) and sensationalised more! Very nuts!
Some time in the late 1980s or very early 1990, I was on a summer holiday on a farm on Bodmin Moor. By that time, it hadn’t rained in this area for 19 weeks in a row and some of the moor farms received water supplies from tankers. That was a generally hot summer, not the five weeks of no rain with mostly lovely temperatures we had this year.
Ha, my lasting memory of Bodmin is failing my first driving test there ( steep inclines + crap clutch control = going backwards when attempting a hill start. Not great when there’s a car behind you.
) but passing second time. I miss Cornwall though.
Real experts manage to do that after passing the test. I’ve recently encountered one (and waited patiently on the pavement until he had remembered which of all these pedals are supposed to be used in what order).
My brother’s instructor used to put my brother’s cigarettes, and later his wristwatch behind the back wheel. Made for really good hill starts!
The Met Office used the “break in the clouds” explanation to explain the Heathrow “record”, ignoring criticism that by amazing co-incidence three jets landed on an unusual approach (West to East) and promptly turned on to a taxiway and blew jet exhausts over the exact spot that the temperature sensor was positioned. These Mexplanations are getting tedious. In other news, some US “records” are held by sensors positioned a few feet from a municipal incinerator, or top of a black roof or in a car-park. They served their purpose, but that purpose was not as a measure of climate, and were then re-purposed to create bogus records to fill newspaper headlines and create climate scares.
More detail on the Heathrow 2015 “record”, including site map and aircraft movements: https://clivebest.com/blog/?p=6721
Don’t know if it’s of any use but by looking at Flightradar24 playback for that day, two RAF Typhoons were operating from that base around that time: Flights CHAOS011 (reg ZJ914) and CHAOS012 (reg ZK377). After a brief exercise over the North Sea, CHAOS011 landed just after 15:10. CHAOS012 landed 15 minutes later.
Of course, it must be sheer coincidence!
A weather event is not Climate.
A normal summer is not Climate Hell.
Putting an electronic measuring device at Heathrow on tarmac, near jet engines, behind a magnifying glass, next to a fire is not science. It is fraud. Move it 5 miles to the countryside and the temp was 36C.
The entire cult of warm and cult of the changing thingy is a fraud.
I had first-hand experience of such temperature anomalies during my working life. I knew this was bs as soon as it was published.
“The Met Office distorts data and lies” is not the surprise. That would be them telling the truth
My kitchen is usually a fairly cool room since it’s north facing. But strangely enough, after I’ve cooked a roast and I leave the oven door open, the kitchen quickly warms up a bit for a while and then fairly quickly the temperature drops again.
Must be climate change – so I’d better stop cooking roasts and start eating raw insects.
All these institutions that have been hollowed out by GangGreen termites must eventually realise that trust, once destroyed, take years of effort to reestablish. Witness also the Zro Covid, Lockdown and “Vaccine” enthusiasts.
So far as the “Climate” scam is concerned, it should be remembered that accurate records for a significant number of years is the exception rather than the rule, so suggesting that some weather event is “Unprecedented” is meaningless at best.
And that is without considering the multitude of proven cases where activist “Scientists” have had their smelly little thumbs on the ‘data’.
So we have Australia’ BOM admitting that under their regime, the temperatures of the past have been ‘discovered’ to be around 1°C colder than originally recorded.
Coming back to 2022 (and before), all the recent ‘unprecedented’ temperatures such as Coningsby are blatantly and deliberately fraudulent. If we had even a few honest politicians, all these MET chancers would have been sacked, long ago.
“Global Temperature” ??? “Warmest year” ???. etc etc . But what does any of that stuff really mean? Is there really such a thing as a “global temperature? If so, how is it calculated?—– But since most of the time we recorded temperatures using thermometers at individual places around the world at different times and mostly only in wealthy western countries (USA, Europe etc), how can we know what temperatures were where we did not have extensive coverage, which was really the case most of the time and over most of the globe? —-The answer is we cannot. Then we started to get temperature data from satellites around 1979, but how can you compare thermometer readings where coverage was sparse from let’s say 1925 or 1845 to satellite data that covers almost the whole planet? —You cannot.. —–So this idea that we have a “warmest year on record” or “warmest since records began” etc is misleading, especially when it is used to promote solutions to some problem that might not even exist, or that might exist but is not much of a problem. On TV I regularly see politicians and bureaucrats, eco activists and assorted “save the planet” people latch onto elements of the unreliable temperature record, like the one this summer where a temperature of 40C was apparently recorded. This ofcourse is what is known as “cherry picking” or “confirmation bias”, where someone only looks for things that support their preconceived idea and ignore everything that doesn’t.— The temperature record of earth is a jumble of data ,adjusted here and there for various anomalies, such as the build up of towns and cities around a site where temperatures may have been recorded for the last 100 years or more, and it is known that towns and cities are warmer, sometimes by several degrees. Out of all of this clutter of guesses, assumptions, missing data and different forms of data collection we are led to believe that some “scientists” know what year was warmer than some other year, often to accuracies of hundredths of a degree, when the thermometers used were never designed for such accuracies. It is also important to bear in mind that if something warms, it does not necessarily mean humans warmed it. To claim humans have warmed something requires evidence, and since there is nothing unusual about current temperatures that would simply be an assumption, and when the assumption is motivated by the desire for certain public policy’s then what we have is a “cautionary tale”.
So either the Met Office lie by sticking to their story, or lie by giving an unbelievable excuse why they didn’t quality check it thoroughly enough?
In 2015 I happened to be in North East New Zealand, when Cyclone Pam caused extreme damage and around 11 deaths in Vanuatu and some damage to other Pacific island states. The MET (using their extreme GangGreen technology) forecasted major problems next for NE New Zealand but, fortunately this turned out to be a nothingburger.
Although we are assured that The Science is absolutely Settled, it is, in reality, anything but. At that time, Richard Betts, now Head of Climate Impacts at the MET Hadley Centre, was presumably charged by his gaffer, Dame Julia Sligo, to occasionally go onto Climate Blogs and fly the GangGreen flag.
On the then excellent Bishop Hill Blog, I pointed out the inadequacies of their forecasts for Pam, the fact that the claimed wind speed was obviously inflated and that severe tropical cyclones were entirely ‘precedented’.
Betts replied pointing out that the attribution of extreme weather arising from burning “fossil” fuels was well established, quoting the UN’s IPCC Report. To which I pointed out that the IPCC’s latest report said nothing of the kind (as contaminated as it is by GangGreen assumptions) and that his quotation was lifted directly from the “Summary for Policymakers”, which is a 100% political document.
We then heard nothing more from Betts, who is obviously not any kind of scientist, just another GangGreen charlatan.