We’ve been here before guys. Knut Hamsun was crystal clear: he supported Hitler because he saw him as the only defense against communism. And why did he – along with hundreds of thousands of other Europeans in the 1920s and ’30s – believe that fascism was necessary to fight communism? Because the liberal elites lacked the backbone to defend Western civilization against the communists’ subversive tactics. This is established history: fascism arose as a reaction to communism. Orwell understood this in Spain, and he tried to warn people about it in Homage to Catalonia. Fascism and communism feed off one another, because both seek a political game whose currency is lies, subversion, and violence. The cure is honesty, and a clear understanding of Popper’s paradox of tolerance. A united civil society must say: “No, it is not acceptable to sabotage others, no matter how repulsive you find their opinions,” and: “Yes, we are not just willing, but positively thrilled to enforce this principle with force if necessary” That is what it entails to defens freedom. Anything less is a green light to escalation, which will end very, very badly. And I want to stress this, because it is EXTREMELY important: what we need is not moderation. What we need is a fierce, uncompromising, radical defense of liberal priciples. We need an unshakable, absolute zero tolerance for violence, sabotage, cancel culture, threats, and abuses of power. In that sense, it is deeply worrying to see how toothless and uninformed our leaders are. They are the ideological kin of those who watched, pathetically and impotently, as Hitler tore down the last remnants of democracy in 1933. It is also worrying to see conservatives gleefully try to get people fired for tasteless comments about Kirk.
