Sorry, the answer is no.

And thanks for checking for me, I couldn’t even bring myself to google him. Though I must say I’m disappointed that he isn’t another Ivy League legacy drone.
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The smugglers, of course, weren’t paying the import taxes imposed in the 1760s to meet the costs of defending the colonies against the French and their Indian allies.

Being politically well-connected, the Company appealed for help to Parliament. Parliament agreed to lift the requirement for the Company to ship tea through Britain and pay British duty; the Company could import directly from India to the colonies, and would only have to pay a small duty on landing the tea in Boston.

This was great for the Company (less taxes) and for the colonists (cheaper tea) but not for people like John Hancock. Tea was a popular commodity, and undercutting the smuggling business by allowing the sale of cheap legal tea would mean that Hancock would have to find an honest job. Alternatively, he could do what he in fact did, and organize a raid on the Company’s tea stocks.

The best modern analogy would be this: after the repeal of Prohibition, the Capone Gang, annoyed that their lucrative bootlegging business is now going to wither away, firebomb the Jack Daniels distillery.

Given the quality of this book, could this have been the only thing that a reviewer wrote on the submitted manuscript before giving up, and that Goldberg took is as a chapter title suggestion.

Also, is Wagner really pagan? Wagner certainly uses pagan myths to tell his stories, but is a story about how the old pagan gods had to end up getting themselves offed really a pagan positive story?

Whaaaaat? YES, Wagner’s work is Pagan, at least the 19th Century Romantic interpretation of paganism. It does deal with the Death of the Gods, but discusses it in a pagan context, pagan heroes, with the pagan rules of engagement: this wasn’t judgment day, but Gotterdammerung.

Siegfried is a pagan hero in a pagan world, and his values are the values of the Pagan world: courage, martial prowess, the importance of Oaths, etc, instead of the values of the Christian world.

one is sufficiently crazy, as I am as can be judged by looking at old blog entries of mine (c.f. my blog title), one can argue that there are Jewish themes in Wagner’s operas. Certainly, Wagner’s thinking is more “Axial age” than pre-Axial age pagan or post-Axial Age pagan revival.

I seriously don’t know how to respond to this except…have you ever HEARD of Wagner?

Yes, it would indeed be crazy to find a known Anti-Semite who wrote grandiose comic operas that were nationalist and triumphalist and racialist (extorting the Teutonic peoples) to use Jewish themes.

Almost as crazy as saying the French Revolution is Facist.

The Italians, to the extent they resisted the German demands for extermination, “protected” the Jews. Only in a relative sense to the Nazis, as they were still deprived of their freedom and livelihoods, just not, for the most part, until the end of the Italian fascist autonomy, their lives.

Calling the American Revolution “conservative” is plain asinine.

Labelling the French Revolution “fascist” is plain asinine.

However, all of this is central to my thesis.

Dan Someone @23:15 has nailed it:

`When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

`The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master — that’s all.’

(The phrase, “leftists embrace cognitive dissonance and terminological sleight-of-hand” is a lovely exhibit of what poker players call ‘a tell.’)

*swallow* Are you saying that this is based, in some way, on what people learn in school? And that this isn’t a kind of outstanding comedy genius that can never be repeated, after all?

And believe me, I am tempted to, but, I fear the pantload would actually enjoy having a boot shoved up his butt so I shall respectfully decline the offer.

Um … actually, most people don’t use “liberal” and “conservative” this way either. Liberal and conservative have become brands of the Democratic and Republican parties respectively (because of the best efforts of the GOP and in spite of the best efforts by the Democrats). Because the GOP was the group that was behind this branding, liberal has become, in the popular imagination, whatever the GOP chooses it to mean. So you can imagine it can’t be good.

Even people who ought to know better regularly denounce “liberals” … but the liberals they are denouncing would hardly be called liberals by real liberals. Yet the behavior of, e.g., media villagers, is cited by folks as why they don’t like liberals and won’t vote Democratic.

Therefore Sophie Scholl, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Willy Brandt, Albert Camus, and many who gave their lives in Europe fighting against the nazis, were all fascists. It’ll sure be one heck of a surprise to their families, huh?

Oh, and the victims of the Falangists, and the Blackshirts, and the nazis who were liberal in thought, speech and practice. They had to be fascists, too.

How many of the human beings killed in the death camps would you estimate that to be, Jonah? Given that you’re a really wise and knowledgable and compassionate person and everything.

I’ll bet you could come up with a number. Just do what you did with your book — and make it up.

Yes, and this, really, is the key to deciphering a lot of conserva-babble. They don’t use the words “liberal” and “conservative” as most people do, which is to describe a general set of beliefs or an adherent to that set of beliefs. They also use them as synonyms for “bad” and “good” respectively–and this tautology works both ways. So it’s not just that anything conservative is by (their) definition good, it’s also that anything good is by (their definition) conservative. People have hit on this point in other threads about this stupid book:
Fascism = bad
Bad = liberal
Therefore, fascism = liberal.

To wingnuts, this is terrific logic. To the rest of us…not so much.

I doubt a typical American voter who describes themselves as liberal every really thinks much about the French Revolution at all. The details of the French Revolution is not central and prominent to modern American liberals’ sense of politics, ideals and self.

This is another reason why Fuck Nut is so stoopid. Because he can’t call the American Revolution fascist, Jonah has to stumble through the turnip patch of history for … ahh … the French !!! La Guillotine !!! Oppressed Nice White Rich People !!! The Estate Tax !!! And they speak French !!!!

I thought ten thousand thousand farts must have leaped from their underpants, for Jonah Goldberg to have written a book that so insults the intelligence.

(FWIW, though, I dunno how radical the American revolution really was … most of the revolutionaries were either bourgeois or wanted to get away from Britain ’cause they wanted to go back to manoralism … the liberal, democratic aspects of the American revolution — remember when some neo-manoralist, either 18th century or 21st century goes on about “liberty”, they do not mean what we might think they mean — were largely championed by furriners — don’t forget the Poles! who presumably carried some Tartar influence which might make our revolution Islamofascist? — Jews and people influenced by said groups …)

Also, is Wagner really pagan? Wagner certainly uses pagan myths to tell his stories, but is a story about how the old pagan gods had to end up getting themselves offed really a pagan positive story? If one is sufficiently crazy, as I am as can be judged by looking at old blog entries of mine (c.f. my blog title), one can argue that there are Jewish themes in Wagner’s operas. Certainly, Wagner’s thinking is more “Axial age” than pre-Axial age pagan or post-Axial Age pagan revival.

Did the Nazis turn politics into religion?

If they did, then according to Jonah’s calculus (please forgive me, Newton / Liebniz), they were fascists.

If they did not, then the Nazis were not fascists.

I want a decision, and I want it soon: Were the Nazis fascists, Jonah?