The "Far Right"
Crazy Definitions
Whenever you read “The Far Right” in a news column, you automatically assume that the writer doesn’t know what they are talking about. Consistently, I see this pattern over and over again.
Today, I was perusing the Financial Times, or should I say, “the far left wing Financial Times”? I read this column with a scary headline about the rise of the “far right” in Germany, and we all know what that means. Mr. Half Moustache, with the bad side part and brown shirt, will be marching through the door at any moment.
I read through the breathless commentary and gleaned these points about the rise of the “far right in Germany. By the way, the party is polling at 19.4%, so it has standing.
Here are their talking points
They were opposed to bailouts of the southern countries in the Eurozone back in 2013. The PIIGS governments (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain) were fiscally profligate, spending way more money than they took in. Their governments were highly centralized and bureaucratic. No surprise there, and I always remind Europeans there was a reason people left.
They are against open immigration and are leery of the number of Muslims coming into Germany. They see what’s happened across France and don’t want the same.
The party doesn’t like the high energy costs in Germany and the way Merkel embraced green energy. The current government banned heating with oil and instead is forcing boilers to be powered by renewable energy.
The party is also against the support of Ukraine. Germany was able to buy cheap natural gas from Russia for years. Now all of a sudden, Germany is faced with significantly higher energy costs. Factories might have to shut down. People will be put out of work. They’d prefer to be neutral.
The party wants decentralization of government. In the words of some supporters, “No one in Berlin cares about us.”
This is not dissimilar from some of the things Trump ran and won the US Presidency on and echoes political movements in other countries. It has nothing to do with fascism or being far-right. It has everything to do with protecting and nurturing your own country’s historical culture.
We can have disagreements on government bailouts and not be “far right”. I am for no federal bailout of US states that have overspent and mismanaged their finances. Why should taxpayers from financially sound states bail out the mismanaged ones?
We can have disagreements on the way we power an on-demand information economy and not be “far right”. By the way, if it’s not nuclear power, you are doing it wrong. Ditch wind/solar and use them for small decentralized energy schemes. Nuclear is the only reliable way to cheaply power an ever-expanding grid.
We can have disagreements over immigration. Having a border means you have a country. Sanctuary cities and states flout immigration law. 99% of the time the politicians espousing open borders pay none of the costs and signal all of the virtue. By the way, if you haven’t listened to Gary Becker’s immigration idea, you ought to.
The war in Ukraine is like watching two pigs fight in the mud. We can all agree that strongman Vladimir Putin is a dictator and his invasion of Ukraine is simply a brazen attempt to grab more power and money for himself (and his fawning oligarchs). Putin is not a good guy and instead of lifting Russia up destroyed lots of opportunities for it to become a democratic nation. The only reason we care about Russia is it has nukes. If they didn’t have nukes, no one would pay attention to them. At the same time, Ukraine’s government is pretty corrupt too. Strategically, does it make a difference if Ukraine is under Russian control or independent? If I don’t want to send billions and billions of US dollars to Ukraine, am I far right? I don’t think so.
The left consistently moves the goalposts when it comes to defining anything. Far-right isn’t far-right anymore. It might just be the actual place most people would wind up sitting and the left can’t have that because if people advocated for normalcy, they couldn’t foment their real agenda; highly bureaucratic and unDemocratic centralized government control over everything from speech to resources.
You can never ever negotiate at arm’s length or honestly with Marxists. That’s where the big government advocates are today.
When someone calls an idea or a person far right ask them if they can point out something far left. My guess is they won't think anything is far left.
The term "far right" is merely a description of how far left most of the so-called leaders or elites of the West have become. Moreover, it's usage indicates a lack of interest in discussing or even understanding an opposing viewpoint.