The Toronto Star’s editorial board has broached a horrific new viewpoint: that entrenched, tyrannical, absolute, unaccountable state power is the answer to Donald Trump’s “runaway train” presidency. It’s a great solution, they say, and it’ll do wonders for Canada!

Being the norm for modern mass media, this is not called totalitarianism, state tyranny, fascism, communism, etc. but instead euphemistically named the “deep state”. This is merely a renaming of a frightening and ghoulish ideology in order to make it more palatable.

Consider what something like fascism actually entails:

• … dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and control of industry and commerce

There are variations surrounding this definition but this is a good midpoint for comparison.

Of course, this could easily describe communism and socialism too and that is perhaps one of the fundamental reasons why Germany’s flavour of “right-wing” ideology was called National Socialism.

All of these collectivist ideals, from communism/socialism to fascism to monarchism to so-called “moderate” examples like democracies, are all fundamentally the same: absolute, total, unquestionable government control of everything.

Some forms of government are more overt about these aspirations than others but they are, and must necessarily be, all undeniably alike.

After all, if a government doesn’t wield coercive (i.e. violent/threatening) control over it’s citizens, how can it rule … by leading through example? Through the presentation of popular voluntary ideas? Don’t be silly! people must be forced into abiding by the will of the omniscient bureaucrats and demiurgic politicians. That’s why the world’s problems are almost all solved!

Of course, the past is littered with examples of how wonderful this type of thinking is.

The Star is essentially trying to warm people to the institution of yet another round of mass horror, destruction, and suffering and they believe that you’re daft enough not to notice any parallels between what they’re pushing and what history has demonstrated time and again.

Since they won’t do so, let us compare.

Fascism’s “dictatorial power”, or rule by one entrenched person or entity (especially un-elected), is described lovingly by The Star as:

…elements of Washington’s established power class…Career officials…the bureaucracies that carry on the day-to-day business of governing, operating with long-established norms of behaviour…

These groups are described in heroic terms as the “non-partisan civil service, whose mission is to serve whichever government is in office”, but are then praised for not supporting whoever’s in power in order to maintain “well-established ways of doing things.”

In other words, the virtue of un-elected and entrenched interests is that they serve whoever’s in power while refusing to serve whoever’s in power when “well-established ways of doing things” are threatened.

To put it more briefly, they serve whoever’s in power unless it goes against what they do.

Makes perfect sense! Much logic! Wow!

The “forcible suppression of opposition” part of a fascist/communist/socialist/democratic system is touched on peripherally in the above paragraph, though The Star never explicitly states this. They do repeatedly mention the FBI though which, as everyone knows, does their job through gentle persuasion and kind words in order to protect the establishment.

No…wait…they use guns, violence and threats.

My mistake!

So, yeah, “forcible suppression of opposition” to the established order that The Star droolingly idolizes.

Regarding “control of industry and commerce”, that pretty much describes government to a “T”. Between the Federal Reserve’s fiddling with interest rates, to the numerous licensing and legislative hoops that any business owner must jump through, to taxation and government fees, to the numerous ways that governments grant monopolies — it’s actually much easier and shorter to ask how government doesn’t control industry and commerce.

The topic of overt government control of the economy is quite extensive. Here in Canada it’s estimated that the government has direct control over roughly 60% of the economy and there are many indirect ways that are not immediately obvious. This isn’t a major departure from classical fascist economic models or those of communists/socialists, as I’ve maintained since the beginning.

The Star paints the opposition to Trump as a dichotomy between “left” and “right” political viewpoints but these are ultimately nothing more than minuscule iterations within a myopic, totalitarian, government-above-all mindset. The opposite of absolute state authority isn’t more absolute state authority, and giving it a different name doesn’t make it so. The solution to the problems of government isn’t more government.

Only the dangerously blind, naive, or stupid would propose that the powers of un-elected officials (not that elected ones are necessarily better), or unchecked authority of Übermensch bureaucrats are the way to establish freedom, justice, and a modicum of equality. It requires an abject refusal to examine the reality of history to make the claim that this time, totalitarian government will definitely work!

This is the ominous age that humanity has once again entered, one in which national publications like the Toronto Star openly espouse the wisdom and benevolence of the state, a violent, bureaucratic, coercive, unaccountable entity which has almost without exception always lead to some of the most horrific chapters in human history.

If it all amounts to a “deep state,” then we won’t apologize for that.

P.S. There are some points in this post that may seem contentious, such as the lumping together of fascism, communism/socialism, and democratic government. To the casual observer who has spent up to 12 of their most formative years in government indoctrination (public schools), this may seem like nonsense, but upon closer examination it becomes exceedingly clear that various forms of governments are, by far and large, mostly the same thing. That some happen to result in more mass abuses of human rights than others is partially luck and partially illusion, an inability to see what is clearly and starkly in front of one’s face every day. These are, however, topics for another day.

P.P.S. The Star Editorial Board must not even read their own editorials!