A scintillating interview with Jonah Goldberg - my favourite conservative thinker

If my favourite right-wing thinker is the great Thomas Sowell - whom God preserve - then  my favourite contemporary conservative thinker is Jonah Goldberg, whom I'd also implore  the Deity to watch out for.

I won't waste your time explaining what I mean by those terms - mainly because I haven't quite figured out the difference yet - but I think Goldberg is less of a hard-core economic and social libertarian than Sowell. While that might make the former slightly less scary to liberals than Sowell, what the two men share is a contempt for the intellectual nullity and self-serving dishonesty behind most liberal thinking and the view that the role of government should be severly circumscribed - one of Goldberg's main themes is that liberal-leftists seem to feel there's no natural limit to the power of the state.

My favourite political book of the past deacde was Goldberg's brilliant Liberal Fascism, in which he argued that Fascism occupies the same part of the political spectrum as Communism, and that today's Big State liberals - with their mania for contolling our lives and our very thoughts - have a lot in common with fascists.

Goldberg's latest book - The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas - has just been published, and, as soon as I've figured out why the hell Amazon haven't yet made a Kindle version available, I shall read it.

I know I feature a lot of American right-wing thinkers on this blog - but, as far as I can see, they're the ones doing most of the joined-up thinking these days.

I'll end with a snippet from Goldberg's introduction to the book, which gives a hint as to what he's writing about this time:

There’s a kind of argument-that-isn’t-an-argument that vexes me. I first started noticing it on university campuses… Often I will encounter an earnest student… During the Q&A session after my speech he will say something like “Mr Goldberg, I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” 

Then he will sit down, and the audience will applaud. Faculty will nod proudly at this wiser-than-his-years hatchling under their wings. What a glorious moment for everybody. Blessed are the bridge builders. 

My response? Who give’s a rat’s ass? 

First of all, my right to speak was never in doubt. Indeed, I’m usually paid to speak. Besides, I’ve given my speech and we’re in Q&A time: Shouldn’t you have told me this beforehand? Secondly, the kid is almost surely lying. He’ll take a bullet for me? Really?

Should be a belter!