From a reader:
Hi, It might be worth noting that that liberal fascism occasionally creeps into Supreme Court opinions, such as the Planned Parenthood v. Casey plurality opinion upholding Roe v. Wade. The following comes from a portion of the opinion that was reportedly written by Justice Kennedy (although the opinion is officially credited to Kennedy, Souter, and O’Connor):
“Like the character of an individual, the legitimacy of the Court must be earned over time. So, indeed, must be the character of a Nation of people who aspire to live according to the rule of law. Their belief in themselves as such a people is not readily separable from their understanding of the Court invested with the authority to decide their constitutional cases and speak before all others for their constitutional ideals. If the Court’s legitimacy should be undermined, then, so would the country be in its very ability to see itself through its constitutional ideals. The Court’s concern with legitimacy is not for the sake of the Court but for the sake of the Nation to which it is responsible.”
This is offensive: our “Nation” is supposedly composed of people who believe “in themselves” as a “people” only because there is a Supreme Court that “speak[s] before all others,” and the Court’s “legitimacy” affects the country’s “very ability to see itself through its constitutional ideals.” Compare that to what Mussolini wrote:
“Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal, will of man as a historic entity. It is opposed to classical liberalism which arose as a reaction to absolutism and exhausted its historical function when the State became the expression of the conscience and will of the people. Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual.”