NRO’s Jonah Goldberg addresses Jefferson Society

Jonah Goldberg spoke to the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society on Friday, November 21, 2008, on the subject of his latest book, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. Mr. Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online, a contributing editor to National Review, and a nationally syndicated columnist.

After his talk, Mr. Goldberg took questions from the audience:

01:01:00 Are political humor shows like the Daily Show or the Colbert Report having a negative effect on today’s youth?

01:03:00 Could you comment on your recent debate with columnist Kathleen Parker on the direction of the GOP?

01:08:00 The Nazis may have begun with a socialist ideology, but had they not moved away from socialism by the late 1930s?

01:13:00 President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus; President John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts: would you classify these two presidents as fascist?

01:17:00 Why in modern political culture is there an impulse to associate with fringe movements like fascism?

01:21:00 What is it about Christianity that rattles totalitarian regimes?

01:26:00 What are some differences in the ways the right and the left use the rhetoric of “the moral equivalent of war”?