Stark raving mad

Digby has an absolutely stunning quote from Rudy Giuliani:

“We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for 30 or 40 or 50 years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.”

I guess we have to give the guy credit for being right up front about his fascism. None of this "kinder, gentler" nonsense.

One of her commenters offers up a helluva deep insight:

I fear that China is the new model for these autocrats. During the Cold War, conservatives believed democracy and capitalism were interdependent. China has proven -- at least to the Romneys and Giulianis --that capitalism can exist, and even thrive, without liberty. Freedom is being redefined. We are free to engage in business without regulation. We are free to support the government or leave the country. We are free to entrust our civil liberties to a government that will ensure that business will not be interrupted again. Thirty percent of the country is just fine with that.

That makes a lot of sense, and is so redolent of irony as to blow multiple fuses: the leading Communist country teaching the leading democracy how to be better fascists.

Perhaps that is what they mean by globalism.