THE PERON �PUZZLE� AND ARGENTINA

Hands up anyone who knows the song �Don�t cry for me, Argentina�!
All hands shoot up.
Andrew Lloyd Webber has done a great deal to make the whole world aware of Evita Peron. The man she married, Argentine dictator Juan Peron, is however much less well-known and most people would not be aware that historians and political commentators often describe him as what Latin Americans sometimes call a �Fenomeno� (paradox). The paradox or puzzle is that he first came to power in Argentina as part of a military coup, so should have been �Right-wing� -- yet he became the champion and hero of working class Argentines, and to this day the major Leftist political grouping in Argentina (the �Peronistas�) is named after him. How come?

Anybody who has been reading all that I have written recently about the strongly Leftist nature of both German Nazism and Italian Fascism will not be surprised. Both Nazism and Fascism won power largely through claiming to be the champions and glorifiers of the ordinary worker and both Nazism and Fascism are routinely described as �Right-wing� too. Peron was just another one of that bunch. Peron in fact soon got kicked out by his fellow participants in the military coup and finally gained power -- as did Hitler and Mussolini -- through primarily political means.

And that is only the beginning of the resemblance: The doctrines Peron preached (e.g. giving the workers and managers equal say in running industry) were almost exactly what Peron had learned from Mussolini when he lived in Italy for some years in the 1930s. Peronism is Fascism. Also like Hitler and Mussolini, Peron was a great patriot and nationalist who got the foreign business interests out of Argentina and tried to make Argentina independent of foreigners generally. With the able help of his wife Evita, Peron made the Argentine people feel special and persuaded them that he was on their side and would lead them to greatness. And they loved him for it!

The only major difference is that Peron was clever enough to stay neutral instead of joining Hitler�s war. Mussolini stayed neutral for a couple of years too but finally made the fatal mistake of joining in.

So what it all shows is what most modern-day Leftist intellectuals passionately deny: That you can be an extreme Leftist and an extreme nationalist too. And it shows something very troubling too: That the combination of Leftism and nationalism is POPULAR! The popularity of that combination is also shown in the way Germans fought to the end for Hitler. Perhaps we should be thankful that modern-day Leftists (who are often anything but patriotic) have not learned all that their Fascist brethren might have taught them.

So the only puzzle or paradox of Peronism is one that modern-day Leftist intellectuals have artificially created for themselves. They refuse to accept that you can be BOTH a Leftist and a nationalist so are basically just lost for words (or sensible words anyway) when confronted with great historical figures such as Peron who prove by their living example that you CAN be both.

And Peron was of course almost as bad for Argentina as Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Mussolini were for the countries that they led down the extreme Leftist path. Before Peron came to power, Argentina was one of the world�s richest countries but Peron sent it broke and it has never recovered -- largely because, although Peron is dead, Peronism (Fascism) is still the strongest single force in Argentine politics.

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ANTI-GUN NUTS

I love this imaginary conversation pinched from Bovination. You will not want to believe it but it shows how opposition to private gun ownership is similar to racism. Now that is REALLY killing sacred cows!

The people in the dialogue are supposed to be discussing the recent tragedy at Monash University where a student from China used a handgun to kill two fellow-Chinese students:

Larry Leftie: One thing this incident proves is the need to ban guns.
Rudi Redneck: Rubbish it demonstrates the need to ban Asians.
LL: But Asians didn't cause this - guns did.
RR: An Asian did cause this.
LL: But if there were no guns this incident couldn't have happened.
RR: If there were no Asians this incident couldn't have happened.
LL: But you can't judge all Asians on the actions of a few.
RR: You can't judge all gun owners on the actions of a few.
LL: Even if you did ban Asians, gun deaths would still occur.
RR: Even if you banned guns, crimes would still occur.
LL: But guns are inherently evil.
RR: Why?
LL: Because they kill people.
RR: An Asian killed people on this occasion - does that make Asians inherently evil?
LL: Of course not - very few Asians kill people.
RR: Very few guns kill people.
LL: You don't agree with me, therefore you are evil!
RR: Leftie Loser!
LL: Redneck!


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QUIGGIN ON GUNS

Because he is such a rare beast -- a Leftist who seems interested in the facts of the matter --- quite a few non-Leftists seem to read and comment on Prof. John Quiggin�s blog. I did so myself once before (on October 2nd). His latest idea is pretty wacko, though. He asks libertarians to give a principled defence of gun-ownership as if that were difficult. Firearms are not a big interest of mine (my brother writes enough on that for both of us) and I have never owned one but it seems to me that the basic tenet of libertarianism -- that you should be free to do what you please as long as you do not harm others --- makes the right to own guns automatic. It is only using them to harm others that is proscribed. Semi-libertarians like Jason Soon may twist themselves into knots to justify why they OPPOSE private gun ownership but a true libertarian just finds nothing to discuss in the issue. Conservatives, on the other hand, feel the need to justify gun ownership in various ways -- usually by saying that it does and should equalize their chances with the criminals -- so perhaps Quiggin has just picked his argument with the wrong people.

Or perhaps he has mislabelled what he wants. Maybe it is not a �principled� defence he wants but a pragmatic one. In that connection I rather like the old saying that �an armed society is a polite society�. But Quiggin does not want to hear arguments like that. He has defined his ground and intends to fight only on it. Very naughty of me not to argue with Quiggin in the way he wants me to. I suspect that we both know that Napoleon won at Austerlitz by being the one to choose the ground on which he would fight.

I suspect that Quiggin also feels that he has delivered a rhetorical masterstroke in asking if the right to gun ownership should extend to a right to possess heavy weapons (machine-guns, bazookas etc.). He obviously thinks that everybody would regard that as a nightmare scenario never to be permitted and hopes to show from that that ALL firearm possession is therefore bad. I have news for him: There are already plenty of heavy weapons in private hands in Australia and I have yet to hear of ONE of them being misused. So his supposed nightmare scenario is already here and it is no nightmare at all.


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RACE AND IQ

I am pleased that my recent posting on the matter of race and IQ has not attracted any hate mail. The issue is super-sensitive and I spent a long time trying to get what I wanted to say just right before I posted it. But I do think that the truth of the matter has to be said -- even if some good people are regrettably upset by it.

One writer challenged me on whether IQ tests measure intelligence and the answer of course is that everybody defines intelligence in their own way. I know some people who think that owning a bull-terrier dog is highly intelliegent.

But if the concept of intelligence is not precise the concept of IQ is. IQ is general problem-solving ability. As Binet discovered over a century ago, it just happens that people who are good at solving one sort of problem tend to be good at solving all sorts of other problems -- and it is that ability which IQ tests measure.

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Email: jonjayray@hotmail.com.
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