Why the Term ‘Far Right’ is Meaningless

[Valin]

PJ Tatler:

 

Robert Wargas

8/18/12

 

What kind of political party rejects capitalism and globalization and despises Israel? A “far-right” party, according to the Associated Press.

 

AP has reported that Csanad Szegedi, a rather porcine fellow who is one of Hungary’s most vocal antisemitic politicians, has actually found out that his maternal grandparents were Jews. The report states that this makes him a Jew under Jewish law; insofar as I understand Jewish law, this is correct.

 

My enjoyment of this delicious irony was cut short, however, by the report’s persistent use of the terms “right wing” and “far right” to describe Szegedi and his radical nationalist party, Jobbik. This party, in true European radical fashion, subscribes to the conspiracist version of contemporary history, accusing Jews of eroding Hungarian greatness through globalized capitalism.

 

Consider the following group of people, all of whom have been labeled “right wing” or “far right” many times over: Adolf Hitler, William F. Buckley, Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, Ronald Reagan, Slobodan Milosevic, Charles Coughlin, Chiang Kai-shek, Jean Marie Le Pen, David Duke and Tom Metzger. Forgive my including the obscure figure of Metzger, but he exemplifies just how ridiculous the term “far right” is: he was a neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard who nevertheless supported the Soviet Union for being a “white workers’ state.” On the above list are free-market libertarians, anti-capitalists, nationalists, anti-nationalists, Israel lovers, Israel haters, racists, anti-racists, fascists and anti-fascists. Where does this leave us in terms of a meaningful label?

 

(Snip)