In politics, as in most things, the conservative is Aristotelian, and seeks moderation. At the extreme ends of the political spectrum are excesses that, in effect, become nearly indistinguishable in their nefariousness: communism aims at the subsumption of politics by the people; fascism at the subsumption of the people by politics; in both, the will of the State is to become identical with the will of its citizens, and politics becomes an end in itself. The conservative knows, like Aristotle, that politics is a means, not an end; the state may regulate actions, which form habits, which are the substance of virtue. But the state at best only serves virtue, and should not be confused with virtue, as it should not be confused with vice.

From this can be deduced that conservatism in this sense--which is the conservative's sense--is not a political doctrine, for it includes sentiments about politics, not political sentiments. But conservatism has consequences for politics, which is why liberals mistake it for ideology. Unfortunately, one of the most common manifestation of this mistake is the accusation that conservatism is "fascist." The association of fascism with conservatism is an odd one, considering the radical and reforming character of the former, and its obviously liberal assumption that "everything is political." The association is especially odd when we consider that most people associate fascism primarily with Hitler, not with Mussolini, and Hitler knew that his ideology was properly called National Socialist. That the West calls this "right wing" is not so much a result of a cool and objective analysis of Nazi politics at it is a testament to the success of a communist propaganda campaign; European and Russian leftists have a hard enough time admitting accountability for Stalin's evil without admitting the similarity of Hitler's.

When pressed, the only argument liberals muster for their association of conservatism and fascism is that they are both "absolutist." But there is a significant difference between moral absolutism and political absolutism, and the two have historically proven to be incompatible. It is the former that is conservative and the latter that is fascist (and communist). Hitler was no moral absolutist; his views of religion are virtually indistinguishable from Marx's: both considered it an insidious myth that weakened the true human (political) spirit.

Indeed, it is perhaps the most dangerous aspect of our reaction to the second World War that our schools and society teach that the lesson to be learned from Hitler is that moral absolutism is bad. Hitler, we are told, killed six million Jews because he believed in absolute truth. This is of course absurd; Hitler could be so ruthless because he believed in an absolute State, and because his means to that end were not impeded by a conscience which grasped a fixed and authoritative moral reality.

The liberal version of the legacy of World War II, then, is not only incomplete but completely upside-down; where we should learn moderation in politics and the danger of moral relativism, the liberal preaches, like Hitler, that there is no moral truth, and that all problems must be addressed to the State. The contradiction of the liberal's absolutist enforcement of "tolerance" is just the flip side of his disingenuous association of Nazi politics with moral conservatism.

But the prevalence of this false "lesson" is only reason to be more concerned that we may not learn from history, and it should be little wonder that some conservatives are concerned that history may repeat itself. Liberals have learned no real lesson of tolerance, and the commonality of the dismissal of conservatism as "fascist" is alone reason to believe that our public discourse is dead. This, of course, only reassures the true conservative that he sees things more clearly: surely the continued inability of liberals to address conservatism in any way more sophisticated than name-calling is confirmation of the weakness, incoherence, and degeneracy of liberal ideology.

Reprinted with permission from Right Reason, an independent student journal at the University of Notre Dame.