How can words define us if their meanings change?

We’d like to spend some time discussing Fascism.  There were a few replies to our post a couple of weeks back that posed the question, “What is Fascism?” Last year, if we were asked that question, we might have responded by saying that Fascism is a far right ideology in which a strong military is a central basis for control both inside and outside of the country. 

All of us can probably agree that historically speaking, some of the most radical policies have been passed in times of war or strife. The New Deal and the Patriot Act are just two examples.  The New Deal caused the depression of the thirties to become the “Great” depression (read New Deal or Raw Deal) and Americans gave up control of their own lives, because they believed their politicians could adequately make their lives better.

When the Patriot Act was introduced, Americans trusted that their government would only intrude on the terrorists.  Do you feel the same way now?  What if some nut job who was associated with the tea parties committed a violent crime, and the entire group was deemed a terrorist organization?  Those who supported the Patriot Act could become the terrorists they so despised, in the eyes of formerly trusted politicians.  Okay, we’ll come back to this is a minute.

Take a look at the illustration below.  In school, we learned that there was only right and left.  We are going to focus on the socialism line for today’s purposes.

Fascism is still on the right, isn’t it?  That’s because there are two different lines.  Fascism cannot hold the same place as Anarchism because it is a socialist policy.

Fascism is manipulated capitalism.  Just like Nazism and Communism, Fascists pick the winners and losers in the economy.  Big business is state-owned with unionized workers, while the small businesses are privatized (sound familiar?).  The purpose of these economic policies is to equalize the citizens.   
Now return to pondering about the times of great strife in America.  It isn’t necessarily accurate to say that Fascists love wars in a physical sense: they love creating war-equivalencies.  The war on hunger, the war on drugs, the war on terrorism, the war on global warming, and the war on healthcare costs all have something in common.  Each of these has been used to tug at the emotions of good Americans, because in times on war we’ll do anything to win!

Over the years the ‘crisis’ or ‘war mentality’ of Fascism has come to mean ‘war’ in a physically violent sense.  Due to the fact that most Conservatives and Republicans are supporters of our military and of military actions, their ideology has become synonymous with Fascism.

We contend that America is no longer the capitalist nation we once were.  America has morphed into a sort of ‘Soft-Fascism.’ If you disagree, just think of how many institutions were taken over by the government in the last three years.

Please purchase Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism, you will learn things you didn’t know and be better prepared to speak on the subject of socialism in general.