The Dangers of Ignorance

Recently there has been a lot of discussion on the boards regarding Fascism and Socialism with allegations flying both ways. Liberals call conservatives fascist, conservatives call liberals fascist and socialist... the problem is people bandy these terms about without knowing a certain part of their body from a hole in the ground, as illustrated by this recent post I saw:

"Fascist, socialist, fascist, socialist. Which is it? Can’t you people make up your minds? Do none of you realize that fascism and socialism aren’t the same thing? That they are in fact opposites. Right wingers are the fascists, not left wingers. I guess you people would know that if you didn’t use Fox News as the History Channel."

The History Channel... now that's funny! Obviously something the poster stumbled across while switching between American Idol and Dancing with the Stars. Let's take a look at this argument from a historical perspective.

What are these political ideologies? Setting aside the historical nationalistic and racial overtones:

Fascism: Centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

Socialism: Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.

Now, are these mutually exclusive? If one is going to control the production and distribution of goods, one must by necessity be dictatorial, one must control. If one is going to do this via the federal government then one is accomplishing this via a centralized government. If the government is controlling production and distribution then it is by definition severe economic regimentation, whereas if the government is "redistributing" wealth, one must regiment society between the 'haves' from whom money is taken, to the 'have-nots' to whom money is given.

A simple look at these ideologies both on paper and in history illustrates that they fit nicely together, after all the classical fascist state, Nazi Germany, was run by the Nazis. Perhaps many forget where the term Nazi came from, it is not a German word for dictator or fascist, it derives from Nationalsozialistiche, or the National Socialist German Workers Party. To say that Fascism and Socialism are opposites is to completely and utterly ignore both fascist and socialist states in a historical perspective.

To call a conservative a fascist is complete and utter idiocy... how do you call someone who opposes a centralized autocratic government, economic control, and social regimentation a fascist?

I won't call Democrats fascist, at least not yet... although the DHS report is indicative of perhaps a mild case of fascist paranoia, but they are meandering down the road of socialism in the sense of centralized government control of the means of production and distribution and towards social regimentation via the means of redistribution of wealth.

People enjoy tossing these terms around because they are politically charged and powerful labels that are used to discredit one's opposition... a means of "forcible suppression of the opposition". One does not need to shoot the opposition if one can discredit them. The scariest part of this is that in the past election, the results were something like 53%-46%, nothing approaching a landslide, yet that 46% of the population is suddenly painted as the "fringe" by major media outlets.

Conservatives who believe in immigration control, smaller government, less spending, lower taxes for all (not just 95% of us), the constitution, the 2nd amendment, the 10th amendment, who oppose the stimulus, socialized medicine, bank nationalization, and corporate nationalization are suddenly find themselves labeled by government and media as "Radical Right-Wingers" seen by their government as a potential anti-government terroristic threat.

My how far we've come in four months.

~Finntann~