[sauropod]

liberals don't believe in fetishizing the past, an necessary condition for fascism.

You are in error. Fascism at its heart is an economic system. The State lets you own private property; it just tells you what you can do with it.

There is nothing inherent about fascism that "fetishizes" the past.

[ketsu]

You are in error. Fascism at its heart is an economic system. The State lets you own private property; it just tells you what you can do with it.

There is nothing inherent about fascism that "fetishizes" the past.

Fascism is first and foremost and *ideology*. The term comes from the Roman fasces, an axe surrounded by a bundle of sticks, meant to suggest unity and an attempt to reestablish an imperial past. German fascism is very similar, the Nazi's goal was to reestablish the "pure" land inhabited by the German "volk".

The essence of fascism is *reaction*(i.e. it's a reactionary ideology). Fascism is an attempt to recreate or reestablish the glory days of an ethnic group. It tends to be totalitarian, which is where are this piffle equating it with socialism and modern "liberals". It's not.

Liberalism and Fascism are all *totalitarian* ideologies. They advocate the complete control over the individual by the state. It's a "kind of" relationship(i.e. lemons and apples are "kinds of" fruit, although a lemon is not an apple).

The essence of fascism is not totalitarianism, it's a longing for an imagined "better" or "purer" past.