The Unutterable Political Epithet

Flopping Aces ^ | 09-08-09 | Rodney G. Graves

[Starman417]

The English Language is a constantly evolving thing. Having no official governing body, it tends to do so haphazardly (which is, in the end, a good thing). Efforts to enforce controls on the language (see Newspeak in Orwell's 1984, or "politically correct" speech on any college campus) are, at their heart, efforts to control thought.

I arrive at these ruminations today due to an essay from Hot Air's Green Room:

The Eff Word Fascism By Doctor Zero HotAir

It’s the ultimate political epithet, the atomic blast that ends calm and measured debate. This makes those who seek to be reasonable and persuasive understandably reluctant to use the word… and those who aren’t interested in either reason or persuasion eager to hurl it at their opponents. There is nothing surprising about the visceral emotions conjured by the mention of its name. The history of fascism is written in the blood of innocents, on a scale that challenges the limits of human imagination.

Indeed it is. That it should be so is something of an irony of history. Fascism is without question an ideology whose history is written in blood. Yet for all its manifest evils, Fascism is not the most blood soaked ideology in history. That distinction belongs to Communism, which killed nearly two orders of magnitude more innocents in the 20^th century.

More ironic is the common mis-perception of Fascism as a creature of the political "right." It was no such thing. Fascism was an outgrowth of Socialism and Progressivism. It's current assignment in the political spectrum is a testament to the effectiveness of Communist Propaganda (no enemies to the left) and the leftward tilt of the modern academy.

Doctor Zero continues...

Our natural repulsion from the concept of fascism, coupled with the way it has been cheapened by decades of use as a casual insult by the Left, makes it difficult for us to study it dispassionately. It is important to make that study, because fascism was not a mystical phenomenon, a curse inflicted on the Axis nations through the supernatural charisma of Mussolini and Hitler. Too many people recall the garish and horrifying trappings of Nazi Germany, and think “it couldn’t happen here.” It has happened here. It’s happening again now. We do ourselves no favors by refusing to see it, any more than we would be helping ourselves by throwing around baseless accusations of fascism where it does not exist.

Indeed. Those who have not yet read Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism would do well to pick it up and read it. Goldberg's thoroughly document book is a critical look at the roots and history of a systemic evil that needs to be understood. Nor is the accusation by Doctor Zero of an incipient Fascist moment in our current political environment misplaced.

[DMZFrank]

By definition, all fascists are left wing. It is not too much of an oversimplification to say that fascists are but right wing communists. They are both socialists who believe in totalitarian government. Stalin pulled off a brilliant tactic in the 1930’s after his troubles with Communism’s Trotskyite wing and the battles that the Reds were having with their National Socialist cousins in Germany. He simply declared that anyone on the right OR left who was opposed to the Moscow line was a fascist. The useful idiots and liberal fellow travelers of the time picked this propaganda line up and ran with it. It is amazing as to how long the intellectual half life of this lie has been.

At every opportunity we MUST take the time to correct this falsehood by showing our fellows as to how big govt makes totalitarianism MORE likely, since the small constitutional government advocated by conservatives is incompatible with a fascist state.

[PRO 1]

Brilliant

[Seven plus One]

... In a socialist system, the State is nominally separate from private industry, but it siphons large amounts of money from the private sector to fund the socialist agenda. Fascism maintains private industry, but places it under the direct control of the government. Private industry still exists, but the State sets production goals, directly controls economic activity, and dominates the management of corporations. Industry becomes enslaved to political goals.

Mussolini was a Socialist. He spent the early part of the last century writing and agitating for a more classically Marxist form of collectivism. His 'Fascism' was nothing but an 'improved', more all inclusive form of Marxist totalitarianism. We've seen Stalinism, Maoism, Peronism, Naziism, the whole assortment of 'isms', all with one thing in common; the total organization of a state and all the people living in it toward some arcane political end that nobody ever asked for and only a few ever benefitted from. When we watch a political party (or maybe a political class) in the United States follow such a well worn path which has as a destination only the permanent, exclusive possession of all political and economic power, we really have to do everything in our power to stop it now. Stop it cold while it's still possible, since as we have seen, once it gets that power, it is too late. Once the United States actually falls this way the world will be in for a long, dark age. There won't be a Free People left to set things right.