Well the contempt cuts both ways generally speaking, I can’t really tolerate the politics of the left in any form, but we live in a society where the politics of the left are acceptable whereas anything remotely similar to fascism is not — it creates a dichotomy for those of us who react in a similar way to both types of political extremism.”
I don’t understand this statement since the politics of the left are fascism. What is not acceptable to the left is freedom.
Okay, I will try to explain. I stated that the politics of overt fascism (like Hitler) were unacceptable in modern society. But communism is okay.
Your take is that fascism is the politics of the left. This is part of a vast modern attempt to re-brand 1930s style fascism as some sort of off-track socialism. That’s fine, run with that if you wish. For me, fascism was fascism, it was not socialism just because Hitler hid behind a party label with the word socialist in it (to attract votes from disgruntled socialists). Nor am I one of those people who thinks fascism is just out of control conservatism or nationalism.
Fascism was something unique in political history. It borrowed ideas from various places, blended those with occult or mystical quasi-religious concepts, and banked heavily on nationalist and nativist sentiments. I don’t think it was a second branch of communism, in fact the most virulent opponents of fascism were communists, and one of the main reasons Hitler came to power was a fear that centrist parties were too weak to prevent a communist revolution.
As to this modern widespread conservative-blogger effort to rebrand fascism as communism 2.0, I’m sure it will sweep endlessly around in circles within the blogosphere and have no impact whatsoever on other areas of society. Of course a lot of good ideas meet that same fate, but the fate itself does not guarantee that any such idea is good.
I do agree however that some leftist or in their own minds center-left politicians have adopted some fascist ideas in recent years, however, I see those ideas as more directly adapted from communism. Here’s one way to diagnose the difference. Fascists send people to camps if they fail to meet a test of ethnic purity, or they have a pretty wife that a fascist wants to steal. Communists send people to camps if they fail to meet a test of ideological purity, or have a pretty wife that a communist wants to steal. So there is some overlap. Also they both use trains. Correlation is not causation though.