[ek_hornbeck]

This whole "fascism is left wing" talking point goes far beyond the John Birch society and other fringe groups. It's become a very mainstream (though either naive or intellectually dishonest) tactic of the entire conservative spectrum. A good example of this is Goldberg's rather silly book Liberal Fascism, which everyone seems to quote as the final authority on the subject.

I had a debate with somebody on an earlier thread who said that Fascism was left wing movements because they were anti-individualist. I pointed out to this person that by this absurd reasoning, the military (and especially the Marine Corps) are the most "left wing" institutions in America because they are profoundly anti-individualist.

As you point out, laissez-faire capitalism and US/British style constitutional republicanism was perceived as a liberal (even radical) ideology by the aristocracy, the Church, the military, and the civil servant classes in continental Europe during the 19th and early 20th centuries. There were numerous reactions to both classical liberalism and to Marxist socialism from the traditional right, which American conservatives naively consider "leftist" because of their opposition to US style capitalism and Democracy.

[ek_hornbeck]

In my last post, I didn’t mean to imply that Britain was a republic, but that it had a constitution that created a balance of powers and limited the power of the monarchy over state and property.

[Zionist Conspirator]

I had a debate with somebody on an earlier thread who said that Fascism was left wing movements because they were anti-individualist. I pointed out to this person that by this absurd reasoning, the military (and especially the Marine Corps) are the most "left wing" institutions in America because they are profoundly anti-individualist.

A most astute, and correct, observation! It was not a Communist, but a French right winger, who once said that "the individual is nothing; society is everything."