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Originally Posted by ottopilot
In it's origin, fascism was not BAD or EVIL. It was a concept born out of economic strife which leaned in the direction of a strong central government, highly nationalized economy, and social management. Mussolini was very popular among liberals until the war in Europe. Are these not some of the basic characteristics of liberalism and socialism? Are these not facts?
Like fascism, the concepts of liberalism and socialism are not BAD or EVIL. Only the application of these concepts haven't been too successful (or humane) to date.
To claim that associating fascism accurately with liberal or socialist concepts as a "sublimbaugh bit of nonsense", sounds a bit like an argument I've heard before and I'm assuming that you're just repeating it. Your comment is probably an amusing one-liner among the faithful, but it doesn't make it true.
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Well, Jonah Goldberg, of all people, was cited in this thread as equating liberalism with fascism. He's an editor at NRO, an organization that needs no introduction, and his wife was the former chief speech writer and senior policy adviser for John Ashcroft. If that's not enough, Goldberg also hosts a Web-based TV show with a TNR editor as well. The man is hardly a disinterested party on the issue of liberalism.
Moving on, I would contend that no form of government is "good" or "evil." It would be more accurate to say that every form of government is "good or evil." What we can tell from fascism at a glance is that, no matter its approach to private industry or military strength, what all branches of it have in common is the reduction of civil liberties, to the point of elimination. Historically, fascism has been the doctrine of so many violent dictatorships that it can't really be argued as a viable approach, in comparison to other governmental forms.
Take Argentina, for example, whose despot is serving time in prison for murder and whose regime is officially responsible for the murders of 35,000 people and the torture of thousands more. Take East Timor, where 200,000 died and whose government was accused of genocide. You may think I'm cherry-picking, so I'll put this a different way: Can you think of a single fascist regime that
has worked? I would have to resort to Wikipedia -- and to say that these bloody cabals are well-known by sheer sensationalism is not a strong defense. By and large, the concentration of forceful power that fascism represents drives inevitably to bloodshed; remember how often it's said that absolute power corrupts absolutely.