Ignorance strikes again.
Jul. 25th, 2009 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
libertangoFrom a thread I've posted to:
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Using "fascist" as a "bad word" to show your displeasure, when you don't know what it means, is not unlike a virgin saying "fuck."
For the record, according to the Oxford English Dictionary:
"Fascist, n. and a. -- One of a body of Italian nationalists, which was organized in 1919 to oppose communism in Italy, and, as the partito nazionale fascista, under the leadership of Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), controlled that country from 1922 to 1943; also transf. applied to the members of similar organizations in other countries. Also, a person having Fascist sympathies or convictions; (loosely) a person of right-wing authoritarian views. Hence as adj., of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Fascism or Fascists."
No party in America matches that description. No elected official in America matches that description. To think otherwise would be the epitome of "blaming America first."
*^*^*
Using "fascist" as a "bad word" to show your displeasure, when you don't know what it means, is not unlike a virgin saying "fuck."
For the record, according to the Oxford English Dictionary:
"Fascist, n. and a. -- One of a body of Italian nationalists, which was organized in 1919 to oppose communism in Italy, and, as the partito nazionale fascista, under the leadership of Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), controlled that country from 1922 to 1943; also transf. applied to the members of similar organizations in other countries. Also, a person having Fascist sympathies or convictions; (loosely) a person of right-wing authoritarian views. Hence as adj., of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Fascism or Fascists."
No party in America matches that description. No elected official in America matches that description. To think otherwise would be the epitome of "blaming America first."
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-26 05:59 am (UTC)No major party in America matches that description. No party in America that has elected representatives matches that description...
...but there are lunatics (http://www.americanfascistmovement.com/) everywhere.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-26 02:40 pm (UTC)Especially since the "applied to similar parties elsewhere" would seem to give rise to the possibility of rather broad definitions that would apply to parties that were nationalist and anti-communist. Which aren't that thin on the ground.