Am I a Fascist? A Conservative Responds...

Thanks to the magic of Trackback, I discovered this piece by Joust the Facts. He's all over the Michael Lind article like Garfield on lasagna, so please take a look...

Speaking of the Lind article, my post got a most curious response from Not a Fan (no kidding? I wouldn't have guessed it...). I quote in full:

People like you are a big reason that this country is on a downslide. You aren't wise. You aren't funny. You preach a political system that differs from facism only in name. You will wish you could retract your hate when the REAL American patriots return to power.

Now, I took another look at my post, and I couldn't find anything remotely hateful in it. That's fine, though, I've got a thick skin and anyone is welcome to comment, good or bad, as long as the language is kept relatively clean - but I'm getting a bit fed up with this fascist charge that gets so casually throw around. Look at my post - what is even REMOTELY fascist about it?

This isn't about me, though - it's time to stand up against this willful ignorance. The liberal branding of people on the right side of the political spectrum as fascist comes from the old canard that the extreme left is communism and the extreme right is fascist. As discussed eloquently in this article by Joseph Farah, the distinction is quite irrelevant, as fascism and communism end up in precisely the same place: the subordination of the individual to the greater good of the state or collective.

Anyone who takes a look around here or any conservative website with an open mind will realize at once that the modern conservative agenda is the complete opposite of fascism. It is the individual we seek to strengthen, and the state we wish to weaken. This doesn't mean we want a 'weak' America - we strongly support defense as a natural and welcome function of government, and we won't settle for anything less than the best. It's the control of the state over individual decisions that is our target.

Here are three examples from President Bush's domestic agenda:

1. Social Security Reform - partial privatization is a classic issue for modern conservatives in that it perfectly encapsulates our mission - it's all about who makes the choices, who has the control.
2. Tax cuts - as should be blindingly obvious to any but the most rabid Chomskyite, there are two reasons conservatives are for tax cuts - one, to put more money in the hands of the taxpayer where it belongs, and two, to starve the state from its natural state of agressive growth.
   
3. Health Savings Accounts with Deductible Premiums - taxpayers who take advantage of this proposal would save money on their taxes that would go directly towards reducing their out-of-pocket expenses and lowering insurance premiums. Again, more individual control means less control by the state.

It's not complicated, and its not a conspiracy. It's right there in the open. As I've said before, to equate support of Israel and a few anti-terror measures enacted in the wake of this century's Pearl Harbor with the crimes of Mussolini and Hitler is beyond contempt. Ironically, by crying wolf as often they do, the 'Progressives' are slowly devaluing the meaning of the word, and that's a shame, because true fascism is the enemy of all of us, right or left.