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Downvote the parent if you must, but it is not untrue. A defining characteristic of fascism is unchecked executive power, and this is the case here. There are
by revscat 14y ago
Downvote the parent if you must, but it is not untrue. A defining characteristic of fascism is unchecked executive power, and this is the case here.
There are no checks and balances here. The US intelligence apparatus has justified killing its own citizens without judicial or legislative oversight, at the sole discretion of the executive.
As uncomfortable as it may be to point out, that is fascism.
- gfodor 14y agoNo, actually, that's not what facism means. Facism is a specific type of authoritative power structure almost always involving mass indoctrination of citizens into forming a unified movement via heavy nationalistic propaganda themed around a "vitalization" or "rebirth" of the nation state. In other words, authoritative governments indiscriminately killing people, while not good, is not a defining measure of fascism. In more broad terms, "things that I think are evil" are not either.
- rhizome 14y agoAll fascisms involve the identification and elimination of undesireables. Power is the method by which that is accomplished, and nationalism is only a symptom of this force in operation.
- gfodor 14y agoyou have it backwards. if governments that identify and eliminate undesirables are fascist then pretty much every government in history has been fascist. ie, all men are mortal, but not all mortals are men. words have meaning.
- rhizome 14y agoI don't think of fascism as a state of being so much as a tendency, so yeah, choosing to recognize someone as undesirable is a fascistic tendency designed to disallow someone their freedom of being and/or thought. Throughout history different fascistic societies have sought to eliminate people of all schools of thought, free-thinkers and status-quo'ers alike, which while maybe too abstract an explanation in this context, helps illustrate how designating a terrorist or a "leader of Al Qaeda" is neither a self-evident logic nor an unquestionable act. History tells us that the more important a particular undesirable is to the acts of a government, it reveals actual weaknesses in the society that invests that government with its power.
- saraid216 14y ago"I can call it fascism if I want to and you can't stop me, neener, neener."