Who Is “Fascist”?

by Thomas Sowell - February 13th, 2008 - Townhall.com

Those who put a high value on words may recoil at the title of Jonah Goldberg’s new book, Liberal Fascism. As a result, they may refuse to read it, which will be their loss — and a major loss.

Those who value substance over words, however, will find in this book a wealth of challenging insights, backed up by thorough research and brilliant analysis.

This is the sort of book that challenges the fundamental assumptions of its time — and which, for that reason, is likely to be shunned rather than criticized.

I have long been amused by the insistence of socialist extremists that they can hurl the insult of fascist at anyone who they see to be politically to their right. It simply proves they are ignorant of the definition of the word. Since fascist means a single party system with a dictator using the military against civilians for government control of economic enterprise. To hurl the insult is the supreme irony since they are the only current practitioners of anything similar.

Whenever I have pointed this out they just look confused and then angry.

Another favorite insult the left hurls at those they see as on the right is nazi, which again means National Socialist. The leftists who are hurling the insults are the socialists. The reality is that they simply use any negative they can to insult their opponents wihtout really understanding what the insult means. This is standard practice of fascists and nazis. There is a famous view that people demean others with what they see as their own weaknesses. The socialists and other liberal extremists certainly give great credence to that concept every time they call conservatives fascist or nazi.