It is time for some Americans to sober up. We are now faced with an incipient tyranny of unimaginable proportions. If America becomes fascist, the world will descend into chaos and despair. So let us ask ourselves a question about America now: Are we free or fascist?
We have to define fascism in order to judge if we already have it in our nation. If we use the Constitution as intended, and especially the Bill of Rights, which is to say, as a demarcation of freedom, it will throw much relief onto the matter.
Those who believe fascism to be primarily nationalist, racist, and anti-semitic have a conception of the political system as defined by circumstantial manifestations – fascism is an ideology of unity in a great leader or party. It is characterized by command control of the economy, intense political propaganda, and a police state apparatus that tramples the rights of individuals. Whether the cleavages the ruler(s) choose to accentuate or exploit is class, ethnicity, nation, or religion (or some combination of these) – it is a matter of the flavor of a given fascism at hand, not a matter of distinct political ruling principles. Fascism can even theoretically be extrapolated out to the world stage, with nations as the distinct cleavages to be ‘unified’ by a great leader (likely acting on behalf of a governing body of aspiring oligarchs). The great leader is the public relations persona, the charming, smiling “face” of the organization.
The great leader is usually a classic narcissist. He can be extremely dangerous, especially in the face of public ridicule. He believes himself to be a Hegelian “big man of history” who is ahead of his time and the embodiment of the Zeitgeist. The great leader’s arrogance and narcissism can easily be publicly received as self-confidence, but this is usually a false image: Narcissists can be notoriously sensitive when it comes to criticism. The great leader usually wields what Max Weber referred to as “charismatic authority.” He is a well-trained liar and manipulator. He may feel himself to be as a canvass upon which the collective paints their desires. This feeling of unity with the masses can feed into egomania and megalomania. Grandiose plans and desires may feel easily within reach. He may perceive himself or herself to be specially anointed by God. There have been great leaders who believed themselves to be gods, or acting in the aegis of God.
Control of the economy in collectivist regimes is carried out in many different ways. Private property may be abolished, but this is very rare; more common is the seizure and re-distribution of quasi-private property by the state. Capital may be abolished, but again this is highly impractical; so many collectivist regimes issue internal currency or industrial credits (similar in concept to “carbon credits”). Regulations may channel business into desired production, may kill small businesses in the interest of larger ones, and can potentially control the economy through a system of prohibitions. There are a myriad of means to control economies and the most effective is to control the currency through a central bank. Central banks can trigger an economic crisis through overly rapid and massive inflation of the money supply or alternatively, a sudden constriction of the money supply – both can play right into the ruling elites’ hands. The chaos that ensues from a collapse of the currency demands swift and strong government action. Never let a good crisis go to waste, as it has been remarked.
The fascist regime is saturated with political propaganda. Politics infiltrates every sphere of life, and privacy seems to dissolve, like salt in a solution. Neighbors may spy on their neighbors, children on their parents, wives on their husbands, and teachers on their students. Speech is highly charged and explosive, leading to convenient calls to have it more regulated, thus cutting off dialogue and leading directly to frustration and violence. Television ads, billboards, newspaper and magazine articles, radio “PSAs” (propaganda service announcements), inundate the citizen with praise and support for the policies of the government and for the great leader.
Last but not least comes the police state. It is inevitable in a command economy that an overly controlling central government unleashes a host of unintended consequences. A market economy is founded on, and is most sensitive to, the demand of each individual for a desired good or service at any given moment. This is not merely a matter of idiosyncracies, but what medical treatment he requires, what kind of food he wants to eat, how much, and when, what kind of exercise he needs to do and how much – it is inconceivable that millions of individual, distinct human beings can be programmed to operate in a desired manner by a few hundred politicians in Washington. But this doesn’t stop the government from trying. As the central government’s best-laid plans inevitably go awry, more and more regulations attempt to dam the problems in, but they eventually overflow the system of levees the government puts into place.
In summary, fascism is the drive to unify the political, economic, social, and private spheres of human existence in the state. The state is necessarily oligarchic (see Michels' Iron Law of Oligarchy); "democratic" control of a state (a modern form of polity) is a ruse used to justify such "unification."
Many people think that it cannot happen here, in the “exceptional” United States. But the signs are all around for anyone to take notice of and compare to totalitarian regimes of the past. The propagandizing of children, the deification of a great leader, the nationalization of industry, the control of the currency, the overwhelming media propaganda, the attempt to create crises that demand swift and strong government action – does this not describe what is taking place in this country now?
America is at a crossroads. The temptation of turning to government to solve all our problems will be great. The price of standing up for liberty will become more costly. But if we continue our complacent abdication of personal responsibility for safeguarding this country for ourselves and our posterity, there will be nowhere to escape. We will be prisoners in our own nation and a shameful people in the judgment of history.
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