Are you sure that the root isn't faeces?

During the presidential campaign, I would think of that symbol every time "Il Dufe" talked about "unity."

Brother can you spare a fascist dime?

http://www.pajamasmedia.com/instapundit-archive/archives/018605.php

I guess "statist party" is a more polite term. But isn't the essence of the state force? And don't the fasces represent the force of the state?

I like calling an axe an axe. A guitar can also be an axe. I'm not sure about a harmonica. But I digress.

The initial fascist idea was the economy will prosper, the trains will run on time, and people will stop using illegal drugs. Well OK the last was more a progressive idea. But the 1920 fascists were not above cribbing if they found a good idea. Any way all this goodness was going to be ENFORCED. STRICTLY. Some real D&S excitement that could get you killed.

As you might guess the fascists eventually ran out of excitement.

In any case it is not my fault that the Germans and Italians ruined a perfectly good term and now the PC thing to do is to substitute the wet dishrag and totally PC "statist". I like fascist. A guy wrote half a book about it:

Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning

What he left off was a critique of Conservative Fascism.

I do acknowledge that fascism may have more bite. But I also contend it is descriptive.

It's very easy to call the republicans the "moral fascist party" and to fall into that way of looking at politics. Makes ones lefty intellectual friends understand that one is not a neanderthal, at least. I fall into this trap myself, sometimes.

But in reality, the democrats are the "pure" fascist party. Where republicans have these one-off moral stands like abortion and prostitution and drugs, democrats seek to enforce an entire moral code - ALTRUISM - from top to bottom, since we humans (in their view) are depraved and selfish creatures posessed of no free will to act in the ways they define as moral.

I've found that the best way to deal with intellectuals is to confront them on that point.

"Why do you feel the need to legislate morality? Why can I not live selfishly while you live altruistically? I would give you the option to live however you want, were I in power. And if we have no volition, and reason is worthless, as you say, what catalyst in that congolemeration of chemicals you call your mind has caused you to lust for such utter control over me? Because you certainly can't KNOW you're right with any certainty."

Mark,

The dangers IMO are equal. Although not equally immanent.

In one the criminals are the government. In the other criminals are the shadow government.

I think a narco state is just as unappealing as a socialist state.