RE: What is fascism? A lot is said about it. How much do you actually know?
I'll have to check it out. My personal definition of fascism is more a cognitive collection of studying the history of WW2 and people like Hitler, Franco, Mussolini, etc. I looked at their actions and those actions kind of have given me an internal concept of what fascism is simply based around their actions.
One thing I find sad is how many people call Trump a Nazi, Hitler, Fascist, etc. He might be a fascist as I think most of the people in our government kind of lean that way, but then he does stuff that doesn't fit the mold. Plus he isn't calling to censor anyone, block web pages (book burning), confiscate guns, and imprisoning and killing his opponents. Yet these things are all things that those attacking him with such labels are doing, and if they are not doing the last few I listed it is certainly isn't for lack of trying.
Trump has actually freed a bunch of people from prison. The key is he isn't under their thumb. That is the real reason to attack.
Yet what bothers me is how many people throw those labels or claim to be anti-fascists and if you follow their actions they are the closest thing to fascists we currently have.
Technically I am anti-fascist. Yet I know what it means. I am not someone who throws labels around like they are grenades to try to shut down opposition without actually knowing something about the label. Though I try not to throw verbal grenades anyway. I don't think that leads to anywhere positive, and shuts down the doors of learning.
Trump is a fascist. He is a nationalist. He is more Mussolini than Hitler, though. Il Douche, one might say.
His administration arbitrarily redefined an accessory as a "machine gun" without the slightest nod to property rights, much less due process or the Constitution. He declared a national emergency to build a wall. He is now trying to actively intervene in Venezuela. His corporate cronyism is obvious, and his tariff plan is classic protectionism with no regard for economic reality.
His opponents differ little in principle though. They all want power, and just disagree in some of the details of how exercising the usurped authority should proceed.
Anyone who understands liberty needs to care about the bump stock ban because it's another arbitrary dictate that turns innocent people into "criminals" by fiat. Sich "laws" prove the illegitimacy of government by laying bare the authoritarianism behind their pretensions.
The drug epidemic is bad, but the black market in drugs is 100% a consequence of drug prohibition. See point 1. We need to end arbitrary prohibitions to seriously address these problems, not impose new restrictions on travel and trade.
Venezuela is a mess. Socialism is destructive. But it does not dollow that "we" (the US government) need to militarily intervene. Can you not see the absurdity in arguing that government monopolization and centralization of power is both destructive there, and beneficial here?
Tariffs. Lobbyists. Banking as an industry. Regulatory capture. Subsidies. Bailouts. Sweetheart contracts. The military-industrial complex. The prison-industrial complex. The medical industry. There's a start.
What are you even trying to say here? Politics is about power and wealth for the political class here first and foremost, and the US government doesn't represent or protect you or me. See point 4 above. It isn't foreign governments taxing and regulating us to death. Foreign trade isn't a threat to security. May I suggest Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt?
If you support criminalization of innocent people, prohibitions, restrictions on travel, restrictions on trade, military adventurism, economic central planning based on nationalism, and a strong central government in general, you might be inclined toward fascism yourself.