Defining Fascism

[Griff]

A philosophy or system of government that is marked by stringent social and economic control, a strong, centralized government usually headed by a dictator, and often a policy of belligerent nationalism. -The American Heritage Dictionary


Italian Fascism according to the bastard whose life's work reversed mankind's progress eliminating servitude to the State after so much progress had been made.


Wiki has a bunch cherry picking below
A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.- Robert Paxton Definitions like this are why Bush and UG are often called fascists.

The Cult of Tradition, The Cult of Action for Action's Sake, Disagreement is Treason, Fear of Difference, Appeal to a Frustrated Middle Class, Obsession With a plot, Pacifism is Trafficking With the Enemy/Life is Permanent Warfare, Contempt for the Weak, Selective Populism, and Newspeak. - Umberto Eco I really like his action for actions sake angle. It crosses easily into all Statist philosophy not just Fascist.

Organicist conceptions of community; Philosophical idealism;
Idealization of "manly" (usually peasant or village) virtues;
A resentment of mass democracy; Elitist conceptions of political and social leadership; Racism (and usually, though not necessarily, anti-Semitism); Militarism; Imperialism. - John Weiss

We have to be careful with some definitions that are out there because they are written with the intent of showing difference with the other authoritarian scourge of the last century. We probably won't get an agreed definition but authoritarianism, militarism, and nationalism seem to be the common threads. I would also throw the close relationship of business and government in there. - Griff