Fascism

We've been conditioned to see Germany under Hitler as an unquestionably horrible example of dictatorial tyranny and inhuman barbarity--and to see our present American culture as completely opposite to that of Nazi Germany. And we like to think that if a tyranny such as that in Germany under the Nazi regime were present and growing in America we'd unquestionably be able to see it.

So it's a shock when we realize: most people living in Nazi Germany didn't see the tyranny!

Based on these criteria, it might be hard to distinguish America's extreme right from a good many Nazis, but I think the prefix crypto helpful in distinguishing them from their more straightforward cousins. For America does have a set of written ideals about human rights and freedoms at odds with Nazism, although these ideals have been interpreted with great flexibility or totally ignored over long periods of the country's history, often accommodating dark and brutal practices. Where the will to make good on constitutional promises does not exist, they remain fine words on parchment, as many wonderful-sounding third-world constitutions attest.

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. What, in its essence, is Fascism, but ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private power." Franklin D. Roosevelt

I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security. Huey Long

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. [ American Declaration of Independence

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