The town is no longer friendly for business

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/microsoft-admits-patri...

He didn't make that claim. He made a specific claim. Rather than debate that claim, you're attacking the word he used. Have you got a better word? As far as I know, the term "Fascist" is the most clinically correct term for that type of system. If someone were to use the less correct, but more emotionally charged term "Nazi", then your line of attack would have some merit.

Ironically, you've made rational discussion impossible because you're using your emotional reaction as an argument against the use of the most accurate term.

I believe this is a tactic. You don't want to admit that this is happening, so you wish to deny anyone the possibility of pointing it out, by insisting that the most appropriate term is "irrational".

The irony, of course, is that this attitude on a mass scale is what allowed the Nazis in germany to obtain so much power. Germans are not genetically fascist, they're just like everyone else. However, like everyone else, they had a very hard time believing that their government could be doing evil, and so they lived in denial. Even after the war, many germans found it difficult to accept that the holocaust had happened.

The idea that fascism, which has happened historically on more than one occasion, is impossible, is perpetuated for ideological reasons. A cynical person might say that those perpetuating the ideology do so because they know their ideology is at its root fascist. (In that case, you would be the victim, not the person I'm accusing.)

If you've got a better term for a society where the economy is privately owned but under absolute control of the government, and the necessary authoritarianism that goes with it, please feel free to propose it.

But your attempt to banish the word created to describe such societies simply because you don't like the implications makes rational conversation impossible.

For instance, rather than discuss the trends we see in the USA, we're dealing with your insistence that we shouldn't use the correct word!

For instance, the Nationalist Socialist Workers Party, also known as the Nazis, were a pro-union, pro-socialism, pro-farmer, party. It seems that the accusation of "right wing" comes from using the term as a synonym for "authoritarian".

The dictionary.com definition is better:

fas·cism   [fash-iz-uhm] noun 1.( sometimes initial capital letter ) a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism. 2.( sometimes initial capital letter ) the philosophy, principles, or methods of fascism. 3.( initial capital letter ) a fascist movement, especially the one established by Mussolini in Italy 1922–43.

Note the elements: A. regimenting all industry, commerce, etc. B. complete power C. forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism.

(I think the inclusion of "nationalism and often racism" is an editorial lapse here. Mussolini wasn't racist the way the Nazis were, and the role the jews played for the Nazis was an emotional one used to manipulate the country, not one intrinsic to the economic system of fascism.)

A. We have this to a great degree. For every industry there's some government agency that regulates it, and those regulations seem to be unlimited in their potential scope. They may not be completely regimented at this point, but I'm not aware of the supreme court striking down the theoretical power to do so, even when this "Regulation" includes completely shutting down the industry (say marijuana).

B. We've seen a sharp move towards complete power in the US in the past 20 years, accelerating under Bush and Obama. Many laws are passed giving the president more and more dictatorial power, and both presidents have exercised powers they don't have under the law and gotten away with it.

C. I argue that we've seen this with the regulation of the media, preventing anti-government views from getting into the mainstream media, with the "free speech zones" eliminating the idea of free speech by default, and with the censorship of websites.

This shutting down of websites being the initial action that brought us to this discussion, its worth noting that it is a key element of fascism.

While its true the websites being shut down now are not anti-government ones, this is always how they do it. They find some reviled group like "terrorists" or "drug kingpins" (the same role the "jews" played in germany) and then go after them. Nobody's going to defend pedophiles, right? How much internet regulation has been passed with the excuse that its to protect children from pedophiles.

And eventually it becomes fully regulated such that the perspectives are completely censored like they are on the nightly news.