After I posted an article on LinkedIn yesterday about the current virus-driven obsession with hygiene being a threat to our cherished American freedoms, my LI pal Phil Rink commented that we should dial back the extreme language (though later saying he agreed some of what’s going on looks like fascism, but that it wasn’t helpful to call it that). He’s right that there’s just too much labeling going on to no good end, simply driving people to nonproductive rage at both extremes. (As a complete aside, his reference along the way to the “need to get the knobs off 11,” and a later comment from our fellow online buddy Jim Rossi featuring a Spinal Tap “Put it up to 11” meme, were a complete joy. It’s high time to watch that movie again!)

Still, Phil got me wondering whether, academically, what we’re seeing truly is fascism. So let’s explore.

First I looked to my trusty 1970 edition of Webster’s New World Dictionary. (I use such an old one because today’s dictionaries change the meaning of words far too quickly and often just to suit the whims of political correctness, which is idiotic.) It defines fascism as “a system of government characterized by rigid one-party dictatorship, forcible suppression of opposition, private economic enterprise under centralized governmental control, belligerent nationalism, racism, and militarism…”

You can argue we have some elements of some of those things. But we have none of those things for real, not in any significant way.

I write that last line with a bit of surprise on my part. Emotionally, I would have guessed before I looked the word up that I could confidently write here that we’ve been flirting with real elements of fascism in our lockdown world. How could we not be, what with the extra-legal executive orders by some governors, the absurd policing actions, and the blatant censoring of opinions unpopular with the statist crowd?

Don’t get me wrong–all that stuff sucks big-time. And some of it has a passing acquaintance with certain elements of fascism. But in reality, all our officials (or their bosses, anyway) are subject to regular recall by election. There has been no significant forcible closing down of protests. No real centralized government control, even; indeed, most of the sad exercise has been a model of federalism. And what the craptastic Twitter or Facebook censor, the blogosphere and alternative media trumpet.

I continue to think that the time for serious push-back against arrogant, smirking, abusive fools like my own governor is long overdue. I think it’s time for courage and common sense to prevail over abject cravenness. And that’s all happening, both in the legal realm and with good old-fashioned civil disobedience.

But Phil’s right. The best way to build that movement up is to dial back the rhetoric, and to appeal to as many people as possible with uniting ideas. Most people are good and sick and tired of what we’ve been doing anyway. It shouldn’t be too difficult to convince a majority that that aforementioned courage and common sense live inside each of them, and that they should let it all hang out.