10A

In Bram's memory, those of us who can afford to ought to consider making a donation to his preferred charity, ICCF Holland.

Thank you for my editor of choice, Bram.

:wq

Yes, well the MAGA crowd isn't very conservative if you ask me, and personally I support DeSantis. I think Democrats are strongly pushing for a Trump nomination because they know he's unelectable, and it's an easy play.

But to your point, I concede that most people do consider MAGA to be right wing, and that Trump has on several occasions said things suggesting he'd like an autocracy. I think we can agree that'd be undesirable. I just don't think it's very conservative.

Like Jan 6th.

All that was, was a group of jaded voters who believed (rightly or wrongly) that there was election fraud. Personally I see no evidence of fraud substantial enough to change the election. But at the same time, I recognize that for someone who truly did believe there was election fraud, they were upset and they wanted to protest about it. That's all it was — a protest that was legitimate based on what they believed.

You are constrained by reality. Nobody is here to delete my posts and ban me for you.

And I'm glad about that, 100%. I wouldn't want you banned.

But back to the definition, you can't just pluck a couple of words out of there and say it's a match. The whole definition fits the left way better than the right, and yet in truth doesn't fit either completely.

Hmm, let's break it down:

a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti)

Could be leftists, conservatives, or any other political group.

that exalts nation and often race above the individual

Well that excludes conservatives, because conservatism celebrates rugged individualism.

Leftism, by contrast, embraces groups above individualism. This is what conservatives usually refer to as neo-Marxism. It's also known as identity politics. It's this idea that we're all members of a group, and that group gives us our identity. Then with intersectionality, you have multiple groups defining identity.

Two caveats:

1. Christians are the exception to the rule, where many conservatives do embrace an identity that can be defined as a group.
2. Leftists do exalt groups above the individual, but those groups are not normally the nation (at least not in the US).

and that stands for a centralized autocratic government

Yes, in general, conservatives support small government, while leftists prefer government regulations over private business, government handouts for the poor, government taxation of the wealthy, and government control of every little thing in life — basically big government.

Centralized? In the US, centralized means federal control whereas decentralized means State and local control. Leftists generally prefer the former, whereas conservatives generally prefer the latter.

headed by a dictatorial leader

Not applicable in the US, but I wouldn't put it past the Left in the near future.

severe economic and social regimentation,

Yep, see this thread for instance. Leftist love regimented control over what we're allowed to think, and they love silencing the opposition.

and forcible suppression of opposition

Oh, you mean like when Biden has his primary opponent, Trump, tied up in court with accusations and a threat of imprisonment? Or, you mean like this very thread where leftists are trying to silence the TERFs? Yes, leftists absolutely love the forcible suppression of their opposition.

In conclusion, no, it's not a perfect fit for leftists, but it's loosely close — and it certainly doesn't fit conservatives even slightly.

It certainly does sound like typical leftists if you squint. Everyone in this thread opposing free speech is an authoritarian. But if you actually read that definition word for word, it's a position almost nobody supports. What's more, the definition has been changed from the original political affiliation. I'm not surprised Miriam-Webster's open to redefining words, but try as they might, words still mean what they originally meant. Still, their definition is close enough to the original to demonstrate my point that there are no fascists left, unless you squint and look at modern leftists.

Fascists haven't existed since 25 Luglio in 1943. You can find a tiny number of exceptions over the years, but as a broad statement it's true. I'm not old enough to have argued with fascists, and I bet you're not either.

I was active in r/Conservative, and here I'm the primary contributer to m/Conservative. Hi, nice to meet you. When I'm engaged in arguments involving the word "fascist", it's rarely me using that word (unless we're literally discussing Mussolini), and usually me who's called that for favoring levelheaded conservative principles. I enjoy mutually respectful debate, but I find most others prefer to fearfully call me a "fascist," downvote everything I've ever written, block me, and walk away feeling sanctimonious.

I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall fight to the death to defend your right to say it.

When you ban people, you tell them to go form an echo chamber where they'll flourish.

A more intelligent approach is to imitate Daryl Davis, who has convinced hundreds of KKK members to leave the KKK, simply by respectfully talking with them.

You might actually learn a thing or two in the process.

ו שֹׁפֵךְ דַּם הָאָדָם, בָּאָדָם דָּמוֹ יִשָּׁפֵךְ: כִּי בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים, עָשָׂה אֶת-הָאָדָם.

Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made He man.

Genesis 9:6

I guess they must count graphemes instead of bytes — "𝕩" is four bytes.

TNSTAAFL.

You conflate puberty with the age of consent.