yes, i think the bill that passed the senate yesterday was bad, even disastrous for this country. a law that allows the president to detain anyone for life without charge and denies that person the right to have the detention reviewed by an independent court is a travesty and is contrary to everything this country is supposed to stand for.
but it's stupid to call this country fascist. it's not. i've argued repeatedly here that it is ignorant to call bin laden a "fascist." it's really no better when liberals start abusing the term. in fact, (and this should come as a shock to no one) bin laden--though not really a fascist--is still far closer to being a fascist than bush.
do i even need to list all the reasons that this country is not fascist? there will be an election in 6 weeks--one widely expected to result in the governing party to lose seats in congress. fascist governments don't have elections when the governing party can lose power. the new york times today had a front page story today airing accusations that bush ignored dire warnings about iraq. you can't publish articles critical of leaders like that in a fascist state. hell, you can't even publish articles like that in "free" iraq, at least not without risking arrest. and yet, i predict that no one from the new york times will go to jail for today's headline.
don't get me wrong, i do fear that this country is creeping closer to a dictatorship with its broad expansion of presidential powers. but it will still take a lot of creep to get there. we are still far far away from fascism right now.
the right often falls into rhetorical excess. they throw terms that have specific meaning like "traitor" or "fascist" at things that don't really fit the actual definition because they think the stronger word makes their argument stronger. but it doesn't. relying on explosive words just makes your argument look ridiculous and easier to dismiss out of hand
i can't take seriously whenever someone tells me that liberals are traitors. just by uttering those words, it's like they're tattooing the word "moron" on their forehead. whenever someone uses the term "islamofascist" in an argument it's like they're adding the words "i don't know shit about islamist movements" at the end of the sentence. all that calling america a fascist state when it obviously isn't does it make you look stupider.
