You never forget the first time you’re called a fascist.
I was at a party thrown by one of my wife’s friends (her social circle is almost entirely liberal), and I made the mistake of telling a stranger in conversation that I worked for The Washington Times.
A few seconds later, he called me a fascist.
The memory came back to me tonight when I read about someone else getting hit with the F word – far-left filmmaker Oliver Stone.
Richard Dreyfuss, who plays Vice President Cheney in Stone’s new film, “W.,” indirectly called Stone a fascist during a visit to the liberal talk show “The View:”
“You can be a fascist even when you’re on the left,” Dreyfuss assured the gabby hosts.
Dreyfuss was miffed that Stone’s film made President George W. Bush moderately sympathetic. That’s a no-no to a Bush hater in good standing like Dreyfuss, apparently.
Stone is many things, like a flawed, over-the-hill filmmaker, but I’d be hard pressed to call him a facist. So I’m put in the odd position of defending him.
I guess we fascists have to stick together.
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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, “isms, in my opinion, are bad”
Most Liberals are ignorant of the history of Fascism and its close philosophical ties to Socialism and Communism. It became popular in the 60’s to call Conservatives such as Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon “Fascist” and the practice continues to this day.
It’s a horrible practice, Jimbo. Plain and simple. And the ignorance is indefensible.
Is it kind of like Democrats being called “unpatriotic” “traitors” and “Socialists” because they have different views?
CC … true, true. In my experience, the fascist card is used quicker than the socialist card. But maybe I’m hanging around the wrong people!
At the risk of taking this someplace we don’t want to go, cc when the different view taken is unpatriotic,traitorous and socialist then the terms fit. If you’d like I could quote more than a few democratics to make my point.
I’m not saying all on the left are, but the complaint about being called those terms has become a kneejerk reaction to those on the left anytime someone doesn’t agree with them.
Right now anyone who isn’t for Obama is being called a racist. Being a republican, I’m automatically classified as being a nazi,racist,homophobic,sexist who wants to starve the poor, bring back slavery and sew womens legs together so they can’t have sex.
No offense intended, but when I am being called a nazi and a racist I have little sympathy for anyone on the left who doesn’t like being called unpatriotic, a traitor or a socialist.
Opus — I think the number of Republicans whose views could be deemed genuinely fascistic (is that a word?) is lower than the number of Democrats who are truly unpatriotic. The best example of unpatriotic behavior in modern times is anyone rooting against our troops in Iraq.
You can be against the war for a million noble reasons, but rooting on the insurgents (who kill innocents with Al Qaeda-like fervor) chills me to the core.
To paraphrase Harry Reid, “the surge failed” — spoken before the surge had even truly begun. He was wrong … and oh, so eager to wish the surge a failure. That, to me, is unpatriotic.
Opus and Christian: All you need to add in is being a church goer (aka evangelical wackjob) to complete their skewed profile. It is very sad to me that so many in our society feel so comfortable making such quick and erronous judgements and have no problem saying them to someone’s face. Why would anyone feel comfortable in a social situation going to that extreme? It makes no sense. Why can’t they just make nice and keep those crazy thoughts to themselves?
Of course, this is just my opinion from one fascist/racist/homophobe/evangelical wackjob to another (or two).
So Obama wants to create a “civilian national security force”, eerily reminiscent of the Gestapo/SS. Look who’s the fascist now.
Tink — the left gleefully mocks evangelicals … in films and in real life.
The left gleefully mock all Christians, evangelicals and otherwise. Thy just don’t “get us.”
Hi, Christian, I haven’t been called a “fascist” yet, but I’ve been called an “oppressor” to my face by a white liberal male . . . an irony of identity politics that was completely lost on him.
Anyhoo, the great divided between leftists and non seems to be that we think they’re wrong, but they think we’re evil.
that’s it, MM … it drives me nutso.