The word “nationalism” has been in vogue for the past few years. What does it mean? Simply put, it is the idea that people sharing a language, & culture, in a given territory should govern themselves./1

It’s not a new idea, Machiavelli advocated it in 1513. Nor is it necessarily anti-democratic. Nationalists in 19th century Europe & the decolonizing countries in the 20th century were frequently liberal or social democrats./2

However, there is one form of nationalism that is problematic. It is anti-democratic, exclusionary, opposed to the concept of rights & the rule of law, & exalts the role & power of a charismatic leader./3

This is fascism, a political movement that mobilizes the lower middle class & the lumpenproletariat to challenge & destroy liberals & socialists, & exclude minority groups from participating in governance./4

Fascism’s roots lie in reaction to the French Revolution, & the ideas of equal citizenship it impelled. 19th century thinkers such as Joseph de Maistre & Thomas Carlyle challenged democracy & the concept of rights as/5

threats to a hierarchical social order that they believed ideal. Carlyle sought to restore slavery as the idea of equality for non-white colonial subjects was the start of a slippery slope towards president he elimination/6

of the heroic from society. All positive social & cultural change, he held, was the product of heroic Great Men. Even language required great writers to make it speakable. English would not truly exist had Shakespeare never written./7

Now this is monumentally absurd, but what should detain us is his belief that the state should be run by a heroic figure to whom all should bend the knee. His ideals of political leadership were Oliver Cromwell &/8

Napoleon Bonaparte, both of them military dictators. In the early 20th century, such ideas appealed to those hostile to the very idea of social democracy, and opposed to the Russian Revolution./9

Benito Mussolini & Adolf Hitler, the foundational leaders of fascism, both opposed trade unions & liberal & social-democratic parties, to say nothing of socialists & communists./10

Against the idea that the generality of people should share in government, they asserted the concept that the nation had a historic destiny under the rule of charismatic heroes like themselves./11

Other fascist leaders such as José Antonio Primo de Rivera, Cornelius Codreanu, Getulio Vargas, & Juan Domingo Perón, adopted these ideas (Francisco Franco was a special case since his objective was the restoration/12

of an imagined medieval Catholic Spain, & his forced party combined fascists, Nazis, & extreme monarchist Catholics into a tool of his rule). Nazism in Germany differed from other manifestations of fascism in its extreme hostility/13

towards not only democracy & the political left but to ethnic & religious groups it saw as inimical to the idea of a purified nation with an imperial destiny. Thus, the Nazis opposed not merely the presence but the very existence of those who did not/14

belong to the imagined Aryan race (a concept that requires its own explanation): Blacks, Jews, Romani, Slavs, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, & transgender people. While Mussolini & Franco were hostile to the Romani, gays, & trans, anti-Semitism/15

was not part of their conception of order. Franco even gave asylum to Sephardic Jews because they fit into his conception of Hispanicity. Codreanu in Romania shared most of Hitler’s idea, but never achieved power./16

Fascism is a jumble of ideas, but fascists sought to give them intellectual respectability through the publication of foundational texts. Hitler’s •Mein Kampf• is the best known of these, but Mussolini, Alfred Rosenberg, Carl Schmitt, & Alfredo Rocco/17

sought to give what was essentially a doctrine of the power of the leader some intellectual credibility. This was, essentially, an updating of Calyle’s conception of the heroic leader & his principle that/18

might is superior to right. The nation was defined as having a heroic, & imperial, destiny, & the leader (Führer, Duce, Caudillo, or Conducatore) as the force impelling the nation to that destiny./19

Thus, the Nazis sought the inclusion of all German-speakers in a single German state that would subjugate the Slavic lands, & purify Europe of “alien” elements, specifically the groups mentioned above,/20

by exterminating them. While simultaneously purifying the Aryan race of the mentally & physically handicapped. Mussolini, by contrast, wanted to rule the eastern Mediterranean & part of Africa,/21

seeing that as Italy’s destiny. Franco wanted to create a Hispanic community in which Spanish America would be subordinate to the cultural domination of Spain. All fascists sought to create empires of one sort or another./22

This created difficulties. Fascists sought alliance with each other in the joint endeavor of crushing communism, but their objectives clashed in some ways. The Hungarian Arrow Cross, for example, wanted to annex part of Transylvania, which is in Romania,/23

thus guaranteeing opposition by the Romanian League of St Michael, which wanted to keep Transylvania.The central element of all fascism, despite efforts to provide an intellectual veneer, is that force, & force alone, is all that matters./24

This means direct opposition not merely to democracy, justice, & liberty, but to reason. The only ideas that matter are those of the leader, all else is rejected. This means that fascists/25

cannot be reasoned or argued with as they are impervious to reason. The only way to deal with fascists is to overwhelm them by force. Quite literally, the only way to communicate with fascists is to punch them and keep on punching/26

them until they either surrender or die. Opposition to fascism admits of no other choice. This is regrettable, but I can see no alternative to overcoming fascism except by violence. I’d love to know/27

if anyone has any other ideas on dealing with fascism. I cannot, however, see an alternative. Ultimately, they want me erased. I can’t argue with them, so I have no other expedient. For any kind of liberty to exist they have to go./end