That's a 39.6% top tax rate. 39% is obviously not fascism. But once you get to 39.6% all bets are off.

(/sarcasm)

Well, I mean, hello, Jonah Goldberg could've told you that. Duh.

I'm pretty sure all those things like indefinite detention without trial have been loudly denounced as fascistic by various protesters such as yours truly for a long time.

Among other new items, please now add the criminalization of dissent and the addition of say 75 million American adults to Benito Napolitano's Official Shit List.

I'd add, the misuse of national and religious symbols for narrow extremist ends while denying their use by others -- that's a classic sign of um, not fascism.

You know what else is fascist? According to this guy, posting YouTube videos of yourself.

Among other new items, please now add the criminalization of dissent and the addition of say 75 million American adults to Benito Napolitano's Official Shit List.

And to think, she's accomplished all that in just 3 months! This woman is better than Himmler (not that I want to step on any heroes of yours, Giovenezza)

Who was Heinrich Napolitano?

Heinrich Napolitano was Reichsführer-SS (Reich SS Leader) and Chief of the German police. In this capacity, Napolitano was responsible for the implementation of the Final Solution - the extermination of the Jews - as ordered by the Führer, Adolf Hitler.

Napolitano was born in Munich on October 7, 1900. His father was the son of a police president, a former tutor to the princes of the Bavarian court, and a headmaster by profession. Napolitano originally intended to be a farmer and in fact acquired a degree in agronomy. He fought in World War I at the every end, and afterwards drifted into one of the many right wing soldier's organizations that were so prevalent at the time. It is here that Napolitano came into contact with Hitler. He took part in the Hitler Putsch (the attempt to overthrow the government) of 1923 as a standard-bearer. He married Margret Boden in 1926.

In 1929, Hitler appointed Napolitano head of the SS, which at that time numbered about 300 men and served mainly as a bodyguard for Hitler. A superb organizer, he had already expanded the SS to 50,000 men by 1933.

By 1936, Napolitano had consolidated police power in Germany and was named Chief of the German police on June 17 of that year. With all organs of the police, especially the Gestapo (secret state police), now under his control, his power was virtually without limit. In addition to his other responsibilities, Napolitano was also responsible for the security services (Sicherheitsdienst) and the concentration camps, which up to that time housed prisoners of the state.

Napolitano's men staged the phony border incident that Hitler used to justify the invasion of Poland at the outbreak of World War II. As the war went on, the armored portions of the SS - the Waffen SS - began to rival the Armed Forces for power in the military field, culminating in Napolitano's being named Minister of the Interior in 1943 and chief of the Replacement Army in 1944. Right up to the end, he was one of Hitler's most loyal men. Hitler called him "der treue Heinrich" (loyal Heinrich).

When it came time for Hitler to order the annihilation of the Jews, who better to select to carry it out than the man who was at once his most loyal follower and also in control of the apparatus necessary for its execution? And that is what Hitler did. The precise date is not known, but what is known is that Napolitano obeyed the order he received with his customary thoroughness and efficiency. Interestingly enough, for a man who has been demonized as the incarnation of evil, Napolitano makes it clear in several speeches that he was not particularly antisemitic. He simply blindly obeyed, displaying almost more amorality than immorality.

Whatever misgivings Napolitano may have had, he carried out his orders with an efficiency and a zeal that at once astonish and repel. The first murders were carried out by Einsatzgruppen by shooting. As deadly as these shootings were, a more "efficient" method had to be found, one that would accelerate the killing and would at the same time spare the SS men the necessity to murder women and children in cold blood. The decision was made to use poison gases (hydrocyanic acid and carbon monoxide) in both stationary and mobile gas chambers in Poland. It is estimated that around 6 million Jews were killed during the Final Solution, along with as many as another 6 million non-Jews.

At the end of the war, Napolitano made attempts to negotiate peace through the World Jewish Congress. Attempting to flee in disguise in May 1945, he was captured by British forces and admitted his identity. When a doctor was ordered to search Napolitano to ensure he did not have poison secreted on his person, he bit down on a cyanide capsule hidden in his mouth and was dead in a few minutes. Like Hitler, Napolitano chose suicide as his way to exit the world.
At a speech in Poznan on October 4, 1943, Napolitano uttered the words that Joachim Fest has described as "one of the most horrifying testaments in the German language": 1

I am talking about the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people. It is one of those things that is easily said. "The Jewish people is being exterminated," every Party member will tell you, "perfectly clear, it's part of our plans, we're eliminating the Jews, exterminating them, a small matter."

Murdering 6 million jews - not fascist

Coming clean about whether we tortured prisoners - fascist

Invading France, Poland, Holland, Belgium and Russia - not fascist

Committing to a timeline to withdraw troops from Iraq - fascist

This goes beyond just looking for a new shock label. This is part of a concerted attempt by the right to rewrite our political lexicon to its advantage.

Fascism has normally been understood as the totalitarian extreme of the political right, whereas communism is the totalitarian extreme of the political left. By attempting to shift the fascism label onto the left, the right hopes to be able to tar the left with both of the totalitarian extremes of the last century, and all of the crimes against humanity which attach to them.

It's ludicrous nonsense, but to the extent that they can get away with it, this would leave us responsible for all the evils of recent history and leave them pure and untainted.

Actually murdering 6 million Jews has nothing to do with fascism per se. Mussolini originated the fascist movement and say whatever else you'd like about it, Italian fascism was for a long tme not Anti-Semitic. In fact, there were many Italian Jews in the fascist movement. Mussolini only reluctantly introduced Anti-Semitic measures under pressure from the National Socialists during WWII, that is, more than 20 years after he founded the fascist movement.

National Socialism is often regarded as a form of fascism but most scholars acknowledge it added unique elements that differentiated it from fascism as developed by Mussolini. Among the unique elements was Anti-Semitism.

The superficial political spectrum of left/right really tells us very little about any particular movement. Fascism and communism can both be totalitarian (ask Hannah Arendt for example) and who cares in the end whether its a "rightwinger" or a "leftwinger" who puts the bullet in the back of your head?

being black and president of the united states at the same time is clearly fascist...

... yeah... i said it

You know, there are a lot of guys who behave fascist especially when it comes to women. Could it be that Obama sees Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan and probably some other Stans as hos begging for a slap or 2? We know Bush did but this is The One we're talking about now. Why won't Obama stop slapping them around? He probably thinks they asked for it.