Fascism

In another of my series on arguments you shouldn't bother to have, let's consider fascism.

If someone calls someone or something else "fascist," they are too stupid to bother arguing with.

Most people don't know what fascism is. It's like calling someone a Nazi, or a socialist, or a communist, or any one of a hundred political epithets with which one may attempt to tar one's opponent. People have a basic understanding that fascism is bad and has something to do with government, so using it turns on those two circuits in everyone's brain. And then they either cheer or disagree, without really knowing what they're cheering for or disagreeing with.

But there's really no point in trying to argue; that's like arguing that something isn't spicy. The circuit got turned on in the brain, and thus, "fascism." Never mind that calling someone a fascist is silly unless they are seriously espousing a set of political doctrines which jive with the tenets of fascism. Because the person who uses the word doesn't know what the word means, most likely (unless they're in history class talking about Mussolini, and even then, they may not know what the word means), they're just using the word to mean "politically bad."

Even if that weren't true, it's a point of belief with most people who use the word. Their opponent is a fascist, and arguing that they don't know what "fascist" means is like arguing with someone about God: it's a general opinion of negativity.

I'm beginning to feel the same way about "terrorist," except there's some point in arguing that, because terrorist is something which has more far-reaching repercussions than what is, essentially, schoolyard taunting. Perhaps at some point I'll waste my time trying to point out that terrorism is not the killing of occupying forces, or talking about how terrorism is used for pretty much everything bad that happens these days, or how it's being retroactively applied to situations in the past which have as much to do with terrorism as the Internet has to do with a blank piece of paper. It would be a waste of my time, because for a lot of people, terrorism is just another word meaning "bad and having to do with death and the military."

Watch those lazy reaction words. Don't argue with their meanings. In fact, you probably shouldn't argue at all with people who use them. They're too stupid to bother with.

Yes, I'm being misanthropic. I don't believe that everyone who uses the word "fascist" is too stupid. Some of them know darn well what they're doing, in which case they're too evil to argue with. I'm addressing these comments mostly to people on the Internet, where "fascist" gets bandied about so often, you'd think every comment section was a discussion of Franco-Era Spain. It's not, and I wouldn't be surprised if discussions on the Internet of Franco-Era Spain have people calling other people Nazis, an even stupider epithet. At least fascism is a system of government. It's like going around calling people Baathists... wait, never mind, I'm sure people do that too.