A powerful point about totalitarianism

the other day on the Tony show, I called in and spoke to some corporate RNC brainchild. I almost had him blasted with a simple question.

I used "facist" but would have been target on to use "totalitarian" instead

I said something to the effect of "I understand what our grandparents fought against in WW II, facists and all that. Given all that our grandparents fought against in WWII, how can you support the reinstallment of those sentiments into power?"

He said "well, I don't think it's facism" and then muttered about Innouye and his war wounds... He really didn't have an answer.

I'd love to see some of these bastards pinned down like this - articulately, though...

capitalism and socialism are opposite ends of an axis.
democracy and dictatorship/monarchy are opposite ends of another axis.

A state can be totalitarian and capitalist (fascism):

"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism -- ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt

A state can be totalitarian and socialist (communism)
A state can be democratic and capitalist.
A state can be democratic and socalist.
A state can be anywhere inbetween the two axis. The U.S. has both capitalist policies and socialist policies.

Here is a list of some of the socialist ones:
socialized armed forces
socialized water
socialized police
socialized fired department
social(ized) security
medicare
road building/maintanance
public waste and water treatment
public schools

Most people left or right don't like seeing buisness and government merging together to become one monelithic unacountable thing.

Sensible moderates on the left will try to keep the power of big buisness down, by regulation which sometimes improves efficiency, by making room for competition.

Righties will argue that these goverment "attacks" on big buisness are facism. Sometimes they do have a point that regualtion and goverment enolvment benifits big buisness at the cost of small ones, stiffling competetion. Bribed politicians will bail out large companies and selectively enforce laws.

How the hell they can vote for a guy like Bush is beyond me.

I guess the big difference at least for me is that the right sees two main centers of power buisness and goverment. We see three buisness, government, and most importantly the people.

Where the right sees big government taking on big buisness, as a threat in that government can eat buisness; we sometimes see big government taking on big buisness on behalf of the people. We should limit these moves some since the three way balance of power is healthier then if government took over buisness.

Has there ever been a 100% socialist country that was democratic? I know Scandinavians come pretty high on the social scale, but they still have private buinesss. I don't think humans/democracy are ready for it.