There exists, by my count, about one million definitions for the overused and misunderstood multi-purpose-pejorative-at-large: fascism. This section from Wikipedia gets closest to what I judge to be its essential defining characteristic:
Fascism
is also typified by totalitarian attempts toimpose[s] state control over all aspects of life: political, social, cultural, and economic. The fascist state regulates and controls (as opposed to nationalizing) the means of production.(strikeouts & brackets, mine)
See here as well for a broader discussion. I don’t have a reference in front of me and Google didn’t save me, but I think Ayn Rand did the best job of crystallizing the difference between socialism and fascism. Both wield absolute control and power over everything, but in socialism there is no pretense at "property rights," whereas in fascism, there is. In fascism, the corporations are turned into the agents of the state, i.e., pretty much what the United States is today.
You, my dear friends, live under a fascism that you have easily been fooled into believing was "freedom," and you have for a pretty long time now. Perhaps now the Leviathan is getting to be such that people might start to get a clue. I dunno, but I certainly applaud anything that makes a serious try at waking people up to it.
So I came across what looks to be an interesting new film today. Head over there and do watch all three trailers. They are worth more than several thousand words of description here. Oh, yea: I could pick at it quite a lot. The whole Federal Reserve and tax protester stuff is nonsense. I mean, it undercuts the entire premise of the film: if your problem is a fascist State that creates funny money and taxes you, your problem isn’t funny money and taxes. Your problem is a fascist State. More fundamentally, your problem is the State.
Baby steps.
This sort of thing is step one for most people. Before they come to recognize the total illegitimacy of the State, per se, they perhaps must first come to understand how it arbitrarily creates politicized laws it does not itself abide. Of course it doesn’t: it’s the State. It seems simple enough, but the journey of enlightenment from democrat or republican to libertarian to anarchist can be a long road that takes decades to traverse.
In that sense, it looks to me like this film is potentially a great step along that road. Not everyone will be convinced, of course. At a point along the journey, everyone must ultimately grapple with one single principle: do you believe that domination of others (excluding small children and the infirm) through the initiation of force (non-defensive) to achieve any goal is ever justified for any reason, including retribution? If you cannot answer in the unequivocal negative, then you are either a brute whom peaceful people ought never associate with, or you’re unwilling to dominate people yourself, but are content to have your agents (those people you "vote" for and those in their employ) do your dirty-work for you. You know, dirty work like deporting "illegal" immigrants:
(I posted that photo here before, but John Lopez just reminded me about it.)