Re: Excellent
When I see a certain race or religion being hearded into camps and murdered like Christians in the middle East the word nazi springs to mind
Even then, the Nazis hardly had a monopoly on genocide. I'm certainly no fan of the contemporary hard-right political movements, but I agree that the "Nazi" label is overused and distorting.
The more general "fascist" is also often incorrect, since many of these people don't appear to be supporting a particularly fascist system; for example the ones I've spoken with aren't in favor of mixed economies - they're laissez-faire liberals, or imagine themselves to be, in economic matters. While they may advocate some of the attributes associated with fascism, such as economic autarky, and may explicitly or implicitly endorse autocratic leaders and the like, there are innumerable variations on political systems, and a right-wing ultranationalism isn't automatically fascism.
While there's sometimes some short-term rhetorical advantage to throwing around those historical labels, in the long run I think we do better to try for a bit more precision.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
