Why would force be necessary to affirm a nation’s cultural identity if the people of the nation took pride in it? It’s not as though the faith of other nations was important. It’s a question of SELF-identity and SELF-pride. We don’t have to force anyone to acknowledge our worth. It’s enough that we see it ourselves.
No, I believe nationalism is a good thing, a common bond that cements the identity of a people. Fascism is just a codified system of tyranny, and nationalism is not a necessary ingredient.
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A country might have to protect its culture from internal and external threats. Both will require force at some level. Defending against an internal threat might mean cracking down on ideologies that are fundamentally antithetical to the American Revolution...like domestic, subversive Communism.
External threats might also be nations that militarily (and aggressively) push Communism, but it could simply be any nation that seeks to invade or replace our culture hear on U.S. soil.
I think you may have misunderstood me. I believe nationalism is healthy as long as it does not morph into the kind of inhuman form of 20th-century Nazism. But I most certainly beg to differ...Fascism implied a distinct cultural/national identity. When the Nazis and the Communists were fighting for control of Germany in the early 20th-century, the German Communists had a globalist loyalty, while the National Socialists had a distinctly German one.
I agree as far as it goes. But you've described Communists and Socialists, both of which were fascistic in their totalitarianism. Trotskyite ("international") Communism was no less tyrannical than the Stalinist ("Russian") version. And Mussolini's Blackshirts were not trumpeting their nationalist superiority; that "race of the Caesars" ethnic purity nonsense was borrowed wholesale from Hitler.
I don't believe a strong national identity is an important ingredient in fascism. It really only needs a lust for power and an intolerance for the opinions of others. A hive mentality, if you will.
And it's clear which ideology in this country has that to excess.