This morning I attended a conference called " "Bailing Out Big Business: Are We All Socialists Now?"
The name was obviously in response to the Newsweek cover claiming "We are all Socialists Now."
The panelists were Congressmen Todd Tiahrt, Jason Chaffetz and Scott Garrett, along with Fred Smith from the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
My Pet Peeve right now is people calling these business bailouts Socialism, when in fact is is something much worse - economic Fascism, or if you are offended by the very use of the word Fascism, then call it "Corporatism" (it's the same thing).
I went through the differences in a previous column called "It's Fascism, Stupid, Not Socialism."
After the panel finished I spoke with Fred Smith about it. Fred agreed that the bailouts are more Fascist than Socialist, but then he made another good point of which I was already aware.
People are uncomfortable using the word "Fascism" because they don't think of the economic side of it (Corporatism), instead they think of racism, anti-semitism, over-the-top nationalism and images of Mussolini hanging upside down.
Fred suggested using the word Socialism to move the conversation along.
I disagree. CPAC has the function of training the thousands of college students who are here. Why send them out to fight Socialists if their real enemy is Fascists? They won't even recognize the enemy, which is how Barack Obama got elected in the first place.
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