I enjoyed that article by Umberto Eco very much! Thanks for encouraging me to read it. I had read some of his work years ago, and had forgotten what a terrific writer he was. But like he says, fascism is "fuzzy". Take example number one, tradition. In the Nordic countries, the majority of citizens still belong to the state churches. In Finland it's almost 70% of the population. Most don't attend services, they just belong for tradition's sake. Are they fascist? In the USA, are the people that push for historical preservation of old buildings fascists? These are fuzzy definitions as well, which were written by a novelist by the way. I'm not convinced.

The USA has so many people in prison because our police are more concerned with getting victimizing criminals off the street than with crushing dissent or shaking down people for baksheesh. China executes thousands of people a year, and Russian cops rarely have problems with people resisting arrest because the pistol whipping begins as soon as they get their hands on a suspect. The USA is a rich country, so we'll actually pay to keep dangerous people off the streets. None of them are locked up because they said something the authoritarian government didn't like.