Why do people lie and say that a fascist is a communist?

Question

when any educated informed person knows they two extremes of the ideological spectrum?

Why would they purposely describe a fascist as being a communist or a socialist when they know in their hearts its not true? What is their objective with this bit of chicanery?

Answer 1

even though that are at opposite poles of the ideological spectrum when you are extreme with your ideology it becomes a fine line between any political preference. extreme is extreme no matter what philosophical BS is used to disguise it, it always ends in one person or small group of people controlling the masses.

Answer 2

Anytime some ignorant person want to get a rise out of someone they throw out the "fascist" word even though they have no idea what a fascist is vs. a Socialist or Communist. Fascists invoke the memory of Hitler and gas chambers and millions of people being exterminated. Communism has come to mean many different things as well. China is technically communist, but it's markets work more like a capitalist system. Sweden and Norway are examples of Socialist countries, but Karl Marx would probably be a lot happier with their economic system than the Communism that developed in the former Soviet Union.

Answer 3

Simply because a lot of people don't understand what it means to be a fascist or a communist. All they know is that both are considered bad, so they go ahead and use the terms interchangeably and sometimes together at the same time. Though it should be noted that in practice, there are in fact many similarities between fascism and communism, and this could be part of the reason why people get confused. Fascism intends to be totalitarian and repressive, and though communism technically promotes exactly the opposite, in practice it has always ended up totalitarian and repressive as well. Hitler killed tons of people, and so did Pol Pot. Even though they had completely different political ideologies, they both ended up leading repressive, totalitarian, elitist, and murderous governments.

Answer 4

Anti-individualistic, the fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only insofar as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity.... The fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facism\

your making the mistake of thinking that right and left wings mean the same thing in all countries, and they don't,

both communism and fascism believe in the individual giving over their rights and individualism to the sate for the "good" of the state and both view religion as an opiate of the masses, the biggest difference i see is where communism takes all wealth and ownership from its citizens, fascism only takes it away from those deemed too powerful

Answer 5

Some people did not pay attention in class. Fascists are the extreme right wing, while communists are the extreme left wing.

Answer 6

Fascists hate socialism, communism, liberalism. Fascists fuel their own ambitions largely based on just how much they hate those groups.

Hitler and Mussolini were fascists, as two examples.

Answer 7

The Fascisti and Nazis sometimes presented themselves as socialists, and sometimes presented themselves as supporters of an alternative to both capitalism and socialism; they usually allied with pro-capitalist parties and advanced pro-capitalist positions, at least as leftists define capitalism.

Most people recognize the common features of authoritarian/totalitarian ideologies and the common features of anti-authoritarian/libertarian ones.

Just as libertarian socialists (like myself) tend to see Stalinism as basically right-wing (it is really state capitalism), libertarian capitalists (isn't than an oxymoron? - I'll let it pass) tend to see Fascism as basically left-wing (it sometimes claimed to be socialism).

Answer 8

Remember Goebbels' "Big Lie" -- you can get away with a big lie if you just keep repeating something over and over and over and over and over again, regardless of its basis in fact.

A very smart and dedicated man working for a horrible cause. He was right. And he is smiling in his grave.

Answer 9

Hitler was a fascist and for the "common man."

Pol Pot was a fascist and for the "common man."

It is a pretty simple and apt comparision.

Answer 10

The answer is in your comments. They are not liars, they are just not educated or informed (see 2nd answer, for example)