A friend of mine told me that he thought that Dr. Rowley was a fascist. I replied that that seemed a little harsh and that I wasn't certain that the Prime Minister fitted that description. In any case, I decided to look up the definition of "fascist" because it can mean different things to different people. Perhaps the best definition that I found was from a speech made in 1940 by then Vice president of the United States Henry A. Wallace.
He said that a fascist was "One whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures or notices as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends. ... For democracy to crush fascism it must put country first and dollars second."
Certainly, by this definition one cannot call Dr. Rowley a fascist - though some might argue (without justiciable evidence) that he comes close. My point here is that we must be careful with the labels that we seek to place on some people. They might not either be fair or accurate, though I wouldn't hesitate, for example, to call Donald Trump a fascist. What do you think?
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