By Mike Cronin

It’s not always immediately obvious when the ideas of leftist lunatics are invalid. On the other hand, sometimes they build a philosophical foundation on the very thing they claim to hate – in order to achieve a slightly different (yet just as bad) version of that thing. A current case comes to mind: Antifa, the self-styled “anti-fascist” militant movement.

Merriam-Webster’s defines Fascism as: “a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.”  (Emphasis added)

Sure, Antifa is laudably against the KKK, White Supremacists, Neo-Nazis, and the so-called “alt-right,” but they are not so laudable in their choice of tactics: The exact same ones used by Hitler’s Brownshirts: protests and riots and violence employed to stifle opinions they oppose.  In other words, the “anti-fascist” Antifa groups use fascist tactics, in order to achieve…what?

Antifa groups aren’t advertising a clear end-state beyond shutting down their enemies, but the roots of the movement date to communist/socialist protests against fascism in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and 30s. You know, Communism? That “benevolent” form of human political organization which Merriam-Webster defines as “a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production?”

Ah. It’s not that Antifa objects to central government control of everything and everybody, it’s merely not having the precisely correct flavor of that bitter sauce that gets their turbans in a twist. Because gulags are just so much better than concentration camps and plantations, right?