Glenn Beck is a Fascist

I've long believed that we accuse in others what we ourselves are most guilty of. (I also hold to the the corollary, that we praise in others what we most value about ourselves; you can tell a lot about a person by their insults and their compliments).

That having been said, it has come to my attention that Glenn Beck categorically lumps all "progressives" together as fascists, and has even taken to referring to his political opponents as a malignant cancer threatening the very survival of America.

The grade-school refrain "Takes one to know one" aside, I find this dehumanizing reduction of all who think differently than one's self troubling; it is not the language of reasoned discourse, it is not the language of democracy. It is the language of a tyrant calling for ideological purity; it is the language of the dictator calling for the destruction of his enemies; it is the language of genocide. Classifying one's opponents as a disease is how the Hutus macheted the Tutsis in Rwanda; it's how Milosevic rallied the Serbians to slaughter the Albanians; and of course it's how Adolph justified the gassing of six million Jews.

Now, if Mr. Beck disagrees with President Obama, "progressivism," and everything they stand for, (and disagrees loudly at that), it is of course his right as an American. I in turn disagree with almost everything he says, but I would never deny his right to say it. But his denying of personhood (and therefore human rights) to half of America does not extend the same courtesy. It violates the spirit of the Constitution; it's everything he claims to oppose; it's Orwellian double-speak; it's un-American.