And the only relevant differences between Westboro and the neo-Nazis seem to be (1) that they only want to exterminate lgbt people where the neo-Nazis want to exterminate political opponents, Jews, Gypsies, various other ethnic minorities, and lgbt people too, (2) that they aren't as numerous, and (3) that they have better lawyers.

The WBC consists of what? 100 members? They're going to take over america!!! Hilarious. Surely there are bigger fish to fry. And I'm sure anonymouse would support any national legislation banning anything they deem morally unacceptable.

I expected that putting WBC under the fascist umbrella might raise some eyebrows. Indeed, I struggled with how to categorize them. While working on the article, I even had in mind George Orwell's essay "What is Fascism" (1944). In the essay he stated, "By ‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come." So yes, I know that "fascist" is an overused epithet, particularly among leftists. But in the end, I opted to use the word.

The dictionary I have in front of me at the moment (Webster's Dictionary, published by Harper Collins, 2003) defines fascism as an "authoritarian political system opposed to democracy and liberalism" (p. 177). Granted, dictionary definitions don't always do complex political theories justice. If we were to use this definition, however, WBC starts to look fairly fascistic. I don't think there is any doubt that they are authoritarian and opposed to liberalism and democracy.

Fascists also typically need an enemy or list of enemies that they believe are corrupting the nation. The Nazi's focused on Jews, of course. Golden Dawn in Greece focuses on immigrants. WBC is obviously obsessed with homosexuals. According to their past statements and protest actions, they also hate Jews, Hindus, Muslims, the Chinese and Barrack Obama.

As James Tuttle suggested, I certainly recognize a difference between WBC and the Nazi's or Mussolini's Black Shirts. One of the objections I'd like to address is the fact that WBC does not support "revivalist ultra-nationalism," as Michael called it. Well, it's certainly true that WBC is very much against the United States Government and it's "fag enabling" policies, as they would put it. Does this mean they would not be belligerent nationalists if the American state's policies were virulently homophobic (ie. supportive of the death penalty for homosexuals, like the WBC) and hostile to any religion that was not an ultra-conservative version of Christianity? Based on what I have read about WBC, I don't think they'd be the least bit anti-government if this was the case. What would WBC's ideal nation-state look like? Well, I'm guessing it would be something like a Christian version of Iran or maybe Afghanistan under Taliban rule. And I think the ideology of these governments could be described as a theocratic variant of fascism.

So, keeping these ideas in mind, I decided to but WBC under the neo-fascist banner with neo-Nazi's, the KKK, and others. But the term hate group works just as well, and for historical reasons, may have been a better choice. Good libertarians can agree to disagree on terminology in this case, but I hope you can agree with me on the more important point: we must be prepared to confront (not just ignore) these kinds of people before their movement's get stronger.

Thanks again!

As the article states, those groups should be confronted. To quote Karl Popper "we should…claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant".

But yeah, totally. Anonymous are fascists. Go with that

Merely that the tactics/strategy being used against WBC by Anonymous are an effective, scalable and important part in a needed, vigilant fight against fascism in general.
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