I want to use the word crypto-fascism, but apparently there's already a definition for that. Maybe techno-totalitarianism?
There's a disturbing trend of governments applying technology to bureaucracy to better track and control people. For example, there's no document you can easily forge to get past the face recognition and fingerprint reader at the US border.
Under a tyrannical government, these technologies could kill millions of people, but under a normal regime they provide minimal benefit to society, like maybe they catch people overstaying their visa or whatever.
I would make a similar argument about gun control: Gun control can be used to great effect by tyrants, but offers minimal benefits at best under a normal regime.
For those who think gun control provides a large benefit, consider that murder has already become a minor problem in the US -- around 1/20 of what it was during colonial america. Suicide is much more common (and not easily reduced with gun control). Gun control is usually badly written (e.g. restricting rifles, which account for a tiny fraction of murders) and clumsily implemented and poorly enforced, and surely won't bring murders to zero.
Compare to a situation like Venezuela, where the military is literally blocking food aid from hungry people. I wonder how long that would last with civilian gun ownership?
Venezuela has a ban on personal gun ownership for many people, however many/most people still own guns because the murder rate is very high due to the insane poverty that's gripped the country. One of the leading candidates is talking about removing gun restrictions. The problem isn't that the populace doesn't have guns. Guns do not solve political issues. The US couldn't solve Vietnam's issues despite winning on the battlefield in most incursions. Guns don't solve any problems in nearly any case. Boots on the ground solves problems and lots of them. Basically there's no way individual people can fight against an armed military with modern weapons and transport.
I've heard that theory before, that individuals gain no political power by owning guns, and I'm not convinced. Tyrants are never apathetic about who has weapons and who doesn't.
Also, the details matter a lot. What percentage of civilians? Absolute numbers? Pistols or rifles? How are loyalty lines drawn geographically?
There are also all kinds of other political games the people in power play other than direct military confrontation. Leaving you unprotected (e.g. strict gun control and long police response times) amongst criminals is one way to make your rights useless.
That is relatively new, though. As far as I remember, in the "old days" as a foreigner you got those cardboard slips stapled into your passport which were removed again when you left the country. Today they just do this electronically and keep track of who is in the country by receiving your passport information from the airlines. (You can even check your arrival and departure history online: https://i94.cbp.dhs.gov/I94/#/history-search)
The US stopped doing it around 2014.
They also stopped doing it in JFK before they stopped doing it in LAX; so when I flew in one side of the country and out the other I had to argue with the clerk....
Are you a U.S. permanent resident or U.S. citizen?
It only works for foreigners, I believe, as U.S. residents don't need I-94 forms (the old cardboard slips). I'm also not sure if it works for Canadians, as Canadians can also travel to the U.S. more easily.
The only ways to leave Canada are by air or to the US, and in either case your departure will be shared with the Canadian government by either the airline or the US government. Among other things, it prevents residency fraud (claiming benefits like healthcare or old age pension while actually living abroad).
Countries that lack strong bilateral cooperation with their only land neighbour have to use other methods, like exit controls.
I would imagine it saves the government money and saves lawful visitors time. Many borders have a manual processing line when the automated system fails or there are further questions.
It is not a coincidence that people increasingly call the moderates (GOP and Democrats) in the US “corporatists”, which is a shortening of “corporate fascists”.
From what I can tell, if you are a republican corporatist, you are sometimes called a neocon. If you are democratic, then the term is neoliberal.
I might be missing some subtle distinction between the terms, but I think these definitions are basically accurate.
'Neocon' is a label applied to a group of formerly-liberal foreign policy hawks, who moved to the right in the 1960s and subsequently. They were some of the strongest voices for military intervention in foreign countries during and after the Cold War, and are considered part of the conservative movement. Think Paul Wolfowitz and colleagues.
Neoliberalism is focused on economics, not military policy, and advocates free movement of goods, capital, and (sometimes) labour to build a global interconnected capitalism. It's probably the 'consensus' position amongst policy elites in most Western countries, though is suffering blowback from varying groups including economic nationalists (who dislike its open, cosmopolitan, nature and lack of concern for the nation) from the left (who dislike its promotion of the interests of capital over the needs of workers) and from localists (who dislike its homogenising qualities and dismissal of the value of 'place').
I think most people just mean by corporatists 'beholden to corporate interests' rather than specifically 'corporate fascists'; in either case they probably don't mean the original meaning of corporatism, which was control of the economy via negotiation between organised interest groups representing sectors of the people (farmers, businesspeople, industrial workers, etc.) This was prominent in Italian fascism in the 30s and had echoes in various other parts of the 20th Century such as the institutionalisation of trades union bargaining in some social democratic countries from the forties onwards.
There's a disturbing trend of governments applying technology to bureaucracy to better track and control people. For example, there's no document you can easily forge to get past the face recognition and fingerprint reader at the US border.
Under a tyrannical government, these technologies could kill millions of people, but under a normal regime they provide minimal benefit to society, like maybe they catch people overstaying their visa or whatever.
Strange times.