Socialism and Fascism are ideological brothers.

Well, we were supposed to hold rebuttals till round 3, but it's too late now. Do remember that the argument is 'The ideologies of Socialism and Fascism are essentially the same.', this establishes that they are different superficially, but fundamentally the same. You are right to list my main points being: 1) "both derived from the same intellectual root" 2) "both hold the essential moral belief that the collective is superior to the individual" 3) "both reject individual rights and property rights" 4) "both require the concentration of power in the state" You did leave out #5, being "Both are built on a morality of Altruism/Self Sacrifice." I will first address your rebuttals to my 'essentially similar' argument, and the rebut your new point on how they are different. You countered, points 1, 3 & 4., but did not counter 2 and 5. That is, the argument that Socialism and Fascism are built on the moral foundation of collectivism & altruism remain uncontested. #1) You argument against them being of the same intellectual root is based solely on them being established in different countries. This is however irrelevant to my point. American's political philosophy has it's intellectual roots in John Locke and other English philosophers. While Fascism may have gotten political start in Italy, it's intellectual roots are the same birthplace as socialism & communism, the philosophers of France and Germany. You also make the point that Socialists and Fascists were at odds, however this is irrelevant to them being essentially similar or dissimilar. The exact same could be said for socialists and communists being at odds. #3) You argument against them both rejecting individual rights and property rights is that capitalism is at the core of fascist ideology, however nothing could be further from the truth. Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned. The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others. The only function of the government, in such a society, is the task of protecting man’s rights, i.e., the task of protecting him from physical force; the government acts as the agent of man’s right of self-defense, and may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. In this sense, Capitalism in relation to the market is the separation of state and economics. Fascism is the exact opposite of this. Fascism is, quoting Mussolini, "The merger of corporate and government power." Without property rights, Capitalism does not exist. The right to property is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values. As I stated in round 1, "Both “socialism” and “fascism” involve the issue of property rights. The right to property is the right of use and disposal. Observe the difference in those two theories: socialism negates private property rights altogether, and advocates “the vesting of ownership and control” in the community as a whole, i.e., in the state; fascism leaves ownership in the hands of private individuals, but transfers control of the property to the government. Ownership without control is a contradiction in terms: it means “property,” without the right to use it or to dispose of it. It means that the citizens retain the responsibility of holding property, without any of its advantages, while the government acquires all the advantages without any of the responsibility. “[W]e will do what we like with the bourgeoisie. … We give the orders; they do what they are told. Any resistance will be broken ruthlessly.”—Adolf Hitler, interview with Breiting, p. 36. In this respect, socialism is the more honest of the two theories. I say “more honest,” not “better”—because, in practice, there is no difference between them: both come from the same collectivist-statist principle, both negate individual rights and subordinate the individual to the collective, both deliver the livelihood and the lives of the citizens into the power of an omnipotent government. #4) As for "socialism as an ideology does not necessitate a centralized totalitarian state", there is no historical evidence you can provide to make this claim. As you yourself admit, historically, all socialist and fascist states ever to have existed required centralized totalitarian authority. Marx's view of a stateless society not only never existed, but I believe is impossible to exist. I will argue the theoretical case though and insist that it is 'in principle' the authoritarian state is a fundamental requirement. This is due to the nature of government itself. A government holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force. As such, a government to only acts in retaliation to force, as with capitalism, has a very limited scope. However in order to take, command, and regulate the property and lives of others requires and all powerful, all-encompassing state. Now to your main position: "The most important of which, is that fascism is on the far-right, while socialism is on the hard left to far-right. " I claim that this is not only a false dichotomy, but that the Left-right spectrum is NEVER defined, the definitions differ depending where you look, and that the ONLY dichotomy that exists is (More Freedom / Less Freedom.) As i mentioned in round one, A definition must identify the nature of the units, i.e., the essential characteristics without which the units would not be the kind of existents they are. The Left-right spectrum fails horribly at this. For example, note that on the left you have Communism, and socialism, while on the right you have Fascism and Capitalism. However, as stated above you could not have two more opposite systems than Fascism and Capitalism. Capitalism is built on the moral premise of natural individual rights. That no entity (another individual, another group, one's own government, another government) has the right to violate the individual's rights. As such the individual is an end in himself and has the right to seek his own happiness as long as he does not violate the life, liberty, or property of another. As such the government's only role is strictly limited to the protection of such rights. Fascism is built on the moral premise that the Collective(nation, race, etc) is sovereign. That the individual only exists to serve the collective and that the group may do whatever it wishes to him, to serve it's interest and the individual is urged or forced to sacrifice himself to the group. As such the government has a blank check on what it can do and grows in power. This is often embodied as a single person steps up to be the 'voice of the people.' the solidifying a strong, central, authoritarian state. Since it is clear that the same above is true for socialism/communism as it is fascism, and that Capitalism is in every way fundamentally different… It becomes clear that the Left-right spectrum is a false dichotomy. “Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only insofar as his interests as he coincides with those of the State … . It is opposed to classical liberalism which arose as a reaction to absolutism and exhausted its historical function when the State became the expression of the conscience and will of the people. Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual … Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State—a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values—interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people.”“The Fascist State, as a higher and more powerful expression of personality, is a force, but a spiritual one. It sums up all the manifestations of the moral and intellectual life of man. Its functions cannot therefore be limited to those of enforcing order and keeping the peace, as the liberal doctrine had it.”—Benito Mussolini, “The Doctrine of Fascism: Fundamental Ideas,” in Delzell, ed., 1970, pp. 93-94, 95. -----------------i) "I have to ask you, on what planet was Francisco Franco not nationalist?" I didn't say that. You read past the word 'belligerent'. As in you cannot say all fascist states go around invading their neighbors. ii & iii) This discussion would FAR exceed the 10,000 character limit. That being said, I would love to have it with you. I will just say briefly that the state's only property role in regards to property rights, are their protection. I think we both would agree with that a fascist state like in Germany violated property rights in your Jewish example. iv) Agreed on the quote, I did throw that Hitler quote in quite casually at the last minute.)