Liberal Fascism Take 2

Dear Jonah Goldberg,

The thing that is most interesting about (your) book is that it's a shift in my thinking.
Quickly: my background is radical-left in college (mostly to get girls), then married a liberal (not a reader) and drifted back to my "ethnic" conservative (catholic) goldwater roots. I live in a hyper-blue state (MN) and 95% of the people I know are variations on knee-jerk liberals.
That said:
I learned in my radical days that "fascism" is the worst thing in the world, especially in its Nazi form. I learned that the left was (DESPITE Stalin, Mao, Castro... ) the "farthest thing" from fascism because fascism was a phenomenon of the RIGHT. This meant (mainly) that it had something to do with corporations (having and/or sharing power) and an intolerant minority (in the German version the Aryans, in the "Bush" version the wealthy, the corporate, the Republican blue bloods).
So, in "connecting" the history of progressivism to fascism you actually clarify some things and
confuse others for me.
The clarification is this: ah, so that's why every time I get close to the core beliefs of the hyper-liberals I "feel" the fascist boot even though, say, some lesbians I know say they are afraid of Bush rounding them up and putting them into camps! Get close to an environmentalist, a smart growth advocate, an animal rights activist, an anti-globalist, and there it is: we should ALL do it THIS WAY. Or Else.
This was one of the things that turned me off to the hippie movement, the "guilt" at the Co-op, you didn't have to work, but if you didn't you got the evil eye.
So, I get it that underneath the Nice is the jackboot if you will.
What's harder to get is that no one is the "opposite" of fascist, not even the most libertarian
(or anarchist) person you can find. We all are about degrees of fascism, degrees of controlling our neighbor.
OK. Fine.
I would probably look next to a sociobiological explanation: that in our (monkey) genes somewhere is a craving for a strong leader (troupe leader, king, beloved leader, etc.) There is a way we (as monkeys) feel comfortable with a strong leader and are willing to forgive their (many) foibles.
OK. I can accept that, too.
What you're saying is that conservatives (generally) lean toward one type of control, liberals another. As conservatives, we are used to being called fascists, and know this is hyperbole of the adolescent mind. Liberals (apparently) are quite incensed about being dirtied by ANY connection to the ugliness of Nazism, I suspect mostly for the Holocaust, and some for their militarism. But what if a Mussolini (non anti-Semite) had "conquered" Europe and won, and turned it into an "EU-ish" version of the Soviet Empire. Wouldn't the liberals be looking at that with envy? I suspect so, even as the real EU slouches its way in that direction now.