Damn fascists. They ruined the fasces!

The fasces, as a bundle of rods with an axe, was a grouping of all the equipment needed to inflict corporal or capital punishment. In ancient Rome, the bundle was a material symbol of a Roman magistrate's full civil and military power, known as imperium. They were carried in a procession with a magistrate by lictors, who carried the fasces and, at times, used the birch rods as punishment to enforce obedience with magisterial commands

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasces

totally normal, youre so right

ps fasces and fa#got share the same root word