Republican beliefsFollow

That's the funniest thing I've read in weeks.

OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Please.

Gbaji, you're a bi[i][/i]tch.

Is that BROAD enough of a generalization for you?

Eb

You are seriously deluded.

You are aware that it's really hard for anyone to take anything you say seriously when you simply attack someone whenever they present an argument that you can't refute, right?

Here's an interesting paper on Fascism in the modern age: http://pages.prodigy.net/aesir/fah.htm


It's mostly focused on Europe, but you can get the drift. The important bit to note is that the author cites as the most common causes of fascism two basic paths:

1. Groups who call themselves "socialist", and have the best interests of "the people" in mind, but then gradually morph into full fascism (after all. Someone has to tell the people what's best for them and it may as well be an elite class, right?).

2. Nations that already have a strong Left, but no respectable or established Right. When the Left fails (and we're usually talking about Liberalism in this case, not really socialism), a fascist party will tend to prop itself up as the Right's answer to the failings of socialism and take control.


Socialism leads itself towards Command economies. Command economies lend themselves towards Fascism. It's extremely hard for a party that endorses a free market economy to morph into fascism since the primary plank on their platform is diametrically opposed to the sort of government control over the masses that Fascism requires. It's relatively easier for a party that already has the idea that they can legistlate a better life for the masses to take that ideology one step further.


Here's another interesting paper: http://econ161.berkeley.edu/TCEH/Slouch_Alternatives12.html

One passage:




In other words, you start with Socialist belief, then realize that it doesn't work long term, but then instead of moving back towards Conservative Capitalism, you decide to keep the command structure that Socialism builds and extend it to more facets of the people, including what they think, how they dress, what they believe in, and ultimately their duties to the state (expressed in a strong sense of nationalism).


Here's another from that paper:




I'd like to point out to the reader that Conservative Capitalists don't include unequal incomes as a "failure" of the system. Only socialists do. You have to start with a number of socialist assumptions before you can move to fascism.

Edited, Wed Jun 9 21:29:36 2004 by gbaji

Lol though this one had died out nothing like bringing back a month old thread.

Hmmm... I didn't bring it back...

Edited, Wed Jun 9 22:43:52 2004 by gbaji

Logic 101 Smash. A->B does not mean B->A.

No, indeed it doesn't. Aplogy accepted.



Gee, let me think a minute.

How about...oh I don't know...

GERMANY?

Is there ever going to come a day when I don't have to give you such BASIC world history lessons? Is there?


Please explain. There's nothing good on Comedy Central. Go crazy and try to provide some "evidence". I know you hate to do that, but just this once, humor me. FDR would have been to FAR LEFT to win the Democratic nomination today, crackhead.

German Democratic Republic.

About as aptly named.

Heh. Sure, but the point is that they rose to power on a socialist agenda. They appealed to the masses based on the ideals of socialism. Their leaders all came from a socialist backround. They took socialism and changed it a bit, and came up with fascism.


My point is that virtually every single example of a fascist leader is one who started out as a socialist or Marxist, and then adjusted his methods to result in facsism. There is not a single example of a Conservative Capitalist (interestingly enough referred to as "Liberalism" back when, which does not mean what it does today) becoming a fascist.

Here's another interesting read:

http://www.la-articles.org.uk/fascism.htm


An excerpt from that:




There's also an interesting section in there called: "What They Told Us about Fascism", where the author basically says that most people have the wrong impression about what fascism is and how it occurs simply because the "left" or social movements have esentially re-writen history to attempt to convince people that it's a right wing movement.



It's just hard to swallow the idea that fascism arises as a right wing movement, when every single example of a fascist is someone who used to be a Socialist or Marxist before becoming fascist. How many more times do I have to list off examples of this before people start to accept that fascism really does grow out of socialist thought?

You start with the assumption of equality of results and a distrust of the free market to achieve that result. Then you make the realization that traditional socialism does not solve those problems. Then you either resort to Communism or Fascism as a "solution" to the problem of socialism. That is the pattern every single fascist state has followed. Why on earth to people think it arises some other way? Could it possibly be because most of you went to schools where the curriculum was written by people with a left leaning political philosophy, and they didn't want to accept that their beliefs could lead to such things?

Yeah. I think so...

Edited, Thu Jun 10 00:07:38 2004 by gbaji

One, Franco. Of the three Fascist states in the history of the world, I notice you neglect Spain for some reason.

Two, you've listed one example. Mussolini. Where does socialism come into play in Germany, a Democracy when Hitler rose to power?

So, two out of the three options are from right wing sources. Two out of the three options feature a leader who centralizes his rhetoric around nationlism and war powers and "returning the country to greatness".

QED me.

Fasicism is on the extreme right of the political spectrum, true Communism on the extreme left.

Governments that decrease personal liberties are closer to Fascism, governments that decrease economic liberties are closer to Lennism.

You can have a democracy that is also socialist. Just look at half of the European nations today...




This is wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Fascism and Communism are both offshots of socialism. They have nothing at all to do with the American concept of "left" and "right".



Wrong. Both decrease personal liberties. Communism just lies about it. Neither are "free market" based. Both oppose big business and capitalism. They are nearly identical systems Smash. The only real difference is that fascism doesn't pretend that it'll divvy up the goods evenly afterwards. Facsism is also open about the fact that there is an elite class, while communism pretends it doesn't exist. That's realy it.

This is wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Fascism and Communism are both offshots of socialism. They have nothing at all to do with the American concept of "left" and "right".


No, really, they do. I realize you'd like it not to be the case for whatever bizarre reason, but they do. I didn't invent the terms "left" and "right" out of thin air one day, they've been in the political leixicon quite a while now. Since the French Revolution, actually.

Let me offer you a visual tool from my Government classes in College. It was a small discussion group headed by a Prof named Gary King and we were arguing about where the old Soviet Union would fall on the traditional left/right political specturm. The argument went something like this:

Annoying Ultra Rich Dillitante: The USSR was an example of why socialst or communist governments will allways fail. The more to the left a country moves, the closer it becomes to the horror that existed there. (sound fammiliar?)

The 'Roo: One, the USSR under Stalin and after isn't an example of a leftist government, it's an example of a FAR RIGHT government presenting itself as a leftist government. It was an Oligarchy at best and Fasicst at worst. Certainly Fasicst under Stalin.

AURD: No it wasn't! It was just the logical extention of left wing theory!

'Roo: No, it was left wing theory derailed by an ultra right wing leader who consolidated the wealth and power which SHOULD have been returned to the workers and imbued himself with it. That's not even marginaly close to the same thing.

Professor King: I think you're both missing something. While conventionally we think of the political spectrum as terminating on one "side" or the other, it doesn't. Think of it this way. Generally people discuss this in terms of the "political spectrun" right?

::Nods all around.

PK: Which looks something like this:

::Draws a political specrtum on the whiteboard, a line, where he writes Socialism/Communism on the left end and Fasicsm/Theocracy on the right end.

PK: We define certain charteristics of governmets as "left" or "right" to place them on the spectrum, as most governments want to present themselves as in the center.

::Nods all around.

PK proceeds to write a list on the whiteboard under the spectrum.

# Whether the state should prioritize equality (left) or hierarchy (right).

# Whether the government's involvement with the economy should be interventionist (left) or laissez-faire (right).

# Whether their opinion on human nature is broadly optimistic (left) or pessimistic (right).

# Support for the economic interests of the poor (left) or the rich (right).

# Fair outcomes (left) versus fair processes (right).

# Whether one embraces change (left) or prefers rigorous justification for change (right). AS in Eric Hoffer

# Whether human nature and society is malleable (left) or fixed (right). As in Thomas Sowell

PK: IT's hard to place the USSR using this standard. And while I agree with the 'Roo that in a classical model the USSR under Stalin and after probably scores more points on the "right" side of the spectrum, I agree with the Dilitante that it probably really doesn't belong there.

::Shrugs all around.

PK proceeds to add little tic marks on the spectrum with various forms of government where you'd expect them to be on the spectrum. Well, where I'd expect them to be, I have no idea about you.

Then above the forms of government he begins to write descriptions. Over the center of the spectrum he writes "Politically Neutral" Over "US Dems" he writes Slightly Left. Over "US Rep" he writes "Slightly Right". Over Brittish Labour he writes "Moderately Left". Over Cuba he writes "Very Left" Over Iran he writes "Very Right" and so on. You get the idea. At the end of both sides of the Spectrum, Socialist and Fasicst he writes "USSR Extreme Left" and "USSR Extreme Right"

'Roo: I don't think that works very well.

::Dillitante nods.

::PK Nods.

PK draws a circle. At the bottom of the circle he writes Extreme Left/Extreme Right. At the top of the circle he writes "Politiaclly Neutral/Anarchy" and begins to fill in countries. As Clinton was in office he shaded the US slightly to the Left. He continues to fill in countries, Iran on the right side of the circle near the botton, China on the left side of the circle near the bottom. At the verry bottom he writes "Stalin's USSR."

PK: I think this is a better working model for this debate. Extreme Socalism and extreme Fascism have much more in common with each other than they do with any of the countries governments near the top of the circe. While the US shades to the left, it has much more in common with a country on the right of the circle near the top than it does with Cuba. Where Jordan is further to the right than the US is to the left, it's still on ballance closer to the US than to China, while Iran is closer to China than to us, but by virtue of them both being Rightist governments is closer to Jordan than to us. On the old specturm it would be closer to us than China and I don't think that's an effective tool for this discussion.

PK: Extreme forms of government require extreme governance and I think that's why we feel fundementally that the USSR under Stalin has more in common with Iran than Norway.

::Minor epiphanies all around, the Dillitante actaully buys me a beer with 1/1000000000th of his trust fund money and I still see him once a year or so.

The point is, extreme Socialism is at the bottom of that circle. The two parties in the US are both slight shades from the top one to the left, one to the right.

Both parties are, hoever, EQUIDISTANT from the bottom of the circle. So, while Democrats might be more likely to lead to extreme Socialism, Republicans are Equally likely to lead to extreme Fasicsm. At some point they become the same government regardless.

That said, I think it's a silly argument to make that moving one way on that circle leads you to the end result. Being more likely to move towards Socialism is no more dangerous than being more likely to move towards Theocracy (as the Republicans clearly are in comarison).

The danger comes when you move too far from the top of the circle and too close to either extreme.

To close, Repulcians are certainly more likely to lead us to Fasicsm, and Democrats are more likely to lead us to extreme USSR style Socialism, but at the end of the day we'd arrive at the same totlaitarian state of affairs just down diffrent paths. While I might want a government halfway to the left around the circle (Norway), and you might want a Goernment a shade to the right of Center (Bush Sr.'s USA) Neither of us wants to fall much further than that.

End of lesson, no charge.