Is America heading towards fascism?

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06 Nov 2012, 5:18 pm

Ron Paul as a fascist is laughable. He's about the most pro-freedom person possible.

The major parties though, they are inching us closer and closer to it.

thomas81
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06 Nov 2012, 5:20 pm

thewhitrbbit wrote:

Ron Paul as a fascist is laughable. He's about the most pro-freedom person possible.

The major parties though, they are inching us closer and closer to it.

You can't take a weasel word like 'freedom' and claim someone is 'pro-it'.

The very concept of freedom is something that has been the bane of philosphers since the times of ancient Greece. These days especially, one mans freedom (usually the wealthy) will counteract someone else's freedom. I can assure you that Ron Paul has no stake in your freedom, much less any one elses.

androbot2084
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06 Nov 2012, 5:22 pm

Under democracy people will vote for themselves entitlements. This will only stop if only land owners are allowed to vote.

thomas81
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06 Nov 2012, 5:23 pm

TM wrote:

Actually, communism advocates a rule by the party prior to the full transition into a classless society.

All members of society ultimately become party members, ergo all members of society have a say in how things are run.

I am not a classical communist by any means however the theory does have a certain resonance with me.

TM wrote:

I'd love to hear you make the argument that libertarianism is antonymous with democracy though...

I already did, a couple of posts ago.

TM
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06 Nov 2012, 5:46 pm

thomas81 wrote:

TM wrote:

Actually, communism advocates a rule by the party prior to the full transition into a classless society.

There is no choice in being a party member or living in accordance with communism even at that level, it's merely assumed a priory that everyone would want to out of their free will. It's the main reason why communism always ends up being totalitarian.

thomas81 wrote:

TM wrote:

I'd love to hear you make the argument that libertarianism is antonymous with democracy though...

I already did, a couple of posts ago.

No you didn't. You said that libertarians and fascists have a shared contempt of the common man being able to vote and affect policy, you didn't make an argument however you made a statement.

It's as nonsensical as if I were to state that "Obviously doctors are child molesters, they give kids lollypops, and touch them" having 1 shared trait, is a faulty argument from analogy if I ever saw one.

thomas81
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06 Nov 2012, 6:00 pm

TM wrote:

I do not pretend that communism is an ideal system, or that i even advocate it. Quite the contrary. However the practice of direct democracy has got to be better than a system where the general population gets to select a overlord every 5 years from a meaningless selection between 2 candidates who agree with each other on almost every area.

You attempted to say that communism is opposed to democracy, which it isn't. I was merely correcting you.

TM wrote:

I was making the case that when you remove electable figures from every facet of everyday life by privatising the offices they once presided over you undermine the democratic process. That isnt a statement, its the inevitable consequence of gradually undermining the very purpose of the electoral system.

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06 Nov 2012, 6:53 pm

thomas81 wrote:

TM wrote:

Correcting someone requires that you be right, I have yet to see you be right or sensible in any post you've ever written on this forum. Most of the time its anti-private sector combined with "the public sector is jesus" mumbo-jumbo.

thomas81 wrote:

TM wrote:

You can never privatize the government offices that are actually needed, such as the ones in the senate, the house of representatives, the president, local governments and mayors. You can privatize public offices that shouldn't have been public to begin with and who fail at doing their jobs every single day. Public officials are not hired on merits, they are employed by pandering to the crowd in a popularity contest where they parade in front of collections of imbeciles, idiots and morons who then elect them because "he's such a swell guy", never-mind the fact that he doesn't know the difference between debit and credit and is now heading up the budget office.

The whole concept of elections is a pisstake on merits and knowledge, until the system is made in such a way as to exclude those without the prerequisites to do the job. In an ideal system, someone running for office should be required to have the qualifications needed to get a similar position in the private sector in order to get on the ballot.

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06 Nov 2012, 7:00 pm

So what is wrong with giving up your free will for the common good of communism as long as you are voluntarily willing to join the communist party?

TM
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06 Nov 2012, 7:08 pm

androbot2084 wrote:

So what is wrong with giving up your free will for the common good of communism as long as you are voluntarily willing to join the communist party?

The challenge are not those who willingly follow the shepherd as his sheep, it is those who refuse to follow the shepherd, who under communism generally are as Heinrich Himmler said to Adolf Hitler "relocated". Under libertarianism people are free to set up communist/socialist communes if they so desire, under communism a libertarian is not free to set up his own enterprise in search of profit, or to not partake in the public delusion.

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06 Nov 2012, 9:16 pm

androbot2084 wrote:

So what is wrong with giving up your free will for the common good of communism as long as you are voluntarily willing to join the communist party?

Nothing, but if you disagree with communists, they put a bullet in your head or run you over with tanks.

thomas81
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06 Nov 2012, 9:20 pm

thewhitrbbit wrote:

androbot2084 wrote:

So what is wrong with giving up your free will for the common good of communism as long as you are voluntarily willing to join the communist party?

Nothing, but if you disagree with communists, they put a bullet in your head or run you over with tanks.

If you think that modern communists are the sort of people that put bullets in people's head or run people over with tanks you obviously haven't spent any time around any actual communists.

They're more likely to try and sell you a newspaper.

Now, the state police might put a bullet in your head for physically opposing the capitalist order.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Carlo_Giuliani

Then they will run over your corpse in a land rover to make sure you are dead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcpXH0gS ... e=fvwberel

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06 Nov 2012, 9:39 pm

Most libertarians do not encourage people to set up their own communes or cities based on communism. It seems to me that most libertarians encourage people to strike it rich under capitalism and libertarians believe that your chances of success are greater if government gets out of the way. This may be because libertarians believe people are inherently selfish.

However communism does not work because wealth is confiscated by force and this results in a totalitarian system. Now with libertarian values property rights are respected and the wealthy would have to voluntarily give up all of their wealth in order to form a working communistic society.

So my question is why do not more libertarians promote the idea of volunteering for communism? It may be the secret formula for bringing heaven on earth. A lot of people I meet are not satisfied with personal success but really want a community. If the experiment does not work you can always go back to capitalism but no one ever tries.

marshall
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06 Nov 2012, 10:23 pm

TM wrote:

thomas81 wrote:

Libertarianism and fascism shares an equal contempt of democracy and the democratic process.

As do communism, feudalism, to a degree social democracy (as evidenced by the EU, a non democratically elected ruling board which sovereign governments must follow), anarchism, and just about every other ideology there is.

I should probably end with some quotes about democracy:

"The best argument against democracy is a 5 minute conversation with the average voter" Winston Churchill.

"Think about how stupid the average person is, now consider that half of them are even stupider than that" George Carlin.

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. "
H. L. Mencken

"The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting. "
Charles Bukowski

"Democracy is a device that insures that we shall be governed no better than we deserve" George Bernard Shaw.

"Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people, by the people, for the people" Oscar Wilde.

"Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage" H.L Mencken.

"An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination" Voltaire.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance" H.L Mencken.

and perhaps my favorite,

"Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner" Benjamin Franklin.

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried." Winston Churchill

The problem with non-democratic forms of government is that the people who end up in power are not necessarily more intelligent than the "idiot masses". Just look at what happened in the latter years of the Roman Empire. At least there's only so much abuse the "idiot masses" are willing to take if the system is such that the rulers can't hold on to power by decree or pure force.

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06 Nov 2012, 10:56 pm

androbot2084 wrote:

So my question is why do not more libertarians promote the idea of volunteering for communism? It may be the secret formula for bringing heaven on earth. A lot of people I meet are not satisfied with personal success but really want a community. If the experiment does not work you can always go back to capitalism but no one ever tries.

In a libertarian society, I believe you can use any system you want. I don't think communism can can survive voluntarily as it would have to compete agents capitalism. Problem with communism it is a bit like owning a shared bank/credit card account. Nobody wants to put in but everyone wants to take out.

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06 Nov 2012, 11:28 pm

Jacoby wrote:

thomas81 wrote:

blackelk wrote:

thomas81 wrote:

blackelk wrote:

Yeah, God forbid we mind our own business, stop being the world's policemen and bombing the f**k out of everybody. So fascist.

That point alone hardly disqualifies him.

Fascist groups across the rest of the developed world, not excluding outright neo nazis are also arguing along the lines of anti interventionalism and staying out of foreign nations.

The problem with Paul and those like him is that the indigenous american population will feel the full brunt force of their reactionary policies.

How is a man who distrusts government, loathes it in principle actually, and wants to reduce its power, a fascist? This is pathetic. Paul is just about the least authoritarian candidate there is.

Fascism is an advanced form of capitalism. Fascism is when the state and corporations run as one, acting with mutual interest.

Free market capitalism (in its extreme sense) and fascism are inseperable. They are mutually implied.

Incidentally, both Mussolini and Hitler expressed an admiration for the beourgeoisie. They hated conventional politicians for the same reasons as Ron Paul.

lol no. Fascism is explicitly anti-capitalist and arguing otherwises is just plain dumb and shows you have knowledge of history.

Not sure that is entirely accurate.

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06 Nov 2012, 11:30 pm

Aspie_Chav wrote:

androbot2084 wrote:

That is not the way a true communist society is supposed to work, if it did turn out that way it wouldn't be actual communism. The idea is people contribute what they can to the general wealth and everyones needs are taken care of.

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