Is the US becoming more fascist?

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This is a topic from another message board that is being hotly debated. I want to hear your take on it. I will actually just leave this open to discussion and add my thoughts on it later. Personally, I think so because more powers are being added to the presidency, some of the constitutional amendents such as #1 and 4# are being gradually eroded, and so on....

I agree.

We've been on a slippery slope toward totalitarianism for a long time. It's an incremental process and not something that has happened over night. It will continue because not enough people give a $hit.

Depending on your definition I agree.
Looking in from the outside the similarities with 1930's Germany are definitely there, though the method and manifestation is more subtle at times and the delusional self belief more extremely defended as 'freedom' ???
peace j

We're already not a true Democracy. All this "Representative Democracy" crap does is let us vote for our oligarchy, but many other things are also contributing to our eroding freedom.
I'll name a few: Patriot Act, The Republicans and the Democrats making it so that no other party stands a chance (not allowed in the debates etc. etc.), Hate crime legislation, Political correctness, Corporate welfare and giant corporations, and corporations bribing our oligarchy,

This is just a myth perpetuated by hyper-paranoid Chicken Little liberals. Taken in context with all of America's history, what is happening now is not very different or very surprising.

The problem is the voters fault. They put these people in power. Let them suck on it for a while.

I think that the US is moving towards fascism and I would cite the increase in governmental size, the managed economic system, and the social intervention in the government.

You forget libertarians, I am not saying that the current US is very surprising at all really. It fits in with US history quite fine, however, that does not mean that the US isn't on a descent into fascism that has been going for a significant number of decades if not longer. At least we can say that the current US is more fascist than previous US governments and that it has been going that direction over time in many ways given fascism's need of a large government, controlled economy and totalitarian state contrasted with traditional American liberalism.

Meh, voters are not likely to make things better. If I had to guess, voters are ideologically in favor of national socialism at least relative to the current political center.

what do you mean becoming ? it has been for a few years now.

I know that has been going on for a few years, but I was wondering if anybody else here agreed or not, and why.



Add to the fact that nowadays corporations now fund both political parties equally, they don't care who gets elected, because they know that they will get what they want. Political elections take up huge sums of money (millions of dollars), and guess who are the only ones with that kind of money?

Special interests groups are also lobbying congress to give in to their demands (the creationists for example are actively doing this to put religion in the science classrooms).




yeah, I have to agree with you here. I don't think its so much that they ideologically favor something similar to national socialism, rather that most people around here don't care anymore.

Here is a good graph I found off of wikipedia which shows voting turnout over the past few decades, and in the established democracies there are less and less who are voting. The y-axis is the percentage of people eligable to vote that actually voted, and the x-axis are the years:



Here is also another good link from PBS about this: http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/votestats.html


If this trend continues, we are in big trouble indeed.

Agreed. We have the government we deserve.

High Five.

I disagree, if one typically examines voting tendencies then one will note that the less educated are less likely to vote. I would argue that given our "liberal"(I don't necessarily mean left-wing) intellectual ideals that education and "liberal" ideals will tend to go together. This means that the people who don't care are more likely to possess national socialist ideals. I think that research by Brian Caplan seems to support this conclusion, at least from the economic end of things as education and belief in markets correlate, and it seems also apparent from the tendency of elites to denigrate nationalism compared to the tendency of poorer groups to go off and die for the nation. Really, I don't support more voter turnout and think that democracy will have a greater populist element and see this populism as a part of the path to national socialism given how it degrades rule of law and supports governmental power. This entire idea of democracy being cured by including less competent people in the decision making process seems ridiculous to me.


I don't necessarily see that as the most major issue, corporate welfare has continued for a while and likely would continue along even if those companies didn't bribe politicians. Unions would work towards that same type of system of corporate protection in order to secure their sources of income. Really, many groups have large amounts of money and if not money then political clout, AARP is really considered perhaps the most effective lobbying group and unions, even though they are currently in decline still have some weight. Really, we see a lot of corporate welfare in Europe as well so it isn't purely an American problem.

All sorts of special interest groups squabble in America, the issue is that the government by taking the roles it has ends up centralizing these matters and forcing people to address its plans. The fact that people don't all agree on the plans we should go with will end up with mixed compromises and twisted plans, and thus a large government will push us towards a larger one with even more power.

Not quite. While the less educated are indeed less likely to vote, the current trend also includes people who are very well educated. And I don't know if anybody who don't care really are more likely to go with fascist ideals, you are going to have to cite your sources. Also remember that there are less competent people who do lobby congress to get what they want, such as diverting tax money from where it is needed. One thing that is known is that while higher voting turnout may not mean a better democratic government, lower voter turnout correlates very well with a bad government. This is because only the interests of the few will be supported, and it makes it easier to kill of the competition.

Actually, now that I think about it, it may not be because they don't care, but may be that the people who are more educated may not like any of the candidates. The US candidates for any position in power lately, whether state or federal, haven't really been that good.



I think the more major issue is the fact that they have been basically buying off elections and lobbying the government to ease restrictions and get away with less taxes, and overall serve their own interests. It isn't just the government that they are lobbying, they are also buying off all the major media outlets too (meaning that they can control what information gets out), and I've even heard that they were trying to hire senators (though this is yet unverified).



Thats true. And its also true that not all the people who are lobbying are bad, but the fact that there are bad ones out there should cause some concern.



And I think that is one of the major problems there, which is why I brought up the special interest groups. Apparently they think that the government can solve all of their problems, but to do that is very dangerous.

But the question really depends on who drops out faster. Working to stimulate those who do not want to vote to do so would not necessarily be good. Cite my sources? Well, this essay by Caplan talks about his book and the failure of the public to understand economics: http://www.cato-unbound.org/2006/11/06/ ... nal-voter/ and the issue of strong nationalism is partially based off of strong trends in internationalism found in business and academic institutions, I could likely find a source, but the economics of Caplan do look into that tendency somewhat by identifying an anti-foreign bias. I would argue that there are too many variables to look at in order to determine good and bad government in order to really look at government participation, most democratic participants are going to be outside of gaining groups most voters are not workers for oil companies, most voters are not union workers, nothing like that. Sheeple though are not likely to improve things, all that has to be done is an invocation of nationalism or mercantilism and all will fall into place.
I tend to doubt that most US candidates have ever really been excellent anyway, we just might be experiencing more cynicism because of the degenerating effects of politics on the belief of democracy supporting the common good. Frankly, I would probably throw out most of the Presidents we have had in the last 50 years.

Buying elections? There are too many laws preventing issues such as this, now of course all companies are trying to push for their own interests, however, the corruption that you seem to mention reflects more of the belief in some form of powerful cabal rather than the conflicted issues of a few companies. There are other outlets for information than the major news stations and frankly, I tend to distrust your information regarding this. At minimum, if they really had control they would be doing more than they are now.

Well, how can you have good without bad though? You cannot institute an absolute moral judgment on these matters. Really, if one group is allowed to lobby then all groups should have this power.


Well, that is merely the nature of the powerful government, when more things are government it is a simple matter of induction that governments are capable towards other "goods". The real issue is that there are ideologies involved and that the notion that government isn't an institute to fulfill perfect justice is alien to us.