KSUFans Archives

Fan Life => The Endzone Dive => Topic started by: jeffy on February 20, 2008, 08:44:26 AM

Title: Some Friday night reading
Post by: jeffy on February 20, 2008, 08:44:26 AM
Liberals, perhaps more than anyone, believe that we should be vigilant against the threat of fascism. Now, they also believe that fascism can only come from the Right--I think they're wrong. But, what liberals - and everyone else - very much need to understand is that whatever direction fascism comes from, it's popular. Fascism succeeds in democratic countries because it convinces people that it's the wave of the future, it's progressive, it's young, it's vital, it's exciting. Fascist promise to fix what's broken in our democracy, to heal our wounds, to deliver us to promised lands. So if you think fascism comes from the Right, fine. But at least keep in mind that it won't sell itself as dull, or uptight, or old-fashioned.

Let me take a moment to give you a concrete sense of what I mean.

Fascism appealed to youth activists. Indeed, the Nazis and Fascists were in major respects youth movements. In 1931, 60 percent of all German undergraduates supported the Nazi Student Organization. "Their goal," the historian John Toland wrote of the young idealists who fed the Nazi rise to power, "was to establish a youth culture for fighting the bourgeois trinity of school, home and church."

Meanwhile, middle and lower class Germans were attracted to the economic and cultural populism of Nazism. The Nazi party began as the German Worker's Party. The Nazis economic rhetoric was eerily similar to John Edwards "Two Americas" talk. The Nazis promised to clamp down on Big Business - particularly department stores, the Wal-Marts of their day - and end the class struggle. Theodore Abel, an impressively clever American sociologist, gives us insight into why working class Germans were attracted to Nazism. In 1934 Abel took out an ad in the Nazi Party journal asking "old fighters" to submit essays explaining why they had joined. He restricted his request to "old fighters" because so many opportunists had joined the party after Hitler's rise. The essays were combined in the fascinating book Why Hitler Came Into Power. One essayist, a coal miner, explained "Though I was interested in the betterment of the workingman's plight, I rejected [Marxism] unconditionally. I often asked myself why socialism had to be tied up with internationalism-why it could not work as well or better in conjunction with nationalism." A railroad worker concurred, "I shuddered at the thought of Germany in the grip of Bolshevism. The slogan 'Workers of the World Unite!' made no sense to me. At the same time, however, National Socialism, with its promise of a community . . . barring all class struggle, attracted me profoundly." A third worker wrote that he embraced the Nazis because of their "uncompromising will to stamp out the class struggle, snobberies of caste and party hatreds. The movement bore the true message of socialism to the German workingman."

Nazism's appeal to the professional classes was just as strong. Raymond Dominick, a historian specializing in the history of German environmentalism, found that by 1939, 59 percent of conservationist leaders had joined the Nazi party, while only 10 percent of adult males had. Forty five percent of medical doctors had joined and roughly one quarter of teachers and lawyers had. The two groups of professionals with the highest rates of participation in the Nazi Party? Veterinarians were first and foresters were a close second. Dominick found a "unique nexus between National Socialism and nature conservation."

The Nazis and Italian Fascists won-over big business, cultural elites, the youth and the lower-classes because they portrayed themselves as heroically on the side of progress, protecting the environment and the poor. Fascists preached unity, togetherness and an end to division.

Liberals need to ask themselves where do they hear this rhetoric the most?

I'm not saying that merely being for the environment, the poor or national unity makes you a fascist. But what I am saying is that if you're concerned about spotting fascism on the horizon you can't just look at people you don't like. That's like only looking for your lost car keys where the light is good. Huey Long reportedly said that if Fascism comes to America it will be called "anti-Fascism." Liberals can still make their arguments that fascism comes from the right. But until they understand that wherever fascism may come from, it never arrives save in a form that the best and the brightest are willing to accept with open arms.

And if liberals don't know their history, they won't be equipped to spot it when it comes knocking.

by Jonah Goldberg
Title: Re: Some Wednesday morning reading
Post by: PCR on February 20, 2008, 11:44:29 AM
This guy is full of crap.  Fascism is corporate control of the State.  He's trying to equate young liberals with Nazi fascists, which is awfully absurd.  The context of 1930s Germany and 2008 USA are not even remotely similar.  In fact if you wanted to point to a modern movement that's similar to the Nazi party, it would be the first Bush term's whipping of people into an anti-Islamic, Militaristic frenzy to the point of starting a protracted conflict in Iraq.  The danger of Fascism comes from the Military-Industrial Complex, not from people who have a desire to protect the environment and help the poor.  I know if it were up to the far right, we'd burn it all down and leave the poor on the streets to fend for themselves. 
Title: Re: Some Wednesday morning reading
Post by: The1BigWillie on February 20, 2008, 12:42:43 PM
Whatever side of the fence you are on isn't going to matter when the revolution comes.  Once the have-nots blow through their 600 bucks and a gallon of gas is $5.00 they are going to tear this place to shreds. 
Title: Re: Some Wednesday morning reading
Post by: Dirty Sanchez on February 20, 2008, 05:27:45 PM
This guy is full of crap.  Fascism is corporate control of the State.  He's trying to equate young liberals with Nazi fascists, which is awfully absurd.  The context of 1930s Germany and 2008 USA are not even remotely similar.  In fact if you wanted to point to a modern movement that's similar to the Nazi party, it would be the first Bush term's whipping of people into an anti-Islamic, Militaristic frenzy to the point of starting a protracted conflict in Iraq.  The danger of Fascism comes from the Military-Industrial Complex, not from people who have a desire to protect the environment and help the poor.  I know if it were up to the far right, we'd burn it all down and leave the poor on the streets to fend for themselves. 

Fascism rose in Germany by promising people "hope" and "change."  I don't remember the name of the author, but a history prof I had many years ago told about the man who described nazism as "socialism without the red".  It is the rise of the nanny state. 

I'm always fascinated by those on the left that like to throw out the line that "those who trade liberty to security deserve neither" (or something like that) are all about letting the state control things like the thermostat in your own house and gun free zones.  That is absolutely giving up liberty for security.  Security from foreign invasion, no, but security from big government and kooks. 
Title: Re: Some Wednesday morning reading
Post by: AzCat on February 20, 2008, 06:10:35 PM
Fascism is corporate control of the State.

Quite incorrect.  Fascism is characterized by a high degree of control over individuals exerted by the state. 
Title: Re: Some Thursday morning reading
Post by: jeffy on February 21, 2008, 12:00:15 AM
The next installation:

What Hillary and Barack have in store
By Jonah Goldberg

The most common left wing definition of fascism is "when business runs the government." Historically, this is basically nonsense. But that hasn't stopped liberals like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from saying it over and over again.

But if we are going to go by that definition, conservatives in the U.S. are hardly the fascists. The principled conservative position is that the free market should rule the day. Businesses are never "too big to fail" and corporate welfare is folly. In all honesty, we must admit that many Republicans fail to live up to these conservative principles. But what are liberal principles? They are simply this: corporations should be "progressive." Government should regulate corporations heavily as a means of using big business as another branch of the state. Hillary Clinton wants "public-private partnerships." She believes that businesses must collude with government in providing universal healthcare to the point where it's impossible to tell where the government begins and business ends. She has contempt for entrepreneurs and small business. When it was pointed out to her that "Hillarycare" would hit small businesses while enriching big corporations, she replied that she couldn't worry about every under-capitalized business in America. Barack Obama, meanwhile, talks incessantly about how government must police the "patriotism" of corporations. His definition of "patriotism" in this regard seems extremely elastic.

We've seen something like this before. Woodrow Wilson implemented a form of "war socialism" during WWI. Big Business and government worked seamlessly together under the auspices of the War Industry Board. Industry rigged the system for its own benefit, with the approval of government. When the war ended, the American people rejected Wilson's war socialism, but Progressive intellectuals didn't. They proclaimed "we planned in war" and, hence, felt they should be allowed to plan the economy during peacetime as well. They looked enviously at Fascist Italy and, even more so, the Soviet Union. These were the sort of grand "experiments" they wanted to conduct here at home. "Why," Stuart Chase asked in his 1932 book, A New Deal (which many credit with originating the phrase) "should the Russians have all the fun of remaking a world?"

They finally had their chance under the New Deal, where FDR - a veteran of the Wilson Administration - tried to recreate what the Progressives had wrought during the war. When Hugh Johnson -- the head of the National Recovery Administration, the centerpiece of FDR's New Deal - took office in 1932, one of the first things he did was hang a portrait of Mussolini on his wall and started handing out pro-fascist literature to FDR's cabinet.

The left has told us that the New Deal rescued the little guy, the "forgotten man." But in reality it prolonged the Great Depression and served as a boon to Big Business.

For example, Clarence Darrow was charged with studying the effects of the NRA. In "virtually all the codes we have examined," he reported, "one condition has been persistent . . . In Industry after Industry, the larger units, sometimes through the agency of . . . [a trade association], sometimes by other means, have for their own advantage written the codes, and then, in effect and for their own advantage, assumed the administration of the code they have framed." We may believe that FDR fashioned the New Deal out of concern for the "forgotten man." But as one historian put it, "The principle seemed to be: to him that hath it shall be given."

The fundamental mistake Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards and company make is that they assume "clamping down" on corporations will lessen the role of big business in politics. The reality is exactly the opposite. Microsoft had nearly no lobbyists in Washington DC until Washington DC decided to go after Microsoft. Now, Microsoft has an enormous lobbying operation. Walmart is the same story. Once big business discovers that it's profit margins are determined in Washington, big business focuses on Washington.

Perhaps more importantly, really big corporations like regulations. Coca-Cola can pass its costs onto the consumer. But smaller business are not only hurt by regulations, they are also prevented from competing with the big boys because those regulations serve as a "barrier to entry."

The great "fascist bargain" with big business goes something like this: The government promises corporations market share, a lack of competition and reliable profits in exchange for compliance with its political and ideological agenda. Today big corporations hold up their end of the deal. They buy into global warming (often at a profit) they agree to all the tenets of diversity-mongering and affirmative action. They cast themselves as "Progressive" corporate citizens and in exchange we get economic policies that punish entrepreneurs and inhibit free markets.

This is as it should be according to the Progressives, the New Dealers and today's Democratic Party. And whether you want to call it fascism is up to you, but it fits what liberals have been saying about fascism to a T.
Title: Re: Some Thursday morning reading
Post by: AzCat on February 21, 2008, 05:18:37 PM
Goldberg is brilliant, "Liberas Fascism" should be required reading in every grade school, junior high, and high school social studies course in the US. 
Title: Re: Some Thursday morning reading
Post by: Dirty Sanchez on February 21, 2008, 06:55:57 PM
Goldberg is brilliant, "Liberas Fascism" should be required reading in every grade school, junior high, and high school social studies course in the US. 

No, that would be fascist.  Advertise the hell out of it and create free market demand.  That's the conservative way.
Title: Re: Some Thursday morning reading
Post by: AzCat on February 21, 2008, 06:59:08 PM
Goldberg is brilliant, "Liberas Fascism" should be required reading in every grade school, junior high, and high school social studies course in the US. 

No, that would be fascist.  Advertise the hell out of it and create free market demand.  That's the conservative way.

Forcing children to go to school is fascist.   :nahnah:
Title: Re: Some Thursday night reading
Post by: jeffy on February 21, 2008, 10:26:37 PM
Government Knows Best
By Jonah Goldberg

Type "New York City Council" and "ban" and "2007" into Google. Here's some of what you find:

A New York Times story: New York City Council Approves Ban on Metal Bats

A BBC News story: "Racial slur banned in New York."

A CNN story on how New York is considering banning "ultrathin" models.

A New York Sun article on how New York City is contemplating banning feeding pigeons.

A link to the Humane Society's effort to ban horse drawn carriages.

And that's on the first page alone.

These sorts of stories trickle-in almost hourly. Sometimes we hear them and are briefly distracted by them, other times we tune them out as background noise. And, most often, we simply forget them, these little human interest stories that amused us for a moment on talk radio or in back pages of a newspaper.

Sometimes we giggle about what's happening in other countries, without long pondering that places like Canada and Britain often blaze the trail we are on. For example:

In Britain, in a perfectly typical event quickly forgotten, police tracked down and nearly arrested an 11-year-old boy for calling a 10-year-old boy "gay" in an e-mail. This was considered a "very serious homophobic crime" requiring the full attention of police. In 2006, the coppers fingerprinted and threw a 14-year-old girl into jail for the crime of racism. Her underlying offense stemmed from the fact that she refused to join a class discussion with some fellow students because they were Asian and didn't speak English.

In England, traffic cameras are now trained on drivers to arrest them for eating in their cars. And in both Britain and Canada, the old Hitler Youth slogan, "Nutrition is not a private matter!" has taken on a new life. One expert this week argued that obesity must now be treated like Global Warming, requiring stern government intervention.

Health experts in Britain and Canada insist that the government has every right to meddle in the private life of its citizens since the state is picking up the tab for their healthcare (never mind that it's not the "state" but the taxpayers themselves). As Tony Harrison, a British health-care expert, explained to the Toronto Sun, "Rationing is a reality when funding is limited." So fat people and others can't get surgeries if bureaucrats or doctors don't think they're worthy of surgery. Now, of course, there's a certain logic here since the taxpayers are picking up the tab and someone has to make the hard choices about priorities. But it never occurs to these people that maybe the fact that the government is slowly being put in charge of many of the most important and personal issues in peoples' lives is in fact an argument against socialized medicine. It doesn't occur to them that refusing to unload seriously ill patients from ambulances, sometimes for hours at a time, just so emergency rooms can meet government quotas, is a sign that something is seriously wrong with the way statists handle medicine.

Woodrow Wilson proclaimed that the goal of Progressivism was to have the individual "marry his interests to the State." "Government" he wrote in book, "The State," "does now whatever experience permits or the times demand." "No doubt," he wrote elsewhere, taking dead aim at the Declaration of Independence, "a lot of nonsense has been talked about the inalienable rights of the individual, and a great deal that was mere vague sentiment and pleasing speculation has been put forward as fundamental principle."

He was hardly alone. "[W]e must demand that the individual shall be willing to lose the sense of personal achievement, and shall be content to realize his activity only in connection to the activity of the many," declared the pioneering progressive social activist Jane Addams.

The old story of the frog who doesn't jump out of the pot because the heat is turned up so slowly comes to mind.

On countless fronts, the natural pastures of daily liberty are being paved over by bureaucrats, politicians and other do-gooders. They aren't merely fixing problems as they come up. They are laying-down a path to a world where people like them are in charge of our lives, in large ways and small. And when you realize it, the funny stories we so often hear, aren't so funny anymore.
Title: Re: Some Thursday night reading
Post by: Kat Kid on February 22, 2008, 03:01:50 PM
Great work everyone!
Title: Re: Some Thursday night reading
Post by: AzCat on February 22, 2008, 03:30:43 PM
And one of our resident clueless lefties taps out early.   :popcorn:
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: jeffy on February 22, 2008, 09:53:11 PM
Number 4 in the series....

Emulating FDR: A horrible idea
By Jonah Goldberg

"America has a dictator," Benito Mussolini proclaimed, watching FDR from abroad. He marveled at how the forces of "spiritual renewal" on display in the New Deal were destroying the outdated notion that democracy and liberalism were "immortal principles." "Roosevelt is moving, acting, giving orders independently of the decisions or wishes of the Senate or Congress. ... A sole will silences dissenting voices." That almost sounds like Harry Reid talking about Bush.

Mussolini reviewed FDR's book, Looking Forward proclaiming the author a kindred spirit. The way Roosevelt "calls his readers to battle," he wrote, "is reminiscent of the ways and means by which fascism awakened the Italian people." "Without question," he continued, the "sea change" in America "resembles that of fascism." Indeed, the comparisons were so commonplace, Mussolini's press office banned the practice. "It is not to be emphasized that Roosevelt's policy is fascist because these comments are immediately cabled to the United States and are used by his foes to attack him."

The German press adored FDR. In 1934, the Vlkischer Beobachter, the Nazi Party's official newspaper, described Roosevelt as a man of "irreproachable, extremely responsible character and immovable will" and a "warm-hearted leader of the people with a profound understanding of social needs." Hitler sent FDR a letter celebrating his "heroic efforts" and "successful battle against economic distress." Hitler informed the U.S. ambassador, William Dodd, that New Dealism was also "the quintessence of the German state philosophy."

The New Dealers were not so much mimicking the Soviet Union, Fascist Italy or Nazi Germany. They were attempting to recreate what they had built -up under Woodrow Wilson's war socialism. Today we have no historical memory of how brutal the Wilson Administration was, nor do we realize that many Progressives supported the war not so much because they championed its foreign policy aims, but because they yearned for the "social possibilities of war," in the words of John Dewey, the 20th century's premier political philosopher.

The war provided an opportunity to force Americans to, as journalist Frederick Lewis Allen put it, "lay by our good-natured individualism and march in step." Or as another progressive put it, "Laissez faire is dead. Long live social control."

It was this spirit which informed FDR's administration. By 1944 he made good on Wilson's conviction that the US constitution was outmoded and in need of replacing with a new "living constitution." FDR's proposed innovation was a new "economic bill of rights" which included:

>The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation.

>The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment.

>The right of every family to a decent home.

>The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation.

You read correctly, the right to 'recreation'.

With the intellectuals on their side, Wilson recruited journalist George Creel to become a propaganda minister as head of the newly formed Committee on Public Information (CPI).

Mr. Creel declared that it was his mission to inflame the American public into "one white-hot mass" under the banner of "100 percent Americanism." Fear was a vital tool, he argued, "an important element to be bred in the civilian population."

The CPI printed millions of posters, buttons, pamphlets, that did just that. A typical poster for Liberty Bonds cautioned, "I am Public Opinion. All men fear me!... f you have the money to buy and do not buy, I will make this No Man's Land for you!"

Meanwhile, the CPI released a string of propaganda films with such titles as "The Kaiser," "The Beast of Berlin," and "The Prussian Cur." Remember when French fries became "freedom fries" in the run-up to the Iraq war? Thanks in part to the CPI, sauerkraut become "victory cabbage."

Under the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, Wilson's administration shut down newspapers and magazines at an astounding pace. Indeed, any criticism of the government, even in your own home, could earn you a prison sentence. One man was brought to trial for explaining in his own home why he didn't want to buy Liberty Bonds.

The Wilson administration sanctioned what could be called an American fascist, the American Protective League. The APL - a quarter million strong at its height, with offices in 600 cities - carried government-issued badges while beating up dissidents and protesters and conducting warrantless searches and interrogations. Even after the war, Wilson refused to release the last of America's political prisoners, leaving it to subsequent Republican administrations to free the anti-war Socialist Eugene V. Debs and others.

The left claims that president Bush seeks to do something like this with the war on terror. But look at the evidence. No newspapers closed down, a sum total of three detainees water-boarded, two hard core terrorists who happen to be American citizens have had their habeus corpus rights "infringed." After 9/11 President Bush asked the American people to go shopping, not to give up capitalism.

Meanwhile, on the left, self-styled progressives keep trying to recreate the New Deal and the progressive era. New York Times columnist pines for a "new progressive era." Barack Obama gushed about how he was re-dedicating his campaign at the University of Wisconsin where the Progressive movement was born. Hillary says she's not a liberal but a "modern progressive."

Now, obviously, none of the current crop of self-described progressives are eager to replay the darkest chapters of the past. But we make a mistake when we assume that we can cherry pick only the good parts of our past to re-create.
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: Cat Maniac on February 22, 2008, 10:34:43 PM
Jonah Goldberg =  :love:  :blush:
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: AzCat on February 23, 2008, 02:18:37 PM
Name the political movement that features:

* A strong belief in the government's responsibility for providing health care for all.

* The belief that a large percentage of personal wealth should be transferred to the state via estate taxes rather than be allowed to pass to subsequent generations.

* Strong support for very large expenditures on a public education system and the belief in a right to education for all.

* The demand that church and state be completely separated; that the church confine itself to its own domain and not intrude in public policy.

* Opposition to smoking and other "social ills" that might negatively impact the health of the public along with a willingness to employ public policy to curtail these actions by individuals.

* Strong support and a legal guarantee of a woman's right to have an abortion.

* Championing of gun control laws.

* Implementation of diversity programs in college admissions which attempt to ensure racial equality on campus.

* A strong belief in protecting the environment, even to the extent of enforcing environmental regulations that damage private industry.

* The belief in a socially and economically disenfranchised underclass for whom the state has an obligation to provide support.

* The belief in the propriety of limiting hate speech and other similar socially unacceptable forms of speech, particularly on campuses, in order to provide comfortable environments for minority participation in society and the educational system.

* The belief that the state and labor unions must act to reign in big businesses who, left to their own devices, will earn excess profits at the expense of the majority of citizens.

Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller, Bueller, Bueller?
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: fatty fat fat on February 23, 2008, 02:26:07 PM
lol@the 3% of this board that are bigot/racist/ugly/un-funny/uncool (no hyphen here) republicans.

this is high school and no one likes you!

 :lol: :lol:
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: AzCat on February 23, 2008, 02:31:32 PM
We'd rather be correct than popular fatty fat fascist.   :D
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: AzCat on February 23, 2008, 02:45:33 PM
Fascism appealed to youth activists. Indeed, the Nazis and Fascists were in major respects youth movements. In 1931, 60 percent of all German undergraduates supported the Nazi Student Organization. "Their goal," the historian John Toland wrote of the young idealists who fed the Nazi rise to power, "was to establish a youth culture for fighting the bourgeois trinity of school, home and church."

Quote
And Obama’s advantage on campus is especially pronounced in the early primary states that matter most. At Iowa State University a Nov. 26 poll found Obama trouncing Clinton 58-14....

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7392.html

2% to go and Obama will officially be Hitler.  And since the white male is to the modern American left what Jews were to Hitler ....  :ohno:
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: tdaver on February 24, 2008, 12:34:56 PM
any more jeffy?    :hope:


and I guess I make 4% fatty
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: PCR on February 24, 2008, 12:48:33 PM
Help I'm being oppressed!   I'm white and the Left wants to take away everything I rightfully earned!

I guess the liberals are fascists, but the conservatives are complaining about their rights as white men being infringed.
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: Cat Maniac on February 24, 2008, 01:00:28 PM
tdaver, is that your dog?

he kicks ass.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: tdaver on February 24, 2008, 01:42:05 PM
tdaver, is that your dog?

he kicks ass.  :thumbsup:

yep, that's Odie my Viszla
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: Dirty Sanchez on February 24, 2008, 02:13:51 PM
bigot/racist/ugly/un-funny/uncool (no hyphen here) republicans.

this is high school and no one likes you!

 :lol: :lol:

Typical language of those who want to shut the opposition up in a fascist sort of way.
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: AzCat on February 24, 2008, 02:33:47 PM
Help I'm being oppressed!   I'm white and the Left wants to take away everything I rightfully earned!

I guess the liberals are fascists, but the conservatives are complaining about their rights as white men being infringed.

Lefties would be pushing large numbers of white males into ovens if only they could.  It's not a lack of desire that's stopping them, it's merely a lack of ability / opportunity.
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: mjrod on February 24, 2008, 04:06:04 PM
lol@the 3% of this board that are bigot/racist/ugly/un-funny/uncool (no hyphen here) republicans.

this is high school and no one likes you!

 :lol: :lol:

Since most people have pretty much graduated high school and you aspire to stay in it, I think no one really gives a flying frack about your worthless comment.

LOL @ fff.
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: jeffy on February 24, 2008, 09:49:56 PM
any more jeffy?    :hope:


and I guess I make 4% fatty

Sorry.... I think that was it.  They were a part of an email newsletter this week.
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: Dirty Sanchez on February 24, 2008, 09:55:44 PM
Read the book!
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: Kat Kid on February 24, 2008, 11:22:45 PM
any more jeffy?    :hope:


and I guess I make 4% fatty

That's Republican math!
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: mjrod on February 24, 2008, 11:40:08 PM
any more jeffy?    :hope:


and I guess I make 4% fatty

That's Republican math!

Kat Kid is a facist.

LOL
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: AzCat on February 25, 2008, 02:52:27 AM
There's a blog (http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/) and don't forget to buy the book. (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/002-6036140-0406447?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=liberal+fascism)
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: michigancat on February 25, 2008, 06:24:46 AM
The paranoia creeps me out more than the idea that liberals are Nazis.
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: Dirty Sanchez on February 25, 2008, 07:25:25 AM
The paranoia creeps me out more than the idea that liberals are Nazis.

Paranoia like "Bush is listening to your phone calls and Dick Cheney is waiting to waterboard you!"

BTW-- here is a difference in this case between fascist and nazi.  I know its difficult to grasp the not-so-subtle difference detailed in this thread.
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: michigancat on February 25, 2008, 08:01:33 AM
Paranoia like "Bush is listening to your phone calls and Dick Cheney is waiting to waterboard you!"

That's not as ridiculous as "Obama is a Nazi because he wants you to eat better".  JMO.

BTW-- here is a difference in this case between fascist and nazi.  I know its difficult to grasp the not-so-subtle difference detailed in this thread.

Did you even read the first post?
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: Cat Maniac on February 25, 2008, 10:42:46 AM
tdaver, is that your dog?

he kicks ass.  :thumbsup:

yep, that's Odie my Viszla

I own vizslas.  They're the coolest dogs in the world.  The sad thing is I don't hunt, so they have to settle for keeping my backyard safe from the neighborhood squirrels and rabbits.
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: Dirty Sanchez on February 25, 2008, 04:40:59 PM
Quote
Paranoia like "Bush is listening to your phone calls and Dick Cheney is waiting to waterboard you!"

That's not as ridiculous as "Obama is a Nazi because he wants you to eat better".  JMO.

It is just as ridiculous.  However, someone wanting someone to eat better and someone actually legislating it in a way that takes rights not granted to the government under the Constitution are different things.


Quote
BTW-- here is a difference in this case between fascist and nazi.  I know its difficult to grasp the not-so-subtle difference detailed in this thread.

Did you even read the first post?

Did you read the later ones?  nazism was just a later form of fascism.  It began as a movement when hitler was crapting his diapers.  Fascism, just like in Europe, will not come into power by jack-booted thugs kicking down doors, but by telling people what they want to hear and forcing it down the throats of those who don't.  It will come with a happy face, not a gun barrel or bogeyman with a wire-tapping machine.  wilson and fdr did exactly what people are saying about Bush and Cheney--and the current demoncratic candidates are saying they are part in parcel of that movement.  Those who give up liberty for security of what food they put in their mouths deserve neither.

Look up the fabian socialists.  They are a 100+ year old branch of socialists influential in Britains labour party.  They advocate progressive change rather than revolution.  george bernard shaw and hg wells were notable fabians in its early days. 

Here's a brief:
Quote
The group, which favoured gradual creeping change rather than revolutionary change, was named — at the suggestion of Frank Podmore — in honour of the Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus (nicknamed "Cunctator", meaning "the Delayer"). His Fabian strategy advocated tactics of harassment and attrition rather than head-on battles against the Carthaginian army under the renowned general Hannibal Barca.

The first Fabian Society pamphlets were written to lobby for a minimum wage in 1906, for the creation of the National Health Service in 1911, and for the abolition of hereditary peers in 1917 (Fabian Society).

Fabian socialists were in favour of an imperialist foreign policy and a welfare state modelled on the Bismarckian German model; they criticised Gladstonian liberalism both for its individualism at home and its internationalism abroad. They favoured a national minimum wage in order to stop British industries compensating for their inefficiency by lowering wages; slum clearances and a health service in order for "the breeding of even a moderately Imperial race" which would be better militarily than the "stunted, anaemic, demoralised denizens...of our great cities"; and a national education system because "it is in the class-rooms that the future battles of the Empire for commercial prosperity are already being lost".[3]


The Fabians also favoured the nationalization of land, believing that rents collected by landowners were unearned, an idea which drew heavily from the work of American economist Henry George.


Here's another from http://nord.twu.net/acl/revisionism.html

Quote
British Fabian socialism was created to promote international communism and free trade with a friendlier face. Unlike Marx's open and violent revolutionary agenda, the Fabian's agenda was to quietly infiltrate and re-direct established governments. The Fabians were instrumental in creating the Peace Movement, which is the perfect antithesis to violent expansionism. Fabians also helped establish the International Court at the Hague. The Fabians designed the first League of Nations (the precursor to the United Nations). Fabian influence on the creation of the U.N. is no secret, either.

league of nations....hmmmm....oh, yeah...woodrow wilson's big idea.

Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: Kat Kid on February 25, 2008, 06:02:35 PM
British Fabian socialism was created to promote international communism and free trade with a friendlier face. Unlike Marx's open and violent revolutionary agenda, the Fabian's agenda was to quietly infiltrate and re-direct established governments. The Fabians were instrumental in creating the Peace Movement, which is the perfect antithesis to violent expansionism. Fabians also helped establish the International Court at the Hague. The Fabians designed the first League of Nations (the precursor to the United Nations). Fabian influence on the creation of the U.N. is no secret, either.

Replace that with jews and you have a standard protocols of zion, batcrap crazy rant.  But this is respected historical analysis.  Got it.
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: Dirty Sanchez on February 26, 2008, 09:40:22 AM
We had the "you're a racist" tapout.

Now the "you're crazy" tapout.

No thought, just insult.

Some people will just stand by while their country is sold down the river to internationalists. 

One of the things we learn in high school political science classes is that extremists rise to power in times of economic turmoil.  See hitler, lenin, etc.  In this country we turned to fdr.  Not a hitler by any stretch, but he was such a radical change from previous economic and Constitutional theory, that he was essentially an extremist lite.  Now, the economy is not great, but its seriously nothing anywhere remotely close to 1932.  But if you listen to the left talk, the nation is at its worst point ever.     With willing accomplices in the mainstream press fawning over the next guy to come along and make promise after promise of what he will do as daddy government, people are willing to take the more extreme answer.  Government will grow and encompass more of our lives than ever before.  And some will continue to tell those who are trying to stop the government from infringing on rights that "you're crazy" or a "racist" because the guy who is bringing it is black-ish.
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: mjrod on February 26, 2008, 11:38:17 AM
British Fabian socialism was created to promote international communism and free trade with a friendlier face. Unlike Marx's open and violent revolutionary agenda, the Fabian's agenda was to quietly infiltrate and re-direct established governments. The Fabians were instrumental in creating the Peace Movement, which is the perfect antithesis to violent expansionism. Fabians also helped establish the International Court at the Hague. The Fabians designed the first League of Nations (the precursor to the United Nations). Fabian influence on the creation of the U.N. is no secret, either.

Replace that with jews and you have a standard protocols of zion, batcrap crazy rant.  But this is respected historical analysis.  Got it.

OMG I LOLLIED!!!!

You seriously are naive.
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: Kat Kid on February 26, 2008, 11:38:25 AM
We had the "you're a racist" tapout.

Now the "you're crazy" tapout.

No thought, just insult.

Some people will just stand by while their country is sold down the river to internationalists. 

One of the things we learn in high school political science classes is that extremists rise to power in times of economic turmoil.  See hitler, lenin, etc.  In this country we turned to fdr.  Not a hitler by any stretch, but he was such a radical change from previous economic and Constitutional theory, that he was essentially an extremist lite.  Now, the economy is not great, but its seriously nothing anywhere remotely close to 1932.  But if you listen to the left talk, the nation is at its worst point ever.     With willing accomplices in the mainstream press fawning over the next guy to come along and make promise after promise of what he will do as daddy government, people are willing to take the more extreme answer.  Government will grow and encompass more of our lives than ever before.  And some will continue to tell those who are trying to stop the government from infringing on rights that "you're crazy" or a "racist" because the guy who is bringing it is black-ish.

You are heaping innuendo on fdr.  FDR was the savior of capitalism in the United States.  Go back and look at the American Fascist, Socialist and Communist party enrollments when he instituted reforms that saved the United State's financial markets and instituted controls that are still in place and have been successful despite what most Republicans would say.  I'm a little bit meh about Social Security in today's world but FDR was responding to the demographics of the day and it was brilliant.

The most hilarious thing is that you retards think George W. Bush hasn't been the biggest nanny stater of them all.  Look at the meteoric rise of debt, look at the erosion of any concept of due process/civil liberties/limits on govt. power, look at the enormous and fundamental shift in the fed. govt.'s role in our schools with NCLB, the endless stream of corrupt pork that he has signed off on.  Give me a &@#%ing break.  Barack will not be substanatively worse for this country economically than George W. Bush and by ending the enormously wasteful war in Iraq and scaling back the even more enormously wasteful Missile Defense spending he may end up being more fiscally sound.  Look at Bill Clinton for Christ sakes, he makes George W. Bush look like a drunken sailor on leave.  I know he's the source of all evil, but he wasn't hurling this country in to bottomless debt.
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: Dirty Sanchez on February 26, 2008, 05:14:44 PM
There's a reason why the Constitution was changed to prevent guys like him from being president for life immediately following his death. 

Its not innuendo to know that the guy wanted to pack the court so he could push through whatever he wanted.  That's something someone wanting political domination would do.  If Bush tried that, you'd be howling mad. 

Its not innuendo to say that he ordered the interment of Japanese-Americans citizens.  Amazing what the left will excuse from their boys but go nuts at the slightest hint of from a Republican.

Its not innuendo to say that wilson supported and signed the espionage act of 1917 and the sedition act of 1918 and imprisoned guys like eugene debs for violating it.  Those acts made it illegal to speak out against the government.  Violations could be punished by a $10,000 fine and up to 20 years in prison.

Its not innuendo to say that wilson put out the first progressive income tax and the modern version of the central bank--the federal reserve.  He also advocated for a world court.  These were  things that karl marx called for in the communist manifesto.

Its not innuendo to say that wilson had people, including feminist leader margaret sanger, arrested for promoting contraception and abortion in violation of the comstock act--which he signed into law. 

Its not innuendo to say that the economy was improving in 1935 and 1936, then the effects of social security and many of fdr's other programs started to take root and the economy went into recession in 1937 and extended the depression until the outbreak of WWII.

Its not innuendo to say that wilson signed the literacy test act of 1917, which stopped anyone over the age of 16 who was illiterate from becoming a citizen.

Its not innuendo that the wilson administration supported the american protective league.  This was a quasi-governmental organization that numbered 250,000 members at its height that detained, interrogated, abused American citizens in opposition to WWI and the wilson administration. This was similar to the brownshirts that came around in germany a few years later.

Nowhere in this thread has anyone heaped praise on Bush, but the accusations against him aren't even as bad as what these icons of liberalism really did.  Lord knows bush isn't perfect and many of his policies have not worked, but they're also not as bad as the crybabies on the left want people to believe.  If you listened to the dnc or most libs in the media or blogosphere, the economy for the entire Bush administration has been worse than 1932.  It simply isn't true.  American's have been incredibly successful and affluent beyond the wildest dreams of our Founding Fathers. 

hillary and obama liken themselves to early 20th C. progressives like wilson and fdr.  But if you look at the real record of those two, its astounding the way they played fast and loose with power.  Never have two administrations violated civil liberties as much as them.  And these are the left's paragons of virtue?



Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: Cat Maniac on February 26, 2008, 09:51:41 PM
Barack will not be substanatively worse for this country economically than George W. Bush

Will that be available as a bumper sticker?
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: Kat Kid on February 26, 2008, 11:51:40 PM
Barack will not be substanatively worse for this country economically than George W. Bush

Will that be available as a bumper sticker?

lol

I am irked when "conservatives" said absolutely zilch while Bush was maniacally spending billions and now before Obama has even set foot in the White House they are predicting economic ruin because of his "liberal spending" proposals.
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: Kat Kid on February 26, 2008, 11:55:47 PM
There's a reason why the Constitution was changed to prevent guys like him from being president for life immediately following his death. 

Its not innuendo to know that the guy wanted to pack the court so he could push through whatever he wanted.  That's something someone wanting political domination would do.  If Bush tried that, you'd be howling mad. 

Its not innuendo to say that he ordered the interment of Japanese-Americans citizens.  Amazing what the left will excuse from their boys but go nuts at the slightest hint of from a Republican.

Its not innuendo to say that wilson supported and signed the espionage act of 1917 and the sedition act of 1918 and imprisoned guys like eugene debs for violating it.  Those acts made it illegal to speak out against the government.  Violations could be punished by a $10,000 fine and up to 20 years in prison.

Its not innuendo to say that wilson put out the first progressive income tax and the modern version of the central bank--the federal reserve.  He also advocated for a world court.  These were  things that karl marx called for in the communist manifesto.

Its not innuendo to say that wilson had people, including feminist leader margaret sanger, arrested for promoting contraception and abortion in violation of the comstock act--which he signed into law. 

Its not innuendo to say that the economy was improving in 1935 and 1936, then the effects of social security and many of fdr's other programs started to take root and the economy went into recession in 1937 and extended the depression until the outbreak of WWII.

Its not innuendo to say that wilson signed the literacy test act of 1917, which stopped anyone over the age of 16 who was illiterate from becoming a citizen.

Its not innuendo that the wilson administration supported the american protective league.  This was a quasi-governmental organization that numbered 250,000 members at its height that detained, interrogated, abused American citizens in opposition to WWI and the wilson administration. This was similar to the brownshirts that came around in germany a few years later.

Nowhere in this thread has anyone heaped praise on Bush, but the accusations against him aren't even as bad as what these icons of liberalism really did.  Lord knows bush isn't perfect and many of his policies have not worked, but they're also not as bad as the crybabies on the left want people to believe.  If you listened to the dnc or most libs in the media or blogosphere, the economy for the entire Bush administration has been worse than 1932.  It simply isn't true.  American's have been incredibly successful and affluent beyond the wildest dreams of our Founding Fathers. 

hillary and obama liken themselves to early 20th C. progressives like wilson and fdr.  But if you look at the real record of those two, its astounding the way they played fast and loose with power.  Never have two administrations violated civil liberties as much as them.  And these are the left's paragons of virtue?





I didn't read it all.  But clearly Obama has no plans to inter Arab-Americans.  It could be argued Bush did.  The nonsensical selective comparisons and connecting of dots from a random array of points is difficult to argue with because we started out talking about something about economics I thought (I was only half paying attention) and ended up discussing internment.  Jesus Christ, I didn't know a schizophrenic Alex Jones/Bill Buckley pseudo-luminary wrote your talking points.

Now is the time where you claim victory because you wrote the longest, most ridiculous post and forced everyone to either read your tome of a rant or tap out.
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: Dirty Sanchez on February 27, 2008, 12:14:03 AM
It could be argued that Bush did.  Could've...kinda...twisted arguments into that.  wilson and fdr, the early liberal fascists, DID.

To sum up what I wrote:  I outlined things liberals DID DO as can be proved incontrovertibly through historic fact.  These are the models the current crop use for their agendas by their own admission.  No need to twist any soundbites for that.

Let's recap:

Conservative--fact, fact, fact
lib- you racist high school wannabe!
Conservative-fact, fact, fact
lib-you're crazy
mj-lol
conservative--fact, fact, fact
lib--I don't read things that completely destroy my worldview
Conservative--fine, I'll make the Cliff's notes version for the mtv generation mind.
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: fatty fat fat on February 27, 2008, 01:23:08 AM
Can you imagine when Obama wins?

A muslim in office. Jesus tits. Yes. !
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: AzCat on February 27, 2008, 01:38:37 AM
It could be argued that Bush did.  Could've...kinda...twisted arguments into that.  wilson and fdr, the early liberal fascists, DID.

To sum up what I wrote:  I outlined things liberals DID DO as can be proved incontrovertibly through historic fact.  These are the models the current crop use for their agendas by their own admission.  No need to twist any soundbites for that.

Let's recap:

Conservative--fact, fact, fact
lib- you racist high school wannabe!
Conservative-fact, fact, fact
lib-you're crazy
mj-lol
conservative--fact, fact, fact
lib--I don't read things that completely destroy my worldview
Conservative--fine, I'll make the Cliff's notes version for the mtv generation mind.

Arguing with lefties is usually pointles.  They're too intellectually lazy to consider your points ... after all if they weren't intellectually lazy (or just plain stupid) they wouldn't be lefties.
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: fatty fat fat on February 27, 2008, 01:39:32 AM
It could be argued that Bush did.  Could've...kinda...twisted arguments into that.  wilson and fdr, the early liberal fascists, DID.

To sum up what I wrote:  I outlined things liberals DID DO as can be proved incontrovertibly through historic fact.  These are the models the current crop use for their agendas by their own admission.  No need to twist any soundbites for that.

Let's recap:

Conservative--fact, fact, fact
lib- you racist high school wannabe!
Conservative-fact, fact, fact
lib-you're crazy
mj-lol
conservative--fact, fact, fact
lib--I don't read things that completely destroy my worldview
Conservative--fine, I'll make the Cliff's notes version for the mtv generation mind.

Arguing with lefties is usually pointles.  They're too intellectually lazy to consider your points ... after all if they weren't intellectually lazy (or just plain stupid) they wouldn't be lefties.

the only ones with facts here are the "lefties"

the "righties" are 'fact-less'
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: AzCat on February 27, 2008, 01:43:08 AM
It could be argued that Bush did.  Could've...kinda...twisted arguments into that.  wilson and fdr, the early liberal fascists, DID.

To sum up what I wrote:  I outlined things liberals DID DO as can be proved incontrovertibly through historic fact.  These are the models the current crop use for their agendas by their own admission.  No need to twist any soundbites for that.

Let's recap:

Conservative--fact, fact, fact
lib- you racist high school wannabe!
Conservative-fact, fact, fact
lib-you're crazy
mj-lol
conservative--fact, fact, fact
lib--I don't read things that completely destroy my worldview
Conservative--fine, I'll make the Cliff's notes version for the mtv generation mind.

Arguing with lefties is usually pointles.  They're too intellectually lazy to consider your points ... after all if they weren't intellectually lazy (or just plain stupid) they wouldn't be lefties.

the only ones with facts here are the "lefties"

the "righties" are 'fact-less'

Thanks for provin my point. 
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: fatty fat fat on February 27, 2008, 01:46:29 AM
Please. We all await the "facts"

Thanks, again. Maybe an HD-Cap? Something concrete plz.
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: AzCat on February 27, 2008, 01:55:35 AM
All you have to do to find the facts fatty fat fascist is to read the thread you're posting in.
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: Kat Kid on February 27, 2008, 11:54:57 AM
facts without logic or context are meaningless.

E.g.

2 + 2 = 4.  Airplanes fly in the air.  Only 4 airplanes can ever fly in the air because that is the highest number I can count to.
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: jeffy on February 27, 2008, 01:20:54 PM
This post is meaningless.

E.g.

2 + 2 = 4.  Airplanes fly in the air.  Only 4 airplanes can ever fly in the air because that is the highest number I can count to.

FYP
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: dohminator on February 27, 2008, 10:56:46 PM
Fact:  When you start from a conclusion, it's pretty easy to find evidence to fit that conclusion. 

Fact:  I can make the republicans look like fascists to, except that I don't have to stretch things very far to do it. 

Bush, and most republicans rely on this fuzzy notion of patriotism and national defense to support a series of policies that have eroded rights of Americans and solidified power in the hands of a unitary executive. 

Hitler relied on nationalistic feelings and a sense of being attacked and at war to support a series of policies that eroded civil rights and consolidated power in a supreme ruler. 

It's really not that hard.
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: Dirty Sanchez on February 27, 2008, 11:36:01 PM


Fact:  I can make the republicans look like fascists to, except that I don't have to stretch things very far to do it. 



We didn't have too either. 

liberalism is responsible for more murders and suppression of rights in the name of "the people" than anything else since 1900.
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: dohminator on February 28, 2008, 12:00:57 AM
Really this is a pretty silly argument overall as there are parallels on both sides. 

Well, except that of course we did almost have a fascist government installed in the US.  They really did seem more "conservative" than liberal.  http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2007/240707fascistcoup.htm  Edit:  Er, I meant to say patriots trying save the US from the fascist Roosevelt. 

This is a pretty good breakdown of Jonah Goldberg's book.  http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=jonah_goldbergs_bizarro_history
Title: Re: Some Friday night reading
Post by: Dirty Sanchez on February 28, 2008, 12:22:44 AM
Yeah, I've studied the coup attempt somewhat.  Those guys were supporters of German/Italian style fascism.  However, as much as leftover hippies want you to believe, fascism is not a construct of the right on the linear political spectrum.  It, like libertarianism, is not on the linear spectrum.  Both Penn Jillette and Ron Paul are both libertarians, but they come at it from different directions.  fascism works much the same way, but just the opposite.  It relies on total government control of the individual through coercive methods, whether by thug or by law.  Looking at history, one of the major things fascist states have relied on to achieve their power is a cult of personality and  spellbinding populist leadership.  These rise up in times of economic crisis, like the great depression--and what some spoiled few have claimed the last decade has been.

And you're using a liberal blogaganda site as a good descriptor of the book?  You'll get a fair and honest review there. :rolleyes: