Okey dokey well let's look at things on a baseline. At simple question that is asked is if you are for or against more government control?
Are liberal ideologies for or against government control? Well, gun control, state funded healthcare, needles for drug addicts. Liberals generally want government intervention.
Are fascist ideologies for or against government control? Well we all know the answer to that.
Are conservative ideologies for or against government control? Well once again, invisible hand, trickle down, all those things.
Liberals are closer to fascists than conservatives.
Can we define the parameters? Like is liberalism closer to Franco, Mussolini or Hitler? Where do the Trotskyites fall into all of this from a communist perspective?
Can we not just agree that there are ####ty positions, ideas and agendas on both the left and the right? And that the vast majority of everyday people (including most on this forum) are in the middle trying to figure out what the hell all these idiots are talking about?
Last edited by Nyah; 03-16-2019 at 09:45 PM.
The Following 11 Users Say Thank You to Nyah For This Useful Post:
If Fascism was only about government control then maybe you have an argument, but you’d be ignoring basic tenets of all Fascist regimes such as Nationalism, Militarism, and romanticizing the past.
Either way it’s a stupid, tribalist argument. Fascism is bad and you shouldn’t need to pin it on “the other side” to believe so.
The Following User Says Thank You to DownInFlames For This Useful Post:
Liberalism is not closer to fascism than conservatism is to fascism.
Already posted in the other thread:
This chart is correct. End thread.
This chart is incorrect, see discussion in other thread where fascism = high level of government control and liberalism = moderate level of control. There is no other axis, government control is the only axis. If you think there is another axis there may be a reason you need to validate yourself but there isn't anything politically that falls outside of being controlled by the government or not being controlled by the government.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by oilboimcdavid
Eakins wasn't a bad coach, the team just had 2 bad years, they should've been more patient.
The moment you equate universal healthcare with authoritarianism is the moment you lose.
You lose.
__________________
"For thousands of years humans were oppressed - as some of us still are - by the notion that the universe is a marionette whose strings are pulled by a god or gods, unseen and inscrutable." - Carl Sagan Freedom consonant with responsibility.
The Following User Says Thank You to evman150 For This Useful Post:
__________________
"For thousands of years humans were oppressed - as some of us still are - by the notion that the universe is a marionette whose strings are pulled by a god or gods, unseen and inscrutable." - Carl Sagan Freedom consonant with responsibility.
Yep, that chart and centuries of political thought and literature are incorrect. Much better to trust the chart with the American flag dead center that lists monarchy and Nazism as left wing political systems:
The moment you equate universal healthcare with authoritarianism is the moment you lose.
You lose.
Never said authoritarianism equates universal health care. Both of those however involve government control and therefore fall under the left side of the political spectrum.
Yay false equivalencies!
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by oilboimcdavid
Eakins wasn't a bad coach, the team just had 2 bad years, they should've been more patient.
This chart is incorrect, see discussion in other thread where fascism = high level of government control and liberalism = moderate level of control. There is no other axis, government control is the only axis. If you think there is another axis there may be a reason you need to validate yourself but there isn't anything politically that falls outside of being controlled by the government or not being controlled by the government.
And how are conservative governments less control exactly? They're the ones in the US making it harder and harder for women to get abortions or even birth control. They're the ones making it harder for citizens (mostly minorities) to vote, while at the same time actively encouraging election fraud. They're the ones who want to keep marijuana illegal while liberals want to open it up to the free market
You're delusional if you honestly believe that conservatives want less government control overall. Their policies time and again have only eliminated government control when it benefits their wealthy corporate donors, otherwise they have increased it to exert control over large swaths of the population
The Following 20 Users Say Thank You to Hemi-Cuda For This Useful Post:
Never said authoritarianism equates universal health care. Both of those however involve government control and therefore fall under the left side of the political spectrum.
Yay false equivalencies!
The grammar of your sentence doesn't even make sense.
Perhaps, though, I should have used "identify" instead of "equates".
Either way, I can't believe rubecube, who is an intelligent and thoughtful person, made this thread. Your ("PaperBagger'14") point is manifestly ridiculous.
__________________
"For thousands of years humans were oppressed - as some of us still are - by the notion that the universe is a marionette whose strings are pulled by a god or gods, unseen and inscrutable." - Carl Sagan Freedom consonant with responsibility.
And how are conservative governments less control exactly? They're the ones in the US making it harder and harder for women to get abortions or even birth control. They're the ones making it harder for citizens (mostly minorities) to vote, while at the same time actively encouraging election fraud. They're the ones who want to keep marijuana illegal while liberals want to open it up to the free market
You're delusional if you honestly believe that conservatives want less government control overall. Their policies time and again have only eliminated government control when it benefits their wealthy corporate donors, otherwise they have increased it to exert control over large swaths of the population
Having some control is part of a spectrum too, that's how spectrums work. They arent black or white.
Anyone who has conservative views but uses the government to control other people's decisions is no longer a conservative as conservatives based on the proper political spectrum do not want government control. Those people fall closer to the authoritarian side of the spectrum.
It once again does not matter why someone wants to control the people, be it environmental reasons, monetary gain, literally any reason, but if you in any way minimize freedom of personal choice, that is part of the left side of the political spectrum.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by oilboimcdavid
Eakins wasn't a bad coach, the team just had 2 bad years, they should've been more patient.
Last edited by PaperBagger'14; 03-17-2019 at 05:41 AM.
Liberalism is not closer to fascism than conservatism is to fascism.
Already posted in the other thread:
This chart is correct. End thread.
I believe that chart is looking at European Conservatism, not American. Republicans (in theory at least, are for smaller government), so they align closer to classical liberalism than those that we colloquially refer to as liberal today. John Oliver would be would be considered a "liberal" by most, but find me an issue that he doesn't advocate government intervention on and I will be amazed.
I waded into this debate kind of late so please forgive me if I am missing the point; but if the argument is that American conservatives are closer to fascists today than the American left, or "liberals" than I think you are incorrect and that chart is not relevant in this argument.
Liberalism is a rather special ideology in the sense that it's the only one that's most misunderstood by the people who consider themselves liberals.
Especially people who describe themselves as "classical liberals" have on average zero idea what classical liberalism was.
I would highly recommend PhilosophyTubes videos on liberalism before taking part in discussions on the topic.
Even though the guy is a flaming radical leftie, and makes some quite provocative statements, the videos on themselves are really useful. (And please watch them all the way before commenting.)
For this discussion, the first video I think is an excellent primer.
"A political ideology identifies who are the acceptable targets of violence."
And no, liberalism is not closer to fascism than conservatism.
Fascism is at it's core a conservative movement. You could even say it's conservatism taken to it's logical conclusion.
Conservatives openly long for a patriarchal society, strong leaders, strong police forces controlled by the government, and a society where they don't have to put up with women, ethnic minorities, young people or queers acting out. They also consider socialism as a fundamentally delegitimate ideology. (For example, for a conservative saying "that's socialism" is in itself an adequate rebuttal for anything, not needing further explanation.)
The logical conclusion of this is a society where you have a ideologically motivated police force that starts to violently oppress minorities, where voting for socialism or any progressive movement is made if not technically impossible, at least irrelevant in terms of who has the power, and where flat out killing political opponents is acceptable. Oh, and where women stay home or in jobs "suited to them", mostly meaning "in jobs where they are in service of men or each other".
That's what fascist societies are like. (Franco's Spain is a more useful example of a fascist society than Nazi Germany. Nazism is a rather specific subcategory of fascism, with rather unique features like the extreme preoccupation with purity and it's obsession about jews.)
The difference between liberals and conservatives is really mostly that liberals generally like to think they oppose violently silencing minorities or political opposition, where conservatives usually fully embrace violence as a way to uphold the society they believe in.
Of course only a small (but vocal) minority of liberals ever let it actually bother them if police brutality disproportionately targets minorities or political radicals. They will even quietly vote for parties and politicians who support "law and order", fully knowing that it really means more police violence and curbing of civil liberties of those who can't afford a good lawyer.
(Liberals also almost never support actions to make the legal or political systems more fair to poor people in practice. Liberals love to create systems where everything is theoretically fair, but in practice fully dependent on how much money or other resources you have to throw at a problem. When you start worrying about the practical side, that's when you start becoming a leftist and get labeled a socialist in the US.)
Even with those criticism, liberals don't create fascist societies. They can very easily quietly accept the creation of such a society, but they will not, for the most part, be active participants. Where as conservatives, if they get a lot of power, almost without fail tend to move a country at least somewhat closer to fascism.
I think the OP has confused libertarianism and conservatism and has applied libertarian ideals to US Conservatives even though none exist in US politics.
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to GGG For This Useful Post:
So it seems there are three data points you are missing:
1. actual fascists have/had economic policies that closely resemble conservative ideologies.
2. Actual conservatives among the general population were the core fascist supporters.
3. I’ve never met a “liberal” who espouses fascist beliefs, however I hear many hard core conservatives talk with admiration about parts of the fascist ideology.
Details:
Hitler and Franco (for instance) were both strongly anti-communist and strongly pro-business. Private businesss (that had the right connections) flourished under their regimes.
Another data-point: In Germany and Spain, as well as in non-fascist countries like Britain (and USA), conservatives were the main base of pro franco or pro hitler.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PaperBagger'14
Never said authoritarianism equates universal health care. Both of those however involve government control and therefore fall under the left side of the political spectrum.
Yay false equivalencies!
The Following User Says Thank You to marsplasticeraser For This Useful Post:
Liberalism is closer to fascism than conservatism
