Page 1 of 1 [ 15 posts ] 

thinkinginpictures
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 7 May 2011
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,310

02 Jul 2018, 12:41 pm

Seems a lot of people here believe (falsely) that the more laws & bans a nation have, the closer it is to fascism.

Let's see... Denmark is a fascist nation by these definitions. So is the U.S., Norway, Sweden, Germany, France - I could go on all day!

How come a lot of people believe that just because one wants anti-hate speech laws like anti-racist laws (which exists in nations like Denmark, Germany etc.) one is "by definition" a fascist?

I'm a leftist. I vote Red-Green Alliance Party, which is the furthest to the left one can get. They believe in social welfare (paid by taxation) and a lot of human rights and protection of the sick, elderly and handicapped.

How is that fascist?



Fnord
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 May 2008
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 59,750
Location: Stendec

02 Jul 2018, 1:24 pm

The Basic Principles Of Fascism
by Fnord, the Metasyntactic Variable

1) Absolute power of the State: The Fascist state is a glorious, living entity that is more important than any individual. All individuals are part of the State, but the State is greater than the sum of its parts. All individuals must set aside their own needs and supplicate themselves to the needs of the State. There is no law or other power that can limit the authority of the State. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's view on the absolute authority of the state also strongly influenced Fascist thinking. Fascism draws heavily on the revolutionary ideal of nationalism.

2) Survival of the Fittest: A Fascist state is only as glorious and powerful as its ability to wage wars and win them. Peace is viewed as weakness, aggression as strength. Strength is the ultimate good and ensures the survival of the State - "Might makes right". Fascists support a type of hierarchical individualism in the form of Social Darwinism, as they believe it promotes "superior individuals" and weeds out "the weak".

3) Strict Social Order: Social classes are strictly maintained in order to avoid "mob rule" or any hint of chaos. Chaos is a threat to the State. Free Though is suppressed. The State's absolute power and greatness depends on the maintenance of a class system in which every individual has a specific place, and that place cannot be altered.

4) Authoritarian Leadership: To maintain the power and greatness of the State requires a single, charismatic leader with absolute authority. This all-powerful, heroic leader maintains the unity and unquestioning submission required by the Fascist state. The authoritarian leader is often viewed as a symbol of the State, if not a demigod.

5) Pro-Conservatism: Conservatives and Fascists in Europe have held similar positions on many issues, including anti-communism and support of national pride. Conservatives and Fascists both reject the liberal and Marxist emphasis on linear progressive evolution in history. Fascism's emphasis on order, discipline, hierarchy, martial (military) virtues, and preservation of private property appealed to conservatives. Fascists' promotion of "healthy", "uncontaminated" elements of national tradition such as chivalric culture and glorifying a nation's historical golden age have similarities with conservative aims. Fascists also made pragmatic tactical alliances with traditional conservative forces in order to achieve and maintain power.

6) Anti-Liberalism: Fascism is strongly opposed to Liberalism. Fascists accuse Liberalism as being the cause of despiritualization of human beings and transforming them into materialistic beings in which the highest ideal is moneymaking. In particular, Fascism opposes Liberalism for its materialism, rationalism, individualism, and utilitarianism. Fascists believe that the liberal emphasis on individual freedom produces national divisiveness; however, one issue where Fascism is in accord with Liberalism is in its support of private property rights and the existence of a market economy.

7) Racism: A narrowly-defined phenotype (i.e., tall, thin, blond, blue-eyed, athletic, et cetera) is prescribed as the 'dominant' race, placing all others in an inferior social, economic, and legal status. People who are not of the dominant race serve people of the dominant race and live at their sufferance. "Genetic Impurity" - the blending of the races - is strictly forbidden.


_________________
 
No love for Hamas, Hezbollah, Iranian Leadership, Islamic Jihad, other Islamic terrorist groups, OR their supporters and sympathizers.


Fnord
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 May 2008
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 59,750
Location: Stendec

02 Jul 2018, 1:26 pm

Fascism, Part II
by Fnord, the Metasyntactic Variable

Fascism (n): A ruling system that exhibits the following features:

The Leader
• A dictator
• Always right / Never Wrong
• Charismatic or otherwise
• Often worshipped (if not deified)

The Ideology
• Elimination of civil rights (i.e. free assembly, free inquiry, free press, free religion, free speech, trial by jury, presumption of innocence, personal privacy, redress of wrongs, et cetera)
• Emphasises nationalism and sacrificial service to the State
• Guides and justifies the actions of the Dictator, the Party, The Plan, and the State
• May be based on religious doctrine
• Socialist / Leftist: The State owns everything, and provides everything to the masses

The Party
• Imposes harsh penalties for all legal infractions
• Members have more privileges than do ordinary citizens
• Monitors and controls every aspect of citizen’s lives
• More concerned with conformity than with innovation
• More concerned with enforcing Ideology than with progress
• More concerned with the 'Status Quo' than with new ideas

The State
• Martial Law is in force
• No civil law; civil infractions result in criminal penalties
• Presumption of criminal guilt arising from accusation, assumption, belief, bigotry, rumor, or suspicion -- evidence is not required
• Regimented breeding, commerce, economy, education, fashion, housing, industry, and scientific research
• Repression (or elimination) of one or more groups, based on ethnicity, gender, ideology, politics, or religion
• Restrictions on communication, information, and travel
• Suppression of criticism, individualism, intellectualism, and all opposition

The Military
• Enforces Party law
• Provides a pool of candidates for Party members and officials
• Uses abduction, intimidation, torture, and violence to maintain civil order

The Plan
• One Master Plan
• One or more secondary plans that support the Master Plan
• Promises to deliver the State into a glorious future
• Delivers repression and stagnation

Censorship
• Artistic expression is controlled to favor the Dictator, the Ideology, the Party, the Plan, and the State; all else is banned
• Education is sufficient only for basic literacy, numeracy, and Party doctrine; all else is banned
• History is revised as needed to favor the Dictator, the Ideology, the Party, the Plan, and the State; all else is banned
• Journalism edits the news to favor the Dictator, the Ideology, the Party, the Plan, and the State; all else is banned
• Literature is written to favor the Dictator, the Ideology, the Party, the Plan, and the State; all else is banned
• Scientific research that favors the Dictator, the Ideology, the Party, the Plan, and the State is supported; all else is banned

Citizenry
• Depends entirely upon the State for its daily living
• Careers are pre-determined by the Party
• Education is pre-determined by the Party
• Individuals may 'disappear' for no obvious reason, and are never heard from again
• Military service is mandatory
• Owned by the State (enslaved)
• Ready and willing to denounce each other as Enemies to the State in return for State-issued rewards


_________________
 
No love for Hamas, Hezbollah, Iranian Leadership, Islamic Jihad, other Islamic terrorist groups, OR their supporters and sympathizers.


Last edited by Fnord on 02 Jul 2018, 2:32 pm, edited 4 times in total.

thinkinginpictures
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 7 May 2011
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,310

02 Jul 2018, 1:31 pm

fnord - then I can't possibly see how I fit into this cathegory of Fascism.

I do not believe in a strong military nation. I do not want a dictatorship (I want rule of experts, like doctors deciding health politics, social workers deciding social welfare - the list goes on).

I do not believe in any superiour master race, and I do want disabled, people with various illness should get help through welfare - this is explicitly prohibited in a fascist state, weak people are killed off.

So please, explain to me how I am a Fascist by these very definitions of Fascism?

Also, the very notion of military service/conscription - I HATE that idea!



Fnord
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 May 2008
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 59,750
Location: Stendec

02 Jul 2018, 1:33 pm

thinkinginpictures wrote:
... explain to me how I am a Fascist by these very definitions of Fascism...
That would require cross-posting, which is against the rules of this website.


_________________
 
No love for Hamas, Hezbollah, Iranian Leadership, Islamic Jihad, other Islamic terrorist groups, OR their supporters and sympathizers.


Spectral Aurtist
Snowy Owl
Snowy Owl

User avatar

Joined: 7 Feb 2016
Age: 49
Gender: Male
Posts: 153
Location: Helltopia

02 Jul 2018, 4:49 pm

thinkinginpictures wrote:
Seems a lot of people here believe (falsely) that the more laws & bans a nation have, the closer it is to fascism.

Let's see... Denmark is a fascist nation by these definitions. So is the U.S., Norway, Sweden, Germany, France - I could go on all day!

How come a lot of people believe that just because one wants anti-hate speech laws like anti-racist laws (which exists in nations like Denmark, Germany etc.) one is "by definition" a fascist?

I'm a leftist. I vote Red-Green Alliance Party, which is the furthest to the left one can get. They believe in social welfare (paid by taxation) and a lot of human rights and protection of the sick, elderly and handicapped.

How is that fascist?


Short version:

It takes a lot more than just a suffocating mountain of laws and banns, that never gets smaller, inevitably gets abused to find anyone guilty of SOMETHING and requires everyone to become a lawyer just to avoid being a criminal, to make a country fascist....but it's definitely an excellent step in the right direction.



Wolfram87
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 14 Feb 2015
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,976
Location: Sweden

04 Jul 2018, 3:14 am

It's not about how many bans you have, it's about what you ban.


_________________
I'm bored out of my skull, let's play a different game. Let's pay a visit down below and cast the world in flame.


kraftiekortie
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 4 Feb 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 87,510
Location: Queens, NYC

05 Jul 2018, 8:48 am

I never thought you were a fascist, OP. And, especially, not a Mussoini-type Fascist.

I just feel you seem to adopt rather extreme interpretations to things sometimes. Making mountains out of molehills, so to speak.

I've been known to do that myself.

If somebody wants to call me a fascist, I just ignore it. Because it's not based upon a person's true knowledge of me. It's based upon the desire on the part of another person to put me down (for various possible reasons).



yelekam
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 18 Jan 2013
Gender: Male
Posts: 591

07 Jul 2018, 3:29 pm

thinkinginpictures wrote:
Seems a lot of people here believe (falsely) that the more laws & bans a nation have, the closer it is to fascism.

Let's see... Denmark is a fascist nation by these definitions. So is the U.S., Norway, Sweden, Germany, France - I could go on all day!

How come a lot of people believe that just because one wants anti-hate speech laws like anti-racist laws (which exists in nations like Denmark, Germany etc.) one is "by definition" a fascist?

I'm a leftist. I vote Red-Green Alliance Party, which is the furthest to the left one can get. They believe in social welfare (paid by taxation) and a lot of human rights and protection of the sick, elderly and handicapped.

How is that fascist?


There are people who will use the term fascist as a devil term to rhetorically attack a policy they oppose. Not because they necessarily believe that such thing would actually meet the definition of fascist, but because they know that the word has a negative connation, and thus use it to make the thing their attacking look negative.



Fnord
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 May 2008
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 59,750
Location: Stendec

07 Jul 2018, 4:18 pm

yelekam wrote:
There are people who will use the term fascist as a devil term to rhetorically attack a policy they oppose...
And then there are some of us who fully understand what Fascism is, and we call it out whenever we see its evil seeds sending up fetid shoots.


_________________
 
No love for Hamas, Hezbollah, Iranian Leadership, Islamic Jihad, other Islamic terrorist groups, OR their supporters and sympathizers.


nephets
Deinonychus
Deinonychus

Joined: 3 Feb 2017
Gender: Male
Posts: 336
Location: North Yorkshire

07 Jul 2018, 4:45 pm

thinkinginpictures wrote:
Seems a lot of people here believe (falsely) that the more laws & bans a nation have, the closer it is to fascism.

Let's see... Denmark is a fascist nation by these definitions. So is the U.S., Norway, Sweden, Germany, France - I could go on all day!

How come a lot of people believe that just because one wants anti-hate speech laws like anti-racist laws (which exists in nations like Denmark, Germany etc.) one is "by definition" a fascist?

I'm a leftist. I vote Red-Green Alliance Party, which is the furthest to the left one can get. They believe in social welfare (paid by taxation) and a lot of human rights and protection of the sick, elderly and handicapped.

How is that fascist?


Fascist and Communist regimes are very similar and almost always involve killing people who disagree with you. There is in practice no difference between extreme left and extreme right. They both involve an overwhelmingly powerful state assuming to itself the right to oppress anyone whom they don't like. The limited research on extremist groups in democratic societies, suggests that their is a considerable amount of membership movement between the extremes. The personnel of extreme left-wing groups here in Britain frequently contain a large number of ex-Fascists and vice versa. Quite a few supporters of Corbyn's Labour party, here in the UK have backgrounds in the extremist right-wing movement. You can see the effect of this in the anti-semitism both groups share. The poor Jews get it from both groups of nutters. The Red-Green alliance in practice believes in state control. It is a tiny group, of Communist fruit- loops. It does not believe in democracy.



Spectral Aurtist
Snowy Owl
Snowy Owl

User avatar

Joined: 7 Feb 2016
Age: 49
Gender: Male
Posts: 153
Location: Helltopia

14 Jul 2018, 8:42 pm

Fnord wrote:
yelekam wrote:
There are people who will use the term fascist as a devil term to rhetorically attack a policy they oppose...
And then there are some of us who fully understand what Fascism is, and we call it out whenever we see its evil seeds sending up fetid shoots.



It isn't really clear cut ya know? IF you have a bunch of people of EXTREMELY similar mind in a SUPER well established culture that just never deviates almost at all from it's one way of being and there isn't a whole lot of difference in opinion from one person to the next or serious diversity then Fascism......would probably work out ok...and it might even be pretty peaceful, But one size just does not fit all. I don't really believe there is a "right government" anymore instead i think it fits or it doesn't.

But the real test is when you have a ton of laws that don't make sense anymore (and this never includes things in a countries constitution) and many of them need to be cleaned up...do they get cleaned up? Do they hang around as excuses for arrest when somebody powerful doesn't like a thing ? What happens?

There are Communist communities in Switzerland (sure I have said this before) and they have been there a long time, and they are really peaceful places with very kind respectful people who are doing just fine.It wouldn't work everywhere does that mean it's evil where it's working perfectly well?

I just look at stuff and try to grasp what I see as well as I can. What I see isn't so much that there are good political philosophies and bad ones so much as it seems that it has a great deal to do with scale of application and cultural mindset.

and that's how it looks to me ...but maybe it doesn't make a good debate.



Fnord
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 May 2008
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 59,750
Location: Stendec

14 Jul 2018, 9:21 pm

Spectral Aurtist wrote:
Fnord wrote:
yelekam wrote:
There are people who will use the term fascist as a devil term to rhetorically attack a policy they oppose...
And then there are some of us who fully understand what Fascism is, and we call it out whenever we see its evil seeds sending up fetid shoots.
It isn't really clear cut ya know?
If it looks like a Fascist, quacks like a Fascist, and goose-steps like a Fascist, then it probably ain't a duck.


_________________
 
No love for Hamas, Hezbollah, Iranian Leadership, Islamic Jihad, other Islamic terrorist groups, OR their supporters and sympathizers.


SZWell
Deinonychus
Deinonychus

User avatar

Joined: 23 Aug 2017
Age: 29
Gender: Male
Posts: 397
Location: Orlando, FL

15 Jul 2018, 3:38 am

Wolfram87 wrote:
It's not about how many bans you have, it's about what you ban.


_________________
Following my footsteps


Spectral Aurtist
Snowy Owl
Snowy Owl

User avatar

Joined: 7 Feb 2016
Age: 49
Gender: Male
Posts: 153
Location: Helltopia

16 Jul 2018, 5:42 am

I'm going to go ahead and encourage everyone here to read about the paradox of tolerance.
It may not be necessary but I am rapidly becoming aware that there is some kind of plague of self blindness afoot and I prefer to do my due diligence.

it seems to me that it should be obvious that one cannot deal with Fascism like a Fascist without becoming a Fascist that angrily denies they are a Fascist which would be (ironic if it weren't busy being terrifying).

I am not in Fascism's corner for the record, I won't be discussing my own political inclinations because I am not sure if there would be one that fit, I tend to cheery pick policies according to what makes the most sense to me, I don't believe in clubs or simple solutions that aren't just band aids.

I only wanted to make the one point that being that IF ya look around at the world, you can FIND places where political philosophies that are paraded around as universal failures have worked out because they fit with a culture and weren't big enough to rapidly succumb to the GIGANTIC FAT POSTERIOR of corruption.

I agree that Fascism is super dangerous...BUT it gets even MORE dangerous if you don't admit that it isn't always that easy to spot.