News Supreme Court Strikes Down D.C. Gun Ban

[WheelsRCool]

I do believe that guns form a deterrent to criminals. If Virgina Tech had allowed people to carry guns, I doubt the Virginia Tech shooting would have even happened there. Criminals are crazy, but not stupid in this sense. Likely Virgininia Tech would have been rather reknowned as one of the only universities that allows people to carry guns. The shooter thus would have opted for someplace else, I'd think.

If all universities allowed such carrying, it would thus be a large deterrent to criminals at universities anywhere. At my university, at this one university fast-food place, the people inside got held up at gunpoint one morning. Luckily, no one was hurt, but if said university had also allowed concealed carry, this might have been avoided altogether by the criminals.

If I myself was a criminal deciding to shoot up a mall, and had to choose between a mall in Kentucky or a mall in New York, I think I would choose the mall in New York :D

 

[wildman]

This is a pretty huge decision for Americans. If you are a law-abiding (not a felon), mentally competent American you can now possesses a handgun in your home anywhere in the US. It goes without saying IMO, but it needed to be ruled definatively by the Supreme Court. A very important "do not cross" line for gun control advocates has been drawn.

Well, no. This decision was narrowly written to only apply to the Federal Government. It does not affect state laws. Those will have to be argued separately.

 

[OrbitalPower]

He "officially" invented fascism, but the philosophical elements of fascism were around long before Mussolini gained power. And yes, fascism shares many things with liberal democrats.

Yet again, you failed to name any "similarities" between Mussolini and Liberal democrats. If you go down the line on what fascism supports: protection of the major, dominant economic institutions in a country (i.e. corporations), private property rights, blatant militarism, anti-union and so on, this is far closer to conservatives and Libertarians than it is to liberal democrats.

Mussolini came to power after he watched the conflict between business and the laboring classes. He stood idly by until it was clear the conservative factions we're going to win. When it was clear businesses were going to win, he organized the government to protect big corporations -- that's conservatism. The same thing is true in Nazi Germany. His enemies were the political left, and political scientists place Fascism on the far-right. Fascism is basically indistinguishable from conservatism at that level.

Again, this is in contrast to Wilson, who did nothing like this. He did not come to power in a coup backed by expatriates and rich property owners. So what are you talking about.

The only precurssor to Fascism is capitalism, with its emphasis on protecting the elite members of society, which is a right-wing ideology. Fascism wouldn't exist without an economic basis, and the economic basis is that of capitalism (not of socialism, which means worker controlled factories, which were outlawed in both Nazi Germany and in Fascist Italy).

You are correct in that he was, to the dismay of many Progressives at the time, deemed "too soft" regarding the war.

Which "progressives" are you talking about? The ones that split from the Republicans? I just told you that the socialist and the left, and the other real progressives, were opposed to the war. And they were.

No one knows what you mean when you talk about "true conservatives" or "true libertarians" or what have you; conservatives have also supported big government since their ideology was founded, politically, and philosophically.

And no one put you in charge of what a "true conservative" or a "true libertarian" is in the first place; plus, your characteristics aren't even in line with modern scholarship. You give no citations for any of your beliefs other than books written by journalists and commentators like Goldberg that is well outside of historical scholarship.

I already told you there were many reasons why World War I could have happened. It was generally a shift towards a more bipolar world, with Germany rising. Balance of Power theory predicts that states will act to prevent anyone state from developing a preponderance of power (Nye).

Wilson believed that the balance of power theory was evil, and caused wars, because it encouraged statesmen to treat nations like cheeses to be cut up for political purposes.

Fascists, on the other hand, loved war, and they glorified war. The glorification of war is the typical characteristic of fascism.

So again, we see yet another fundamental difference between liberalism and socialism, fascism and conservatism.

No it isn't. For one, fascism is an incredibly difficult to define subject. The only thing that can really be said about it is that it is anti-free market capitalism, individual rights, and so forth. Many scholars have for years considered fascism a variant of socialism, but now some are beginning to wonder if socialism is really a variant of fascism.

Scholars have said no such thing. Fascism is the opposite of socialism, closer to capitalism and conservatism. Hitler and Mussolini despised Marxist doctrine, and anybody advocating Marxism in their society was murdered (whereas the capitalism were from to run wild in Nazi Germany, and Fascist Italy).

Furthermore, Fascism generally protects the very institutions Libertarians and conservatives favor, such as corporations and so on, while de-emphasizing things liberals believe strongly in, such as Civil Rights and Liberties, free-speech and so on.

Fascism is often said to be an "extension of capitalism" (economics for everybody) and the Online Dictionary of the Social Sciences defines fascism as follows:

"A political doctrine opposed to democracy and demanding submission to political leadership and authority. A key principle of fascism is the belief that the whole society has a shared destiny and purpose which can only be achieved by iron discipline, obedience to leadership and an all-powerful state. Fascism first developed in Italy, under the leadership of Benito Mussolini (dictator of Italy from 1922 to 1943) and later influenced the development of German fascism in the Nazi movement led by Adolf Hitler (dictator of Germany from 1933-1945) . While fascism increases the power and role of the state in society and suppresses free trade unions and political opposition, it preserves private ownership and private property. "

Two things we learn from this definition:

#1. We learn that fascism is a belief that a society has a shared destiny and purpose, and we know that conservatives often dictate such a thing when they talk about America being a "Christian" nation and so on. Fascism wasn't so much of a change in structure as it was a change in how to protect a hierarchical society. A constructivist would point that out.

Conservatives believe in protecting the social order, by any means necessary (definition of conservative), liberals believe in advancing society, so that is a fundamental difference.

#2. Fascists believe in preserving the private ownership of property. There is nothing socialist or liberal about this concept. Liberals favor private property, only because they deem it a better form of living, but it should still be regulated (like what Thomas Jefferson advocated).

It is not an "absolute right" like it is to many capitalist economists and fascist dictators.

Woodrow Wilson wrote many hostile things towards the ideas of individual liberties and the Constitution in his various writings. He was no friend of liberty. He believed that the government expansion of government power was a natural thing, and that the entire idea of democracy was a tired old, 19th century ideology. Most of the Progressives did. They believed the power of the State was how best to organize and shape society. One of the only ways to get such power is through a war, or the moral equivalent of war. With war, you can nationalize the economy, regulate prices and wages, and control people a lot more. Historically, the American Left seems to seek the equivalent of war, for example the extreme environmentalists saying we need to face global warming with the same tenacity we faced World War II.

If I have to explain to you again why Wilson wasn't a fascist we're going to go round-and-round in circles here.

You give no quotes, historical evidence, or anything else that confirms Wilson was a fascist, or that he supported some abject tyranny of the state. You do not explain rationally how the "American left" has generally favored war when every historian knows that Socialists and so on were opposed war.

Who do you think was challenging even the idea of World War I AND World War II, but socialists (the American far left, hundreds of socialists were even in various low-level positions in government at the time)?

Why didn't America become fascist if Woodrow Wilson was a fascist? Who reversed it?

I'd say Coolidge was closer to fascism, who widened the gap between the rich and the poor and who's policies contributed to the great depression. Not to mention he attacked third world nations like Nicaragua under the rubric of national security, the same type of nonsense that fascists pull.

 

[OrbitalPower]

Completely wrong. Fascism is not at all militaristic. Militarism and nationalism are but one aspect of certain fascist groups. During World War I, it was the Progressives who were the most militaristic and nationalistic for example. And I agree that the Progressives were one form of fascists, but nationalism and miltiarism are not what make fascism.

Fascism is indeed militaristic. The Fascists in Italy glorified War. Mussolini's son-in-law Count Ciano described the explosions of war as an aesthetic thrill, as having the beauty of a flower unfolding. So a glorification of war was apparent, and, as the definitions show, fascism was militaristic.

Political Scientists have studied numerous fascist societies, such as Italy, and other ones that have a connection to fascist governance (Pinochet's Chile, Suharto's Indonesia, and other US backed dictatorships), and a common theme is militarism.

And you are also confusing patriotism with nationalism. Nationalism and patriotism are two separate things.

"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it." --George Bernard Shaw.

Patriotism and nationalism are relatively close, and it's Republicans who spend hours trying to define what is and what isn't patriotic, to the point of it being basically nationalistic.

Regarding the collusion between business and the government, you are talking about the symptoms of the disease, not the disease itself. Collusion between business and government does not occur from libertarian/"Reagan conservative" policies. It can't. Embracing free-market capitalism and free-trade always has prevented it.

Again, ludicrous. The Nazis actually opened up trade to a greater degree than the Weimar Republican, and dealt directly with foreign corporations such as IBM.

The rest of your post is a bunch of Ron Paul like nonsense and conspiracy theories, without any scholarly reference appearing in there.

This is why I am concerned about some of the reasons for owning guns, because gun owners apparently think the fact that we have a central bank is reason enough to engage in an armed rebelling.

And as for yoru nonsense about the left supporting big business, it's insanity. FDR actually had to quell a fascist/capitalist takeover in the US (see the business plot to overthrow FDR, which was exposed by the great Smedley Butler, who also wrote War is a Racket).

A lot of his programs, like rural electrification and so on were for the benefit of the poor, and not for the benefit of the big corporations.

Ronald Reagan, on the other hand, is the biggest corporate-welfare proponent of all time, a complete protectionist, who was involved in numerous scandals like the S&L scandal and Iran contra. His wars against the third world mimic the Nazi attack on Poland or the Fascist attack on Ethopia, that these small countries like El Salvador and Nicaragua posed a threat to the US.

Even got so ridiculous he had tanks placed near the White House in case of a sneak attack from tiny, little Laos.

His disastrous "Third World Wars" costs the lives of tens-of-thousands, far greater terrorist atrocities than September 11th, through the backing of Rios Mott and so on, and millions of people indirectly, who starved because of the disastrous policies of the fascist capitalist dictatorship.

You claim the computer industry is not monopolistic. The computer industry is indeed monopolistic, has received billions in corporate welfare, and so on. Patents for example are very monopolistic, and they actually hurt the little guy. What patents do is allow a monopoly for a certain technique or a design, and if you have anything in a program that resembles it, you can be sued -- even though programming is more like mathematics and there is a lot of ways to approach something, for example, you could look at something and see it as a square, but you could also see it as a diamond, without any understand of the other person's design interpretation. So it's actually quite possible that you could code or design something and see it as a diamond, but be sued because it could also resemble a square.

Big corporations, who hold hundreds of Patents, and for companies like IBM it's in the thousands, can easily claim a certain part of your program violates this or that patents, forcing you to pay a royalty fee and forcing you out of business.

Microsoft and the way it handles its APIs is also monopolistic.

The "modern, right-wing" version of Libertarianism is based on the concepts of the classical liberal, essentially the social liberalism of the Left and the classical economics of the Right.

It isn't based on the concept of classical-liberalism. It's based on a distortion of their works, combined with Ayn Rand like lunacy and cultishness.

The classical-liberals were people like Adam Smith. No where did Smith advocate capitalism. In fact, the classical-liberals actually opposed the early precursors of fascism, such as "incorporations." (See the article "Why Libertarianism is Not Classical-Liberalism," available on JSTOR).

As Gavin Kennedy notes, author of Adam Smith's Lost Legacy, Smith was very sympathetic to the plight of the workers and laborers, and condemned the state protection of monopolies.

The Wealth of Nations can really be seen as an attack on the proprietors at the time. It was not a pro-capitalist document in any way.

The other classical-liberals were people like Rousseau, and other enlightenment figures, who also not only opposed capitalism, but private property as well.

The classical liberals TH Green and JS Mill, were liberals and Mill even became a Socialist.

However, there is no classical-liberal who ever made the transition to the conservative tyranny the Libertarian Party supports, what is really a capitalist dictatorship and has already been tried in America, and was a disaster.

There is no such thing as a socialist Libertarian. Socialism is ardently against the concept of human and individual freedom, which is one of the core components for the Libertarians.

There is indeed a libertarian-socialism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian-socialism

It's been around a lot longer than the American distorted Ayn Rand type of ultra-conservatism, which is against what the original libertarians stood for.

Plus, modern libertarian-socialists like Chomsky and Zinn are generally more well known around the world, and their work is more important than the few libertarian-economists scattered about in the US.

 

[WheelsRCool]

Yet again, you failed to name any "similarities" between Mussolini and Liberal democrats.

I named multiple similarities; I'll re-state them here: The Nazis, for example, believed in free healthcare, guaranteed jobs, wealth confiscation, spending large sums on public education, removal of the church from public policy, love of the environment, declared war on smoking, supported abortion, enacted gun control, euthanasia, pensions for the elderly, and had strict racial quota systems at their universities. They hated the free-market and promised to dispense with the "Wal-Marts" of their day. Read the platform of the German National Socialist Party. They were world leaders in organic farming, Hitler being a vegetarian and Heinrich Himmler an animal rights activist.

They loved the environment and HATED industry and capitalism, because they saw this as destroying the Earth. They romantized the ideology of the country life, the German "Volk" or people (the car company Volkswagon get's it name from this; it means "The People's Car," and was ordered by Hitler to create an affordable car for the people").

Does any of that sound like the oil-drilling, cattle-ranching, lumber-cutting, anti-abortion, gun rights, anti-Social Security, etc...conservative Republicans?

The Catholic Church was one of the only conservative organizations that stood as a partial check on the power of the fascists in Italy.

Technically, the most hardcore, hardline, evagelical Christian conservative Republican (of which I am not by the way) is virtually the exact opposite of a fascist.

The Nazis also supported eugenics however, which is how to breed humans to be ideal; dogs are the greatest eugenics experiment ever conducted. Eugenics research with humans evolved to claiming that if the "weak" portion of the gene pool was not eliminated, then the human race would die off. America and the Nazis led the world in this research (you can see where this leads). The Jews were, in particular, proclaimed as a feeble-minded race of people, to be eliminated.

So were homosexuals. The Nazis wanted to (in their view) purify humanity and create a society of pure white, blonde, Aryans, with free healthcare, regulation of Big Business, and all that, and Hitler was their great leader, in the view of the German people.

If you go down the line on what fascism supports: protection of the major, dominant economic institutions in a country (i.e. corporations), private property rights, blatant militarism, anti-union and so on, this is far closer to conservatives and Libertarians than it is to liberal democrats.

Fascism does not actively seek to protect corporations. It seeks to regulate and control them in a way that will protect the consumers and workers. That is what makes it so appealing to the masses. Unfortunately, the adverse effect of this is to protect the corporations, due to the nature of government agencies.

Mussolini came to power after he watched the conflict between business and the laboring classes. He stood idly by until it was clear the conservative factions we're going to win. When it was clear businesses were going to win, he organized the government to protect big corporations -- that's conservatism.

Mussolini was a socialist, of the Marxist kind, but he decided to modify socialism into a new form that was more fit for the modern era, in his view. And no, that is not "conservativism." Conservatism is about as anti-Big Business as you can get. When Lyndon Johnson was running for President against the pro-free enterprise Barry Goldwater, Big Business rallied behiind Johnson. Big Business hates free-enterprise.

The same thing is true in Nazi Germany. His enemies were the political left, and political scientists place Fascism on the far-right. Fascism is basically indistinguishable from conservatism at that level.

Fascism is nothing of the sort. It is another variant of the Left and about as far from the Right as one can possibly go. There is nothing "conservative" about it.

Again, this is in contrast to Wilson, who did nothing like this. He did not come to power in a coup backed by expatriates and rich property owners. So what are you talking about.

The only precurssor to Fascism is capitalism, with its emphasis on protecting the elite members of society, which is a right-wing ideology. Fascism wouldn't exist without an economic basis, and the economic basis is that of capitalism (not of socialism, which means worker controlled factories, which were outlawed in both Nazi Germany and in Fascist Italy).

You have no understanding of capitalism or knowledge of the history of fascism. Capitalism does the furthest thing from protecting any priviledged elite. That is what socialism does. No dictator ever ruled by having a capitalist society. Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Mihn, Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-Il, and now Hugo Chavez, all have socialist/fascist economies. Capitalist societies, such as South Korea, Japan, the United States, Canada, etc...do not have a priviledged elite. CNBC even just did a special called "The Rise of the Super Rich" because the number of billionaires and mega-multimillionaires has ballooned. Fascism was about as anti-capitalist as you can get. It abhored capitalism and sought to destroy it:

"I am a Socialist, and a very different kind of socialist from your rich friend, Count Reventlow...What you understand by Socialism is nothing more than Marxism." - Adolf Hitler, to Otto Strasser, Berlin, May 21, 1930 (see Paul M. Hayes, "Fascism," The Free Press, 1973).

"[In Mussolini] Socialists should be delighted to find at last a socialist who speaks and thinks as responsible rulers do." - George Bernard Shaw, 1927 (see Alastair Hamilton, "The Appeal of Fascism: A Study of Intellectuals and Fascism, 1919 - 1945, Macmillan 1971).

"We National Socialists are enemies, deadly enemies, of the present capitalist system with its exploitation of the economically weak...and we are resolved under all circumstances to destroy this system." - Gregor Strasser, National Socialist theologian (from Strasser's "Thoughts on the Tasks of the Future," 1933).

Also, some of the most important fathers of National Socialism, such as Fichte, Rodbertus, and Lassalle, are also acknowledged as fathers of socialism.

National Socialists stated that Hitler had created "the most modern socialist state in the world," - Stanley G. Payne, "A History of Fascism, 1914 - 1945, The University of Wisconsin Press, 1995.

In Mussolini's early days, many of his Marxist critics called his fascism, "more of a heresy from, than a mortal challenge to revolutionary Marxism," - Agursky's "The Third Rome," 1963.

Ernst Roehm, a dedicated socialist, leader of the SA, second only to Hitler in power in the National Socialist Party, in a letter to a friend, observed how often his street gangs swtiched back and forth between his National Socialist gangs and Communist gangs, uncertain of which they really belonged.

In his "Road to Serfdom," Hayek remarks how during the early 1930s, the propagandists of both socialism and fascism recognized the "relative ease with which a young communist could be converted into a Nazi or vice-versa," and how university professors in the U.S. and Britain noticed that students returning from study in Germany could not decide if they were Marxist-socialists or fascist, but only that they hated "Western Civilization."

Trust me, fascism was no lover of capitalism and wanted no association with it. Capitalism was a symbol of Western Civilization, such as individualism, material prosperity, etc...all abhored by the fascists.

Another clue: Jews were legendary capitalists, and still are. Hitler hated Jews. What do you think is one reason why? Because according to him, Jews were everything despised by Germany: capitalist, Western Civilization, etc...

Which "progressives" are you talking about? The ones that split from the Republicans? I just told you that the socialist and the left, and the other real progressives, were opposed to the war. And they were.

You know, if you read Jonah Goldberg's book, he actually goes into much detail about this. Yes, there were a great many socialists who opposed the war. It is details such as this that make fascism so hard to define exactly. For example, Marxist socialism and Nazi fascism both result in the same type of society, ultimately, YET, they both abhored each other and hated each other with a passion.

No one knows what you mean when you talk about "true conservatives" or "true libertarians" or what have you; conservatives have also supported big government since their ideology was founded, politically, and philosophically.

Certain conservatives have, and these conservatives do not adhere to the free-enterprise, free-market, low taxation, limited government model. They are the elitist big government conservatives.

When I say a "true conservative," I mean the Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley, kind.

Libertarians are identical to the conservatives in their economics beliefs, but can differ in terms of foreign policy and social policy (for example, a Libertarian will not mind homosexuals or abortion, whereas conservatives usually staunchly disagree with these; Libertarians usually are not religious like the conservatives).

Milton Friedman was a Libertarian, but his economics were adopted by Ronald Reagan.

And no one put you in charge of what a "true conservative" or a "true libertarian" is in the first place; plus, your characteristics aren't even in line with modern scholarship. You give no citations for any of your beliefs other than books written by journalists and commentators like Goldberg that is well outside of historical scholarship.

My views are well-within historical scholarship; read the following:

The Road to Serfdom by Fredrich Hayek
Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman
Free to Choose by Milton Friedman
A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
A History of Fascism - 1914-1945
Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg (he isn't just engaging in partisan hyperbole here, and what he says is stated in many other, lesser-known books, such as The Road to Serfdom
The Underground History of American Education: An Intimate Investigation Into the Prison of Modern Schooling
The Return of Sacred Architecture
In the Name of Eugenics by Daniel Kevles
Capitalism, Socialism, and DemocracyJoseph Schumpeter
Mein Kempf by Adolf Hitler

Find the works by Mussolini himself and read them. He was no lover of capitalism.

Fascists, on the other hand, loved war, and they glorified war. The glorification of war is the typical characteristic of fascism.

So again, we see yet another fundamental difference between liberalism and socialism, fascism and conservatism.

Fascists love the equivalent of war. War makes us all come together, hold hands, work together, etc...but fascists don't necessarily like the disastrous effects of war. So they seek to find the moral equivalent. Look to Al Gore and the push for us to tackle global warming as if it was worse than World War II, for example. The history of environmentalism and fascism go together like peas and carrots.

The Progressives were pro-war because they saw it as a way to start re-engineering America. You can't get people to give up certain freedoms that they normally take for granted unless you have a world war, or the equivalent.

 

[WheelsRCool]

Scholars have said no such thing. Fascism is the opposite of socialism, closer to capitalism and conservatism. Hitler and Mussolini despised Marxist doctrine, and anybody advocating Marxism in their society was murdered (whereas the capitalism were from to run wild in Nazi Germany, and Fascist Italy).

Yes, they did despise Marxism. they also despised capitalism. Fascism was to be the balanced in-between version. Fascism cannot be capitalist. Capitalism requires on natural fluctuations in the price system. Fascism allows for no such thing. Fascism controls prices, wages, quotas, etc...

Furthermore, Fascism generally protects the very institutions Libertarians and conservatives favor, such as corporations and so on, while de-emphasizing things liberals believe strongly in, such as Civil Rights and Liberties, free-speech and so on.

Libertarians and conservatives very much believe in freedoms and free-speech. And Libertarians and conservatives do not favor corporations, as I have explained.

Fascism is often said to be an "extension of capitalism" (economics for everybody) and the Online Dictionary of the Social Sciences defines fascism as follows:

"A political doctrine opposed to democracy and demanding submission to political leadership and authority. A key principle of fascism is the belief that the whole society has a shared destiny and purpose which can only be achieved by iron discipline, obedience to leadership and an all-powerful state. Fascism first developed in Italy, under the leadership of Benito Mussolini (dictator of Italy from 1922 to 1943) and later influenced the development of German fascism in the Nazi movement led by Adolf Hitler (dictator of Germany from 1933-1945) . While fascism increases the power and role of the state in society and suppresses free trade unions and political opposition, it preserves private ownership and private property. "

Hmm...sounds, pretty anti-capitalistic to me, since capitalism abhors the power of the state and believes in the rights of the individual, not that the individual is best expressed through the state.

The military, for example, is very much anti-individualist. And any soldier will tell you that "Defending democracy requires un-democratic means." Certain forms of fascism, as stated above, attempt to turn the entire nation into a military state.

Fascism does preserve private property ownership, on paper. That was part of its appeal. No matter how appealing socialism can sound, the one thing people still don't like about it, is that it takes away private property. People want all the free stuff socialism promises. But they want to keep their own property. Fascism promised both.

It was this core difference in beliefs regarding property that made the Marxists hate the fascists. To a Marxist, if you believe in private property, you are an enemy. No matter how similar your other beliefs may be, you are an enemy. Private property is the main core belief for them.

Two things we learn from this definition:

#1. We learn that fascism is a belief that a society has a shared destiny and purpose, and we know that conservatives often dictate such a thing when they talk about America being a "Christian" nation and so on. Fascism wasn't so much of a change in structure as it was a change in how to protect a hierarchical society. A constructivist would point that out.

America is a Christian nation so far as that is was founded based on Christian values. Even secular and atheist Americans, still have many of the Christian values ingrained in them, even if they do not believe in the religion.

But, America has freedome of religion. Those Christian conservatives who want to shove religion down everyone's throat are hypocrites.

Conservatives believe in protecting the social order, by any means necessary (definition of conservative), liberals believe in advancing society, so that is a fundamental difference.

Conservatives believe in protecting the classical values of private property rights, limited government, free-markets, capitalism, free-trade, and so forth. Liberals believe in advancing society socially in certain ways, but economically, they are actually very conservative. Their so-called "Modern," "Progressive" views are really the same old re-hashed ideologies of the Nazis and Italian fascists.

#2. Fascists believe in preserving the private ownership of property. There is nothing socialist or liberal about this concept. Liberals favor private property, only because they deem it a better form of living, but it should still be regulated (like what Thomas Jefferson advocated).

It is not an "absolute right" like it is to many capitalist economists and fascist dictators.

Fascist dictators do not consider it an absolute right; they threatened certain businesses with outright nationalization if they wouldn't go along with them.

And yes, private property is a right. It is one of the most fundamental rights of a free society.

If I have to explain to you again why Wilson wasn't a fascist we're going to go round-and-round in circles here.

You give no quotes, historical evidence, or anything else that confirms Wilson was a fascist, or that he supported some abject tyranny of the state. You do not explain rationally how the "American left" has generally favored war when every historian knows that Socialists and so on were opposed war.

I explained this already. If you want to see that Wilson was a fascist, who abhored the Constitution, read his own works.

Who do you think was challenging even the idea of World War I AND World War II, but socialists (the American far left, hundreds of socialists were even in various low-level positions in government at the time)?

Goldberg explains this in detail in his book, far better than I can here. Like I said, socialists and fascists tend to dislike each other - A LOT.

Why didn't America become fascist if Woodrow Wilson was a fascist? Who reversed it?

Because America was a country founded by an individualistic, Christian-based people, and although it is willing to become semi-fascist in times of war temporarily, afterwards, the culture always reverts back to the capitalist, individualism society.

I'd say Coolidge was closer to fascism, who widened the gap between the rich and the poor and who's policies contributed to the great depression. Not to mention he attacked third world nations like Nicaragua under the rubric of national security, the same type of nonsense that fascists pull.

FDR's policies and the Federal Reserve are what mostly contributed to the Great Depression.

 

[WheelsRCool]

Fascism is indeed militaristic. The Fascists in Italy glorified War. Mussolini's son-in-law Count Ciano described the explosions of war as an aesthetic thrill, as having the beauty of a flower unfolding. So a glorification of war was apparent, and, as the definitions show, fascism was militaristic.

The fascists of Italy and Nazi Germany, were very much militaristic. But there are many other variants of fascism. Modern Leftwing Liberalism is one form, for example, and is not at all militaristic. It does seek the moral equivalent of war through things like environmentalism and global warming, though.

Modern Europe, in particular France, is neo-fascistic as well, but again, very non-militaristic. But the State ihas a great deal of power in French society.

Political Scientists have studied numerous fascist societies, such as Italy, and other ones that have a connection to fascist governance (Pinochet's Chile, Suharto's Indonesia, and other US backed dictatorships), and a common theme is militarism.

Agreed; militarism is common in various forms of fascism. But it is not what makes a society fascist.

"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it." --George Bernard Shaw.

Shaw was an avid admirer of the Nazi party. And he is wrong. Patriotism is a deep love of one's country, and a steady devotion to it. This is different then believing that your own nation is superior to another, and wanting to conquer the other nation (which is nationalistic).

Think of racial pride. Does being proud of being white mean you want to go murder everyone who is not white? Does being proud to be black mean you want to go murder everyone who is not black? Of course not.

But there are certain proud whites and proud blacks who are extremists who would want to do this.

Patriotism and nationalism are relatively close, and it's Republicans who spend hours trying to define what is and what isn't patriotic, to the point of it being basically nationalistic.

There are certain "Republicans" who can go overboard and be borderline nationalistic, I agree. But nationalism and patriotism are not the same.

Again, ludicrous. The Nazis actually opened up trade to a greater degree than the Weimar Republican, and dealt directly with foreign corporations such as IBM.

The rest of your post is a bunch of Ron Paul like nonsense and conspiracy theories, without any scholarly reference appearing in there.

Read the books I have stated above. And there is nothing "ludicrous" or "nonsense" or "conspiracy theory" about it. It is fact. You show mean any highly-regulated industry that has a tremendous degree of competitiveness. There aren't any. When the railroads were heavily regulated, they gained an illegal cartel. When the oil industry was heavily regulated, they gained an illegal cartel. When the banking industry was highly regulated, it gained an oligopoly. The drug industry as well. When the meat industry came under heavy regulation after Upton Sinclair's The Jungle was released, it gained an illegal cartel.

This is why I am concerned about some of the reasons for owning guns, because gun owners apparently think the fact that we have a central bank is reason enough to engage in an armed rebelling.

The central bank is needed and those who disagree with it's existence (the Ron Paul types) I agree, are living in a fantasy-land.

And as for yoru nonsense about the left supporting big business, it's insanity. FDR actually had to quell a fascist/capitalist takeover in the US (see the business plot to overthrow FDR, which was exposed by the great Smedley Butler, who also wrote War is a Racket).

The Left inadverdently supports Big Business. The people who create big government regulatory agencies are not the people who run said agencies. Do you think the Department of Energy actually DOES anything? It is a shill for favors to big energy companies.

When you create a big governent agency, Big Business lobby the regulators of said agency to create regulations to cut out small competitors, so they can dominate the industry. The very fact that de-regulation brings in so much more competition shows this. And thus Big Business and the government agency essentially get into bed with one another and take care of each other.

A lot of his programs, like rural electrification and so on were for the benefit of the poor, and not for the benefit of the big corporations.

Yes, and under his NRA (National Recovery Administration), millions of blacks were thrown off their lands and onto the streets, so much so that it was nicknamed the "Negro RunAround" at the time.

Ronald Reagan, on the other hand, is the biggest corporate-welfare proponent of all time, a complete protectionist, who was involved in numerous scandals like the S&L scandal and Iran contra. His wars against the third world mimic the Nazi attack on Poland or the Fascist attack on Ethopia, that these small countries like El Salvador and Nicaragua posed a threat to the US.

Ronald Reagan was far from being any protectionist. Unions did not exactly like him. He opened America up to free-trade. When old-line Wall Street was being overthrown by Michael Milken the junk bond king and corporate restructings (which went a long way in making businesses much more efficient and corporate governance much more accountable), Wall Street wanted him to outlaw such practices. But Reagan was committed to keeping government as much out of the economy as possible.

Economists at the time thought him a buffoon.

His disastrous "Third World Wars" costs the lives of tens-of-thousands, far greater terrorist atrocities than September 11th, through the backing of Rios Mott and so on, and millions of people indirectly, who starved because of the disastrous policies of the fascist capitalist dictatorship.

Reagan had his victories and his mistakes. Much of this was because of fighting Communism in Central America.

You claim the computer industry is not monopolistic. The computer industry is indeed monopolistic, has received billions in corporate welfare, and so on. Patents for example are very monopolistic, and they actually hurt the little guy. What patents do is allow a monopoly for a certain technique or a design, and if you have anything in a program that resembles it, you can be sued -- even though programming is more like mathematics and there is a lot of ways to approach something, for example, you could look at something and see it as a square, but you could also see it as a diamond, without any understand of the other person's design interpretation. So it's actually quite possible that you could code or design something and see it as a diamond, but be sued because it could also resemble a square.

The computer industry is no such thing, or it wouldn't see the constant creation of new companies in it and the constant challenging of established large companies. As for patents, they protect intellectual property. A capitalist society requries protection of intellectual property to function. This is one problem in China right now.

Big corporations, who hold hundreds of Patents, and for companies like IBM it's in the thousands, can easily claim a certain part of your program violates this or that patents, forcing you to pay a royalty fee and forcing you out of business.

Very rarely does this ever happen as software companies and technology companies are constantly started.

Microsoft and the way it handles its APIs is also monopolistic.

Microsoft is most definitely monopolistic, I agree.

It isn't based on the concept of classical-liberalism. It's based on a distortion of their works, combined with Ayn Rand like lunacy and cultishness.

Wrong.

The classical-liberals were people like Adam Smith. No where did Smith advocate capitalism.

He only wrote the most celebrated defense of free-market capitalism in history, The Wealth of Nations, a book that was heavily criticized by Karl Marx.

In fact, the classical-liberals actually opposed the early precursors of fascism, such as "incorporations." (See the article "Why Libertarianism is Not Classical-Liberalism," available on JSTOR).

Corporations were no precursor to fascism. The precursors to fascism were those "philosophers" like Kant, Hegel, Neistche, and so forth (the Nazi party got a lot of their ideology from these guys).

As Gavin Kennedy notes, author of Adam Smith's Lost Legacy, Smith was very sympathetic to the plight of the workers and laborers, and condemned the state protection of monopolies.

The state protection of monopolies is fascist, and not at all capitalist. There is nothing "free-market" when the state protects it. Historically, the Democratic party has been the party of protectionism, unions, and so forth, which kill free-enterprise and free-trade.

And yes, Adam Smith cared very much for workers. Capitalism is not supposed to be a system where everyone tries to screw over their fellow man. There are supposed to be morals involved.

The Wealth of Nations can really be seen as an attack on the proprietors at the time. It was not a pro-capitalist document in any way.

Yes it was. You have a warped view of capitalism.

The other classical-liberals were people like Rousseau, and other enlightenment figures, who also not only opposed capitalism, but private property as well.

They were not classical liberals.

The classical liberals TH Green and JS Mill, were liberals and Mill even became a Socialist.

However, there is no classical-liberal who ever made the transition to the conservative tyranny the Libertarian Party supports, what is really a capitalist dictatorship and has already been tried in America, and was a disaster.

Libertarians are about as anti-government as you can get, and the term "capitalist dictatorship" is an oxymoron. Economic freedom is a primary component for political freedom. You cannot take away political freedom without removing economic freedom, which is what fascists and socialists do. Capitalism does no such thing.

The government of the United States, in comparison to most other countries, for example, plays a very small role in the U.S. economy. The Swiss government plays a very small role in their own economy, as well.

 

[WheelsRCool]

There is indeed a libertarian-socialism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian-socialism

It's been around a lot longer than the American distorted Ayn Rand type of ultra-conservatism, which is against what the original libertarians stood for.

Plus, modern libertarian-socialists like Chomsky and Zinn are generally more well known around the world, and their work is more important than the few libertarian-economists scattered about in the US.

"The means of production gained by the working class" boy has that been tried to miserable failure a number of times! That is identical to fascism, socialism, whatever. I don't see any difference between this and socialism. They're all the same thing: hatred of property rights, individualism, capitalism, business, etc...and claim that somehow the "working class" could somehow gain control of the industry, when this has never, ever happened, except in capitalism, and can't, simply by the nature of such exercises. Like I said, read the books above.

And Noam Chomsky is a radical who has been disproven numerous times regarding many silly predictions he has made. There is a list of them on the Internet somewhere.

 

[OrbitalPower]

I named multiple similarities; I'll re-state them here: The Nazis, for example, believed in free healthcare, guaranteed jobs, wealth confiscation...

The Nazis did not have massive "wealth confiscation" and in their economic policy; they actually had less social spending than the United States. Furthermore, studies of Nazi Germany's economic policies show that the Nazis privatized most of their industries, that is, they handed them off to private corporations. In The roots of Nazi Privatization, the author notes:

"It is a fact that the government of the Nazi Party sold off public ownership in several Stateowned firms in the mid-1930s. These firms belonged to a wide range of sectors: steel, mining, banking, local public utilities, shipyards, ship-lines, railways, etc. In addition, the delivery of some public services that were produced by government prior to the 1930s, especially social and labor-related services, was transferred to the private sector, mainly to organizations within the party. In the 1930s and 1940s, many academic analyses of Nazi economic policy discussed privatization in Germany (e.g. Poole, 1939; Guillebaud, 1939; Stolper, 1940; Sweezy, 1941; Merlin, 1943; Neumann, 1942, 1944; Nathan, 1944a; Schweitzer, 1946; Lurie,1947).1"

Furthermore, the Nazis did not interfere with the profits of large corporations like IG Farben, Krupp, Simeons AG, and so on.

They were die-hard economic capitalists, as confirmed by the study.

spending large sums on public education...

And in their "public education" they advocated nationalism, not what liberals believe.

removal of the church from public policy,

Could have fooled me:

Hitler loved going to church.

And he loved praying to God.

Church and state.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/images/hitler&bishop.gif

Hitler was a catholic

http://www.nobeliefs.com/images/Hitler-with-Muller.jpg

More photos at: http://www.nobeliefs.com/images/Hitler&Church.jpg

love of the environment...

Hitler banned environmental organizations in Nazi Germany. And if he was such an environmentalists, why did he favor war so much?

declared war on smoking..

Yes, because people think cigarette laws when they think of Nazi Germany.

supported abortion...

Hitler did not support abortion. In Mein Kampf he writes:

"I'll put an end to the idea that a women's body belongs to her . . . Nazi ideals demand that the practice of abortion shall be exterminated with a strong hand."

Hitler's ultimate goal was death for women who engage in more than two abortions.

enacted gun control...

The Nazis actually weakened gun control laws in Nazi Germany.

euthanasia...

Hitler was for forced euthanasia.

pensions for the elderly,

Such as?

and had strict racial quota systems at their universities.

Yes, that PREVENTED minorities from entering into them, not encouraged them.

They hated the free-market and promised to dispense with the "Wal-Marts" of their day. Read the platform of the German National Socialist Party. They were world leaders in organic farming, Hitler being a vegetarian and Heinrich Himmler an animal rights activist.

They loved the environment and HATED industry and capitalism, because they saw this as destroying the Earth. They romantized the ideology of the country life, the German "Volk" or people (the car company Volkswagon get's it name from this; it means "The People's Car," and was ordered by Hitler to create an affordable car for the people").

More baseless junk.

Hitler was never a vegetarian first of all; his own chef noted that he enjoyed stuffed pigeon. He may have dabbled with it, but only for health reasons. However, it's debatable if he ever truly went vegetarian or not.

Second of all, there was no curbing of Nazi profits or attack on industry. Industry loved Nazi Germany.

The Catholic Church was one of the only conservative organizations that stood as a partial check on the power of the fascists in Italy.

The Catholic Church openly supported Hitler's policies and even photographed themselves with Hitler, as shown.

Technically, the most hardcore, hardline, evagelical Christian conservative Republican (of which I am not by the way) is virtually the exact opposite of a fascist.

I disagree. Their war on science is typical of what the Nazis liked to do.

The Nazis also supported eugenics however, which is how to breed humans to be ideal; dogs are the greatest eugenics experiment ever conducted. Eugenics research with humans evolved to claiming that if the "weak" portion of the gene pool was not eliminated, then the human race would die off. America and the Nazis led the world in this research (you can see where this leads). The Jews were, in particular, proclaimed as a feeble-minded race of people, to be eliminated.

This is meaningless. We practice eugenics when we try and determine whether a baby will be healthy or not, for instance. Eugenics, like many things in science, can be used or misued.

Fascism does not actively seek to protect corporations.

Fascism is a corporatist movement. As Giovanni Gentile said: "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." Some claim it was Mussolini himself who said this.

It seeks to regulate and control them in a way that will protect the consumers and workers. That is what makes it so appealing to the masses. Unfortunately, the adverse effect of this is to protect the corporations, due to the nature of government agencies.

All capitalism controls corporations because there are always laws, such as property rights and patent law.

Mussolini was a socialist, of the Marxist kind, but he decided to modify socialism into a new form that was more fit for the modern era, in his view. And no, that is not "conservativism." Conservatism is about as anti-Big Business as you can get. When Lyndon Johnson was running for President against the pro-free enterprise Barry Goldwater, Big Business rallied behiind Johnson. Big Business hates free-enterprise.

Then why have conservatives generally favored big business and big corporatism, and corporate mergers under Ronald Reagan, like the kind that took place under Nazi Germany.

Fascism is nothing of the sort. It is another variant of the Left and about as far from the Right as one can possibly go. There is nothing "conservative" about it.

As shown from the definitions, fascism is a far right movement.

You have no understanding of capitalism or knowledge of the history of fascism.

I've read a lot about both fascism and capitalism, like the Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton, near the end of the book, he notes that some elements of modern capitalism society have a corroboration with fascist society's.

Capitalism does the furthest thing from protecting any priviledged elite. That is what socialism does. No dictator ever ruled by having a capitalist society. Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Mihn, Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-Il, and now Hugo Chavez, all have socialist/fascist economies. Capitalist societies, such as South Korea, Japan, the United States, Canada, etc...do not have a priviledged elite. CNBC even just did a special called "The Rise of the Super Rich" because the number of billionaires and mega-multimillionaires has ballooned. Fascism was about as anti-capitalist as you can get. It abhored capitalism and sought to destroy it:

Then why did business flourish in these countries?

"I am a Socialist, and a very different kind of socialist from your rich friend, Count Reventlow...What you understand by Socialism is nothing more than Marxism." - Adolf Hitler, to Otto Strasser, Berlin, May 21, 1930 (see Paul M. Hayes, "Fascism," The Free Press, 1973).

This is another quote I am unable to track down. The only thing I was able to find is you peddling this same BS on other forums:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread307047/pg2

And Hitler also said that:

"Marxism is anti-property; true Socialism is not."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi#cite_note-60

"I absolutely insist on protecting private property... we must encourage private initiative" –Hitler secret conversations, (published in the book, Hitler's Table Talk).

"According to the laws of nature, the soil belongs to him who conquers it." --Hitler (he was a big fan of Libertarian "individualism" and Natural rights, even spoke highly of both.)

"We stand for the maintenance of private property... We shall protect free enterprise as the most expedient, or rather the sole possible economic order."
- Adolf Hitler

"Capitalists have worked their way to the top through their capacity, and on the basis of this selection they have the right to lead."

Anybody can quote mine, and by your standards this "proves" he was a capitalist. Hitler may (or may not) have made some socialist remarks, but this was only because in Europe socialism had an association with it that it was beneficial to the working class, in much the same way we speak of "Democracy" in the US.

In reality, Hitler opposed socialism and even notified his corporate backers that he was going to implement NONE of the socialist politions, and he did not.

 

[OrbitalPower]

Ernst Roehm, a dedicated socialist, leader of the SA, second only to Hitler in power in the National Socialist Party, in a letter to a friend, observed how often his street gangs swtiched back and forth between his National Socialist gangs and Communist gangs, uncertain of which they really belonged.

This is more of your junk scholarship. The original National Socialists attempted to merge some of the economic ideals of socialism with that of Nationalism (real socialism advocates internationalism).

When Hitler joined the party the people who advocated socialist ideas were already a minority to those who advocated nationalism under all circumstances. Historians usually call this the "night of the long knives," i.e., the final extermination of the Socialist wing from the National Socialists, and Ernst Röhm was one of those who was purged from the party.

So for you to insinuate that Röhm (not “Roehm”) had any kind of role in the outcome of Nazi Germany or policy is ridiculous.

In his "Road to Serfdom," Hayek remarks how during the early 1930s, the propagandists of both socialism and fascism recognized the "relative ease with which a young communist could be converted into a Nazi or vice-versa," and how university professors in the U.S. and Britain noticed that students returning from study in Germany could not decide if they were Marxist-socialists or fascist, but only that they hated "Western Civilization."

Hayek is an idiot with no relevance at all to modern scholarship or views. Most historians and political scientists reject his viewpoints, and he has basically zero influence in either field.

Trust me, fascism was no lover of capitalism and wanted no association with it. Capitalism was a symbol of Western Civilization, such as individualism, material prosperity, etc...all abhored by the fascists.

I don’t trust your blatant distortions. Not at all.

Another clue: Jews were legendary capitalists, and still are. Hitler hated Jews. What do you think is one reason why? Because according to him, Jews were everything despised by Germany: capitalist, Western Civilization, etc...

Jews, like any people, have been on all sides of the political fence. Marx was Jewish, as is Chomsky. And many communists were of course Jewish.

You know, if you read Jonah Goldberg's book, he actually goes into much detail about this. Yes, there were a great many socialists who opposed the war. It is details such as this that make fascism so hard to define exactly. For example, Marxist socialism and Nazi fascism both result in the same type of society, ultimately, YET, they both abhored each other and hated each other with a passion.

Judging by the crackpot theories you’re promoting here I can see it is poor scholarship.

My views are well-within historical scholarship; read the following:

The Road to Serfdom by Fredrich Hayek
Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman
Free to Choose by Milton Friedman
A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
A History of Fascism - 1914-1945
Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg (he isn't just engaging in partisan hyperbole here, and what he says is stated in many other, lesser-known books, such as The Road to Serfdom
The Underground History of American Education: An Intimate Investigation Into the Prison of Modern Schooling
The Return of Sacred Architecture
In the Name of Eugenics by Daniel Kevles
Capitalism, Socialism, and DemocracyJoseph Schumpeter
Mein Kempf by Adolf Hitler

I.e., stuff that is well outside of both political science and history. A bunch of crackpot sources, in other words.

I like my history and polisci like I like my science: peer-reviewed. And maybe you should actually read Mein Kampf instead of peddling nonsense:

"The suspicion was whispered in German Nationalist circles that we also were merely another variety of Marxism, perhaps even Marxists suitably disguised, or better still, Socialists… We used to roar with laughter at these silly faint-hearted bourgeoisie and their efforts to puzzle out our origin, our intentions and our aims." -- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

The Progressives were pro-war because they saw it as a way to start re-engineering America. You can't get people to give up certain freedoms that they normally take for granted unless you have a world war, or the equivalent.

CITE SOME REAL, HISTORICAL SOURCES FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. And examples of what you’re talking about.

Explain it from a historical, and International Relations standpoint. Explain how there were all these progressives who were completely pro-war.

 

[OrbitalPower]

Yes, they did despise Marxism. they also despised capitalism.

There is a lot of evidence that they despised Marxism and democracy.

I'm tired of your quote-mining tricks, half of which aren't even accurate, so I'll leave the sources already posted (by me) to speak for themselves.

But there is no evidence that they openly condemned economic capitalism, and as shown, Hitler actually favored it.

According to the Jewish Virtual Library's entry on Nazism, Hitler wrote "The Road to Resurgence" which ensured the capitalists that his anti-business rhetoric was just that, rhetoric.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/nsdap.html

Libertarians and conservatives very much believe in freedoms and free-speech. And Libertarians and conservatives do not favor corporations, as I have explained.

You haven't explained anything.

You've advocated all kinds of laws, like patents and so on, that protect the corporations over the people, as I've explained.

America is a Christian nation so far as that is was founded based on Christian values.

Blah blah blah.

Conservatives believe in protecting the classical values of private property rights, limited government, free-markets, capitalism, free-trade, and so forth. Liberals believe in advancing society socially in certain ways, but economically, they are actually very conservative. Their so-called "Modern," "Progressive" views are really the same old re-hashed ideologies of the Nazis and Italian fascists.

You're just repeating yourself, after having cited nothing but junk scholarship.

Congratulations for being allowed to continually violate forum rules.

FDR's policies and the Federal Reserve are what mostly contributed to the Great Depression.

FDRs policies reversed the Great Depression every year they were implemented excpet the recession of '37, which was because of his attempts to balance the budget.

Other than that, the growth rate during FDR (before the war) was even greater than what Reagan saw in the 1980s, and his policies also led to a recession.

Shaw was an avid admirer of the Nazi party.

I'm guess this is more of your distortions. I have no idea whether this is true or not.

Read the books I have stated above. And there is nothing "ludicrous" or "nonsense" or "conspiracy theory" about it. It is fact.

No thanks. In fact, the facts are the opposite of what those guys wrote.

The central bank is needed and those who disagree with it's existence (the Ron Paul types) I agree, are living in a fantasy-land.

Wow. I'm actually quite amazed we were able to agree on something. Quite amazing.

The rest of your posts, unfortunately, are poorly researched distortions citing only books that aren't peer-reviewed and are generally considered junk in the fields of polisci and history, if they're even ever cited at all.

Not to mention a nice mix of prejudiced comments thrown in there, like that "Jews are capitalists" which is very prejudiced and not even true (some are, some aren't) and totally irrelevant because Hitler viewed "Marxism" as the "jewish conspiracy," not capitalism.

 

[cristo]

What has Nazi Germany got to do with the OP? This thread seems to have escalated way too far off topic. I'm closing it now pending moderation.

Oh, and o'' is equivalent to oe in German.